14 DAY TRIAL // The online video sharing service YouTube and CNN signed a deal to host the first of the six political debates concerning the upcoming 2008 Presidential race. Although Google's video product is already deeply involved in the presidential campaign, owning CitizenTube and You Choose 2008 - two political channels on YouTube - the company wants even more and partnered with CNN to publish the meeting on its official website.
"The idea of using the technology of YouTube and marrying it with traditional television could be really interesting" such as giving viewers new ways to comment on the debate and follow-up and ask questions for the candidates, said Bob Boorstin, director of policy communications for Google in Washington, D.C. according to Mike Sachoff from WebProNews.
At this time, You Choose 2008 is one of the most active YouTube channels, because it creates an interactive discussion between the 2008 Presidential candidates and the YouTube members. If you didn't know, the procedure is quite simple: every candidate has a week to talk with the YouTubers. The candidate posts a clip on the channel while every user that wants to ask him a question must create a video and post it as a reply to the candidate's movie. This way, the senators and the YouTube registered members can communicate with ease and are also enhancing the content published on the online video sharing service.
YouTube evolved a lot and it really deserves the praises because it managed to convince the users to upload their homemade content on its page. In the past, the users helped YouTube survive when most of the analysts described the product as a bad Google investment. Viacom ordered the removal of no more than 100.000 clips from the page, but YouTube managed to boost the number of the visitors because its users posted an impressive amount of homemade clips.