YouTube.gov: U.S. Congress Comes to YouTube
Just in time for the the opening of the 111th U.S Congress, YouTube today announced that is is now hosting two new channels that will make it easier to find video updates from U.S. Senators and Representatives. YouTube's Steve Grove promises that these channels will feature both floor speeches and behind-the-scenes footage.
Many Senators and Representatives already have their own YouTube channels, and these two new sites aggregate the content from these. Over time, we hope to see more elected officials on YouTube, though we also hope to see more than just clips from local TV news shows.
One-Way Communication?
One trend we noticed on a lot of these pages, however, was that quite a few Senators and Representatives decided not to allow comments on their videos. We would hope that more of our elected officials would value comments from their constituents.
Senate and House in HD
We do, however, commend Congress for using YouTube's new HD capabilities (even though some of the material in the intro video looks like it was shot with substandard cameras).
House vs. Househub
On a lighter note, the announcement on YouTube's blog links to this page, instead of the new page for the U.S. House of Representatives. You decide which one you find more interesting.
OpenCongress
If you don't want video, but hard facts about Congress, we recommend OpenCongress, which aggregates information about the details of business on Capitol Hills.
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This great news! We have just launched a site that allows for real-time rating of YouTube videos called Skuttlefish (http://www.skuttlefish.com). Basically it is like online dial polling. The idea came out of watching dial polls during the debates with several dozen people sitting in a room moving a dial from left to right depending on how they felt about what the person speaking was saying. We brought this similar concept to the web. It is beta and have lots more planned including comments, other video formats, etc. Let us know what you think.
Comments should not be disabled for these videos, but then YouTube attracts a "special" audience. I'm torn.