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Posts Tagged ‘YouTube’

US Federal Government Signs Deal With YouTube, Flickr and Other Social Sites

Posted in bureaucracy, government, social media, tagged , , , , , , , , on 28 March 2009 | 1 Comment »

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"Pen to paper" by Marc Roberts on Flickr

Earlier this Week, NextGov and ReadWriteWeb reported that the US federal government’s General Services Administration (GSA) had signed memoranda of understanding with several well known social sites: YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo and blip.tv.

These MOUs are aimed at making it easier for American government agencies to use these platforms. They serve as templates for individual organizations to use when signing up to use the free services of YouTube, Flick, et al.

Previously, it had been impossible for US federal government organizations to agree to the standard terms of service for these sites due to legal requirements under which they operate. According to ReadWriteWeb,

the GSA had a number of other legal concerns about the standard terms and conditions of these services, including problems with indemnification clauses, liability limits, and endorsements, which led it to enter negotiations with these services. Also, a lot of the standard agreements call for dispute resolutions by state courts, while for government agencies, federal law has to apply.

In addition to the video and photo-sharing services that now have agreements with the government, the GSA is pursuing similar arrangements with the big social networks, Facebook and MySpace.

What’s the Significance?

I see this as a really positive step. It’s something that US public servants can point to in their efforts to reassure their managers and executives that it’s OK  for government to be on these major platforms. This will make it easier to go to where online audiences actually are.

We need the same kind of thing here — PWGSC and other central agencies are you listening? (Time to get on the phone to your counterparts in the GSA and ask them to share their templates!)

However, dealing with legal liability is only one of many barriers to convincing the org to move forward. If I consider the situation in the Government of Canada, we’ve got many other policy requirements on the books that impede participation or engagement in the social web – privacy, accessibility, various web standards, information management, official bilingualism, the list goes on. I’m sure it’s a similar situation in the US.

Leaving aside the “web of rules,” there’s still many other challenges on the road to government 2.0.

  • coherence and consistency — various govt agencies take different approaches to all of these issues.
  • bureaucratic culture — a traditionally command and control environment that is uncomfortable with the idea of direct engagement with stakeholders.
  • Learning curve — for those public servants taking the leap into the social web in a work setting.

… And these are just a few of the angles to be considered. So while this news is welcome, it’s only a small piece of the puzzle.

Aside

The NextGov story mentioned that:

the GSA did not make an agreement with the online messaging service Twitter because the agency determined the provider’s standard terms and conditions aligned with federal requirements.

Interesting, as Twitter’s terms of service are very short and sgtraightforward, unlike many other social sites. As a point of comparison, see Facebook’s mammoth terms. Sometimes, less is more!

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Canada Revenue Agency’s YouTube Video Contest

Posted in government, social media, tagged , , , , , on 31 January 2009 |

Another GoC org testing the social media waters – the Canada Revenue Agency is holding a video production contest via the YouTube platform. Here’s the teaser:

(I could swear I know that voiceover guy – no wait they all sound the same)

Briefly, according to the CRA website:

We have a challenge for you.

We want you to create a video that shows us, in your words and using your creativity and video ability, why the underground economy is bad for all of us.

The contest was launched on 19 Jan, and the deadline for submissions is the 1st of May. Contest hasn’t even been going for two weeks yet, and there’s already several submissions that have been posted to the CRA’s YouTube channel.

I was wondering what the videos would be used for:

If we like what you come up with, you could win the CRA Independent Video Producer Award and be invited to attend (at our expense, of course) an award reception in Ottawa for the premiere of your video on the CRA Web site.

An all-expenses-paid trip to Ottawa and a reception in your honour—not too shabby! And your video could be seen by millions of Canadians. It may be used in future advertising campaigns and outreach initiatives.

Aah, crowdsourcing creative for promotion and education activities. Very clever!

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AfCam: GoC Testing the Social Media Waters

Posted in government, social media, social networking, web communications, tagged , , , , , , , , on 19 January 2009 |

(Video podcast from the Government of Canada’s AfCam channel on YouTube)

The other day, a colleague brought the AfCam project to my attention. What is AfCam? It’s “Afghanistan Camera” – a federal government social media project in support of Canada’s work in Afghanistan. I believe it’s led by CIDA.

Here’s the blurb from the AfCam home page on the “Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan” website:

Welcome to AfCam, a look at Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan through photos, videos, and sounds. View our feature gallery and podcast by clicking below, or search the database by clicking in the box to the right.

Stay updated by subscribing to AfCam on social media channels like Flickr, YouTube, and iTunes.

I just love seeing the words “social media channels like Flickr, YouTube, and iTunes” on a GoC web page. This is great initiative – using images, sound and video content is a fantastic way to complement (or supplant) the usual text-centric government communications products online, whether press releases or publications etc. And the social nature of these tools makes it a lot easier to spread this content around. So I love seeing it out there.

One of the challenges of using these disparate channels is tying it all together — and the AfCam page does a nice job of this. In addition to the photos and videos themselves, the page prominently points to the various AfCam outposts on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and iTunes. (And I wonder if this is the first use of these logos on a federal website?) There’s an RSS feed buried at the bottom also. I would have taken advantage of the RSS autodiscovery technique for this, but no matter.

But what if you come at AfCam via one of these other channels? The Facebook page is essentially a mirror of the content from the AfCam page on http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca — the photos from the Flickr photostream are posted there, the RSS feed items are there and the videos have been uploaded also. Interestingly, most of videos have been included via the FB YouTube app rather than being uploaded directly (although there’s English and French overview videos posted using FB’s native video app). And the photos are also posted directly to the page rather than being pulled from Flickr via that’s site’s FB app.

The YouTube and Flickr channels are much more rudimentary — a lot of this has to do with the limitations inherent in those platforms. There’s not a lot of room for cross-linking or pointing to AfCam’s other presences from either of these. The focus is squarely on the videos and the photos respectively; context be damned. But on Flickr for instance, I’m thinking that more detail should be added to the AFCam profile page, which could point to the YouTube channel or the Facebook page or back to the page on http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca.

Aside: I noticed also that the Flickr photos were all marked as copyrighted. I’ll bet they are the work of professional photogs who want to retain their copyright, but wouldn’t it be nice to see these with creative commons licensing to facilitate sharing?

Aside #2: I noticed that the videos embedded on the main AFCam page are using what looks like the accessible media player mandated by the GoC – I couldn’t find the transcripts however. Posting up a text transcript would complete the accessibility solution.

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Radiohead’s House of Cards: Everything is Data

Posted in collaboration, visualization, Web 2.0, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 16 July 2008 |

Interesting that despite the fact that Radiohead’s sound hasn’t progressed since their Kid A/Amnesiac breakthrough back in the day, the band continues to keep my attention in other ways.

They’ve just released a very cool video that was created using rotating laser scanners, 3D imaging and data visualization techniques — and no film or cameras.

Says the director of the video, James Frost (who’s done videos for the Flaming Lips among others):

In a weird way it’s a direct reflection of where we are in society… that everything is data. Everything around us is data-driven in some shape or form, and we’re so reliant on it now. It seems like our lives are digital, and so in that sense, it definitely felt apt.

Actually, that is as good an explanation for the current data visualization craze as I’ve heard yet.

Aesthetically, “House of Cards” reminds me a little of Tron, crossed with those toy boxes with rows of movable cylindrical metal pins that make a 3D contour when you press your hand or face on them (what the heck are they called?).

And Google is totally getting in on the action – Google Code is also hosting the video, as well as a “making of” clip (where I got the quote from the director above) and assorted other goodies for programmers who want to do remixes/mashups.

It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of making the data and source code available. There’s already 15 videos posted to the official YouTube group. Most focus on fiddling with the image data - this one is neat – but there’s already one that takes a hack at both the visual and auditory channel.

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