November 21, 2006 (this is from the blog FISPace I already mentioned to you)
Volunteers, out in front...again
We were just having some discussion today in the Nov. 15 thread started by Lisa Meyers about whether or not the ACS would use YouTube as a way to communicate. There are comments that ACS should put some of its "classic" anti-tobacco films on YouTube or other video site. I speculated that the ACS wasn't ready for that.
Then comes this article in NonProfit Times about nonprofits and use of spaces like YouTube and MySpace. Turns out that the ACS is very much there, not with video sanctioned by headquarters, but by maybe hundreds of vid clips posted by volunteers.
Check out the American Cancer Society (ACS) on the Web portal YouTube.com and you'd think the nonprofit is active in showing videos. If you search for the organization on YouTube, you'll see the cartoon The Flintstones appearing to change directions after smoking. You'll also see that $100,000 was raised during one event at Michigan State University. News regarding colorectal cancer is in one video, and the Relay for Life details are shown in another video.
But Marty Coelho, national managing director for marketing and communication at ACS, isn't using YouTube for Relay for Life. Volunteers took to the net and uploaded more than 120 videos.
Volunteers and donors are flocking to MySpace for personal pages, Flickr.com for photo sharing, and YouTube.com for viewing and uploading videos and social networking in general.
...In the burgeoning industry of more than 100 free, Web-based video-hosting services, YouTube has mushroomed by beaming 50 million videos per day to more than 12.5 million people each month, according to Nielsen NetRatings.
I'm not surprised. A couple of years ago when the idea of starting the Flickr site you see in the upper right corner came up, I was advised that the attorneys wanted nothing to do with it. No photo release documents. Didn't deter the volunteers any, and there it is with thousands of Relay pictures.
The public is way ahead of the law and risk-aversive companies. There has been a paradigm shift in our expectations about self-expression and proclaiming what you're passionate about. My take is that YouTube and future media is not about ripping off artists and stealing copyright; it's about shouting out, "Hey, look at this...and this...and this!" The whole 20th century media/legal system was built around keeping things very controlled--and well paid for. But that's over. The new media is everyone's corner soapbox for saying what's on their mind and for declaring what they love. In our case, the volunteers are doing what we've wanted: being passionate about cancer and the Society.
There's still a long struggle ahead. YouTube is being sued almost every day by media companies over copyright infringement. But the technology of empowerment of people to communicate is nowhere near the end of its capability. In the longer run technology will transform society.
Posted by David Collin on November 21, 2006 at 02:00 PM | Permalink
Comments