Half naked girls…on YouTube? Where? Ahhh, yeah, I think YOUTUBE could pull this off. There is so much “Politica” out there already; with some new formats, organization, openness, accuracy and usefulness of content could certainly help. Dittos to Technobabbler’s comments. But, people get “Turned Off” & frustrated easily with the inner (or is outer, like in WAAaaayyy out – of – their minds?) workings of government because they feel powerless to do anything about it and government waste is mind numbingly grotesque. And, how often can you watch these politcal human nut jobs orate smellily telling “their side of the story”, or watch peepils (ßpending) jump in front of a train or off a bridge…gets boring after a while. So, YOUTUBE, whether the “videoized” (too much caffeine 2day, and I’m freaking out my Word spellchecker ha ha ha) stench of government  broadcast online is convoluted, stealthy, stinky-farty-smelly, or just a Big Congre$$ional Power+Money+Corruption+Orgy $hell game, the rules of “You Can’t Win”, (YOU being the taxpayer) certainly do apply most times, and may steer peeps away.  I wish them luck trying to drive the “Take back our country from the politicians” message into the brains of the sheepish electorate (Baaaaahhh).

RE: Transparency in Washington? Here’s one for YOUTUBE to chew on: Earmarks. If this doesn’t make your blood boil, check your pulse.  As the young guy from the Taxpayers for Common Sense says in the above video at the end, a lot of  Kill kill kill until it’s dead dead dead is required to bring about REAL change in government. More here.

Information and sharing information is great, there is a ton of information out on the web, in our own computers, and in our heads.

The biggest problem that we have is the organization of this information. It's great to have everything we have but if we have no standardized and systematic method of keeping it all organized, what do we end up with? A whole lot of useless and ineffective information.

If YouTube is going to go and get a socially responsible initiative like this up and running, they need to make sure that it is usable and searchable for what people want to see.

YouTube is notorious for being really free form in how it can relate completely unrelated videos in it's  "Related Videos" section.

I think if they really wanted to make this a truly useful tool to see what our government is up to, then they need a better way for videos to be organized and searched, along with making sure the users of the service are "properly" using their service in the first place.

YouTube, Flickr, and other such sites have their "organization tools" perverted by users just so they can get as many views as possible, while that would/does bother me about the potential for the political side, the complete opposite bothers me as well. What if the politico or their staff person is just too lazy to properly tag or organize their videos?

Well, it's either that or my innermost OCD tendancies want to try to pawn themselves off on other people...

 Did i really hear you say : " this proves the desire of our elected officials "to make things in Washington a little more transparent"

It's a pity how people fall so easily to these political makeovers and marketing gimmicks!! I really don't understand how you inject tranparency into this initiative and to saywe should not be concern about the number of views on these youtube channels is simply weird. What does it tell you if  after a year none of these channels can rack up a thousand views? The strategy here is simply a marketing ploy by Youtube but it's certainly a misguided one. What comes to a typical internet mind when you talk about Youtube is simply as you rightly stated " Clips of precocious kids, stupid pets or faux superheroes" and until Youtube has an image makeover, this will certainly be an exercise in futility.

The effort is well-recognized, but I think, as you and Paul touch upon in your posts, that it's a futile Web 2.0 exercise, like so many others, if the tool doesn't meet its fullest potential. Fullest potential would mean that lawmakers are not only uploading videos of themselves for campaigning/promotional purposes, but also responding to constituents, on the YouTube message boards (albeit a lame way to conduct a conversation). Some lawmakers, like John Culberson, are actively using Web 2.0 for communicating, much to the chagrin of others who would prefer to keep things under wraps, but I sense that these YouTube channels will largely be used for one-way communications.

Re: "I'll pass until I hear of a great congressional blooper caught on tape." I'll bet you're not alone there. I think the vast majority of YouTube users are interested in the gotcha moments, the quirky caught-on-video moments, and not the sort of content that will appear on these new channels. In order for this to take off, YouTube will probably need to attract a new/different kind of audience.

This is a good idea and many people will rather like youtube to host congress videos rather than it be a place for ""clips of precocious kids, stupid pets or faux superheroes" as it is written in the post Congress Launches YouTube Channels - FOXNews.com Transition Tracker .I don't think that we have to care about the number of potential viewers to support the initiative. One thing is certain: this proves the desire of our elected officials "to make things in Washington a little more transparent". 

 

 

Hi,

I just caught a glimpse of Bush-Blair combo singing the Song-It had be laughing like maad.

The problem with Politics is that its(usually) a dull,boring and dreary topic for most frequent Internet Users.Youtube is atleast trying to provide an avenue for Congress to increase their web-visibility,rather than spend time& money in doing the publicity themselves.

I think it can be useful.If people use it well.In fact,you can even get a quick-weekly fix of how your local represetative thought of issues that affect you.

 

What I would really like is that there should be a feeback mechanism where people respond to what ever a representative did in Congress.(The comments section inYoutube is just too lame for this).

 Something with anonymity would be really useful.

Ashish.

I think your last paragrapgh perefctly sums up the chaos that would eventually engulfed this initiative: " But can a site known for its overabundance of feline features truly also be the go-to place for all things congressional and presidential? Or, politically speaking, will YouTube's primary function remain less as a communications channel for congress, more a hub for user-edited videos of things like Bush and Blair singing Endless Love?"

So as laudable this initiative is, the inbuilt youtube image would wash away any meaningful potential result that was intended for this exercise. If Harry Reid's top video can boast a paltry 415 views, then you can be rest assured that it would have to take a celebrity type senator like the "incoming junior senator from Chicago" to rap up a thousand views. This is certainly an exercise in futility and i can stake my morgage if i have one that it won't amont to a thing.

It's happening...

I almost predicted this.  ;)
I said "5) Youtube will be named The News Leader by an idiot reporting agency thinking this is where all the young people get the daily news. As a result (for sake of progressive reporting), the rest of the nation will be forced to watch this farce on the evening tubenews..."

The YouTube Symphony is way more interesting than watching C-Span or it's copycat channels on YouTube.  I'll pass until I hear of a great congressional blooper caught on tape.