YouTube - TheRoyalChannel:

The Christmas Broadcast or ‘Queen’s Speech’ for 2007 will appear on this [YouTube] channel at approximately 3pm GMT on Christmas Day.

Currently available, among other videos, the Queen’s Christmas message from 1957 in which she discusses her use of the ‘new’ medium of television, and cites it as evidence of the speed of change in society.

Listen out for the quaint ‘orfen’ and ‘lorst’.

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A disturbing report reveals that many people are sourcing health information from YouTube, and that many of the videos express views contradictory to national guidelines.

That’s fine: free and vigorous debate is a good thing. Allowing people to express opinions is held up as a cornerstone of democracy. Sometimes people just don’t agree with what the Government thinks may be good for them.

But where it becomes a concern is when the general public treat inherently unreliable sources of information as authoritative and inherently credible. YouTube as a source of definitive health information? This so-called authority is what Scott Adams often refers to as ‘some guy on the Internet‘¹.

YouTube breeding ground for anti-vaccination views:

[Researchers] analyzed 153 videos about vaccination and immunization on YouTube, a popular online video-sharing site. … a staggering 45 per cent contained messages that contradict the 2006 Canadian Immunization Guide, which provides national guidelines for immunization practices.

…”YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination … Our study shows that a significant amount of immunization content on YouTube contradicts the best scientific evidence at large. From a public health perspective, this is very concerning.”

The research team also found that videos skeptical of vaccinations — many of them highly provocative and powerful — received more views and better ratings by YouTube users than those videos that portray immunizations in a positive light.

While this specific report is about vaccinations and immunisation, and so will be of concern to health workers in New Zealand too, what other topics are being ‘discussed’ via YouTube?

YouTube is enormously popular, all around the globe. Kiwis watch YouTube videos too. Our community organisations can’t afford to ignore it, or to be ignorant of it.

¹The Dilbert Blog: Nobel Prize:

The economics prize should be mine for my discovery that everything you need to know about investing can be put in nine bullet points. And I’m not the only one who thinks that. There’s also “some guy on the Internet” who agrees.

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850 million people go to bed hungry each night. The World Food Program is calling for YouTube videos to help solve the problem, as reported by Tech News on ZDNet in U.N. aid agency seeks YouTube ads:

The United Nations’ food aid agency has called on budding filmmakers to help it raise awareness of hunger and bring the reality of abject poverty and suffering to the “YouTube generation.”

The World Food Program (WFP) launched a contest on Wednesday for “edgy 30- or 60-second video(s) that will make the online community buzz about global hunger,” it said.

The five best films will be posted on the WFP’s YouTube site, with the overall winner receiving a trip to one of the agency’s relief operations.

Filmmakers stand a better chance of winning if they get play on blogs or networking sites like Facebook or MySpace before the competition’s July 2008 deadline, WFP said.

For inspiration the World Food Program have posted their own YouTube video, Don’t be a pig!, on their own YouTube channel hungerbytes. The video is a rather shocking depiction of people stuffing themselves in an ‘eating contest’. They say of the competition:

The goal is to make a top rated viral video that creates a real buzz and gets people thinking about hunger.

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Social Media Sites: A Handy Reference Guide :

Social Media Sites - just what are they?  … I wanted to offer a place of reference for the audience to see all the different working parts of Social Media in easy to reference post.

The post looks at:

• Social News: sites such as Digg, and Reddit.
• Photo Sharing: sites such as Flickr and Picasa
• Video Sharing: sites such as YouTube and Blip.TV
• Bookmarking: sites such as de.licio.us, Furl, and ma.gnolia.
• Social Networks: sites such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Live Journal.
• Answer Services: sites such as Yahoo! Answers, and Answers.com.
• Forums & Message Boards: sites such as Rotten Tomatoes, StarTrek Message Boards, and Epicurious.
• Measuring Social Media: sites such as Buzzlogic, BlogPulse, Technorati and Feedburner.
• Also: StumbleUpon andWikipedia.

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