Google donates $34k to Congress, Congress does ad for YouTube
(Thanks, Carl!)For two years now, I have been begging the U.S. Congress to loan me DVDs they have of congressional hearings so I can load them up to the Internet Archive. So, I was pretty steamed to see all 4 of the senior leaders of Congress cut a shameless ad for YouTube, making YouTube the official video purveyor of both the House and Senate.
Sure, they talk about how this is only one of many avenues that the modern new socially aware Congress will pursue, but you don't see Pelosi and Boehner cutting any ads for the Internet Archive or C-SPAN (let alone Yahoo or MSN).
In the case of the Internet Archive, the Speaker's actions are especially puzzling, considering Brewster Kahle is one of her constituents and I assumed probably even voted for her! I did note that the Google official PAC gave $34,000 to the four actors who appeared in their ad.
4 resources, decide for yourself if this stinks:
1. The Official Congressional YouTube Ad
4. The Federal Election Commission report by Google's PAC. Public.Resource.Org doesn't have a PAC.
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Trying to make sense of Pelosi's actions is like trying to mathematically analyze the sexual undertones of a fever dream.
There's just no freaking point, it's fruitless. The woman is a lost cause.
"...you don't see Pelosi and Boehner cutting any ads for the Internet Archive or C-SPAN (let alone Yahoo or MSN)..."
I'm guessing it's because if Pelosi put a video on the Internet Archive, it would only be seen by a tiny fraction of the number of people who will see it on YouTube. There's only one Congress, after all; they don't have all day to make videos for every long-tail site on the net.
@mattymatt
Are you suggesting that the best way for elected leaders to get the word out is to follow the same ethic as how they ran their last election campaign?
Seems to me that they could just dump a video file somewhere known (under the "Hey, the gubment doesn't get the same intellectual property rights" concept) and all sorts of services could pick it up readily, not to mention their users that rehosted it themselves.
I agree completely with #2 Mattymatt. And I wouldn't call this an ad for YouTube per se. It's an ad for Congressional videos on the site most Americans go to for such things. (That is, Congress benefits far more from the public knowing they're right there on YouTube -- specifically YouTube -- than YouTube itself does. The reverse would be the case for the Internet Archive.)
And #3, there's nothing I can see preventing somebody from swiping a Congressional video from YouTube and reposting it anywhere they feel like...
One difference between putting the video on Youtube rather than the Internet Archive, is that Youtube is part of a corporation and will be making money from people watching the video, Internet Archive is nonprofit and would be hosting the video purely as a community service, not a way to make money.
Actually besides the videos the congressional hearings are a part of the congressional record and are available *somewhere* and as such belong to the public domain. So much as the videos are concerned, someone needs to buy/borrow all the cspan DVDs and they can upload them anywhere;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-SPAN#C-SPAN_and_Copyright
Google video, Internet archive, and etc other video services may provide for longer videos, more format options, and overall better service, but unfortunately Youtube is subject to the network effect: the more people that use it, the more useful it is. It's popularity is self-perpetuating. Public officials certainly should support a non-profit that uses open formats instead of a corporate site that uses Flash, but our "public" officials actually represent the capitalist class, not us.
It seems a bit petty to note this, but if we're seriously supposed to be comparing the two... I might also add that YouTube is easy to use and consistently functions with a ton of traffic, while the Internet Archive can be a bear to navigate and seems to have outages in one area or another every time I visit. (And I'm a fan of the Archive, for all its flaws, so I've visited a great many times.) The latter may perhaps be better suited for long-term archiving, but for immediate public usability -- which is what this promotional clip addresses -- honestly, it's not even in the same league. For present purposes, better video quality is easily trumped by the ability to actually find, view, and disseminate a given video when one wants to.
That said, do I think Congress should also make their video content accessable to the Internet Archive and other nonprofit libraries? Absolutely. But that strikes me as a seperate issue from how best to promote the video content.
Why I ask, not both?
Anybody know what the soundtrack is right there? Sounds like great programming music!
Just tried to get any information out of the comments... had to disable my youtube comment snob plugin... completely forgot how horrible youtube comments really are. Also: No information besides somebody pointing out:
"Is that house music in the background?
GET IT? HOUSE MUSIC
HOUSE"
...
Sorry, I'm a sucker for cheesy house music. So, somebody please help me out here!
and is it not written in the Book of Pogo: "Congersmen!"
If they were giving an ad for the google's search engine monopoly, it would be one thing, but for youtube... who cares?
Youtube may be the defacto site for political video, but that doesn't mean that google is making any money off of it. In fact, from a business perspective, youtube seems like a pretty stupid purchase: not much revenue since people don't like ads in their video and huge amounts of lawsuits.
Youtube is a public service provided at a loss, like the new york times or harpers. Just be glad microsoft, murdoch, or haliburton doesn't own it.
I suppose Craig's List would be even better, but they should really just buy up the New York Times, reuniting the newspaper with its traditional revenue stream.
#2 has a point and you seem to be whining that you did not 'cut a deal'. All is not lost though. Keep persevering. Additionally, the points re accessibility should be taken to heart and acted upon. The Internet Archive interface is a bit sucky. Mind you, the YouTube interface and its popularity are a major negative too. Often sorting through the dross of some of the more pitiful self-publishers can be very disheartening and soul destroying. These individuals should go back to writing notes in green/purple ink or stop painting their bedroom black.
I am sure that they will disable comments for their videos. I find that really irritating. Sure lots of the comments will stink, but I prefer that people are allowed to "talk back" to the video, somehow.
This seems like a good choice. Put the videos in a place people will actually see them.
Who cares if they're on the Internet Archive or someone else? It's the end that's important, not the vendor.
I don't think it's about the "capitalist class" in reference to "anonymous".
YouTube has garnered buzz for viral videos and it just overall more popular, even after Google aquired them.
So when politicians want to speak out to the serfs like us, they use what is the most expedient and useful.
*But then that's kind of the opposite of government.
* = In no way should that be construed to compliment Congress.
If the info is going to be on Youtube, can't other sites just glean from that? Archive away, but don't forget to make hard copies.
@ #11 - UNCE UNCE UNCE UNCE UNCE UNCE UNCE UNCE
There ya go. ;)
/Trance/House DJ
The real reason that you will see more government agencies on YouTube is much less nefarious - the General Services Administration (the purchasing arm of the Federal Government) has recently completed negotiations for a "government" version of the YouTube terms of service. This article outlines some of the issues that needed to be addressed. Unfortunately, the US Government can't just click the "I AGREE" button and make a legal agreement. http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=169&sid=1574583
@17, @15, et. al. I'm a big fan of youtube, and keep 524 videos there. And, if I were Google and could get the four top members of Congress as actors for $34k, that certainly is a marketing coup.
Congress screwed up two ways here:
1. YouTube is great for casual viewing, but if you're editing video and want b-roll, the quality isn't good enough. With videos I rip, I put the full-res mpeg2 on the Archive for filmmakers, upload to YouTube for viewing.
2. The system they created on YouTube is push by individual members. So, you end up with a lot of stuff like the Speaker's cats getting rick rolled.
The proposal we've had on the table for a long time is what we call FedFlix. They have a DVD jukebox with a bunch of committee hearings. We offered to pay postage if they would loan us the DVDs to copy then return. No cost to the government, lots of congressional hearings for the public to use. We did this program for a year with the executive branch as a formal joint venture with NTIS and it was very successful.
YouTube is fine, but not sufficient and I thought the ad was a waste of government funds (Congress presumably paid for the production costs of that video because otherwise if Google paid it would be considered an illegal contribution and a violation of Congressional rules).
Brewster Kahle? The same Brewster who once refused to pay for cooling for a data center at the advice of his engineers only to have it melt down?
The low quality and technical effort to copy are reasonable complaints, but not serious political issues.
But this IS a form of dumping the video someplace online that anyone can copy from.
The claim that putting their message in front of the most people for the least cost is elitist is drivel.
I just realized that this article also claims that Google out lobbied Micro$oft with the congressional leadership of both parties by giving $34,000.
That's just delusional.
@carlmalamud
1. YouTube is great for casual viewing, but if you're editing video and want b-roll, the quality isn't good enough.
Well, that's the whole point. They aren't using YouTube to provide people with footage to edit. They're going to use it for press releases, not archival purposes.
And it's hard to get worked up about government funds spent on what is probably an intern with a standard government issue camcorder and tripod. C-SPAN spends a lot more on recording House members speaking to empty seats--and that's been done on a regular basis for decades.
#22 - Stephen - so true.
#20 - Carlmalamud - do you think this could be solved by creating a custom channel within YouTube. The government would be the only entity with upload access and searcheswould only return videos in the channel.
If YouTube wanted to do a little more work, they could create a folder structure of sorts to help with browsing.
For me, the issue isn't that the video is on YouTube, it's that, in the video, our elected officials are repeatedly plugging YouTube. This also seemed to be the point that Malamud was underscoring with his remix vid.
Not to mention the Google Earth intro, avec logo. And, in a completely unrelated event, Google kicked down cash to the politicians starring in the ad. ArsTechnica nailed the "infomercialesque showmanship" of it: Congress delivers a series of YouTubes.
Like a lot of other "open government" social media attempts, the vid bears the patina of openness, while actually staying more faithful to the age-old system of cash and quid pro quo.
Keep on rogue'in, Carl Malamud :)
This is exceptionally cheap advertising. It doesn't matter that the Google or the YouTube course through our virtual blood at this point, Congress should have squeezed for a few HUNDREDS of millions. We need roads for cars and books for kids.
@25:
And it's hard to get worked up about government funds spent on what is probably an intern with a standard government issue camcorder and tripod. C-SPAN spends a lot more on recording House members speaking to empty seats--and that's been done on a regular basis for decades.
In fairness, C-SPAN doesn't get a dime from the government. It's a nonprofit funded by the cable companies.
Brought to you by Carl's Jr.
@#2 and #4
Shmuel, you said, "there's nothing I can see preventing somebody from swiping a Congressional video from YouTube and reposting it anywhere they feel like...".
Actually, this is not permitted. The YouTube TOS,
"the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be copied, stored, permanently downloaded, or redistributed by the user."
Ignoring YouTube's grammatical error, this makes YouTube entirely inappropriate for this. Legally you are not allowed to download and edit these videos, even though you technically can.
These videos should have been put on the Internet Archive and in the public domain where anyone can download and use them. From there, someone, including those politicians, can put them on YouTube. Uploading them only on YouTube isn't transparent government at all, but simply foolish and naive.