We know the YouTube effect (or as I like to call it, the Lazy Sunday effect) is in the process of disrupting the network-television business in various ways, but it also seems to be well on its way to disrupting the business of politics as well and the latest wave in that particular tsunami just rolled ashore with the video launch of Barack Obamas campaign to become president.
Weve already seen the effect that videos uploaded to YouTube and other sites can have on the political discourse in both Canada and the U.S., especially when those videos happen to be filmed by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, or video clips of dictators being hanged, etc. Thats one aspect of it. And then theres Senator John Edwards making his pitch using Rocketboom, and having Poptech video-blogger Robert Scoble tag along on his airplane.
Where is all this going? Who the heck knows. But it could definitely get interesting. As usual, the Web disintermediates, or takes out the middleman, and in this case the middleman (or men) are the TV networks and veteran political reporters. In the past, Obamas pitch which Rachel Sklar writes about at Eat The Press and Liz Gannes notes at NewTeeVee would have been filmed and handed to the networks, or done using a favoured anchor such as Tom Jennings. The networks would have made a lot of hay with either one.
Now, they show up on Obamas website or on YouTube, or both. And as Beet.tv makes clear, this isnt just a lark by Obama, to show that he gets it. The deal with Brightcove which just announced a financing round of about $50-million is part of an ongoing video strategy that will involve future campaign videos, an Obama channel and the ability for supporters to embed video in their pages. That is huge. And its interesting that its Brightcove and not Google Video and YouTube.
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