this is EXACTLY what i asked yesterday - you are damn right Dan. - Allen Stern

Doesn't the queen have her own YouTube channel as well? It's a simple decision in many ways. If search = Google, video for all practical purposes = YouTube. And they've earned it. - Deepak Singh

Aren't you sceptic about State's endorsement of a single service? How about all these companies trying to compete with YouTube on video? They now see YouTube becoming the State's official service. I'd rather Obama used multiple services (and video formats). Including youtube wich is one of my favorites. - Panayotis Vryonis

I bet that the not-GOOG is the reason he stopped twittering - George Tziralis

Sorry, I just read the article and this is exactly Dan's point. :-) - Panayotis Vryonis

http://video.yahoo.com/watch... Does no one do any research any more? Same video posted to Yahoo! Video (not an embedded YouTube on Y! Video, like they do sometimes). Before people start complaining, they really should check their facts. - Mistletoe Glen

I disagree. Dan's point is right philosophically, in a fairness pureness sense, but not pragmatically. YouTube is where people are at. The name is known and the message is easy to transmit. The president is not in the business of propping up video sites and promoting equality on the marketplace. If these sites were more widely used they would be considered. The YouTube name has become generic like Q-tips and Band-Aids, even though they are brand names. This is sort of a contrarian argument in my opinion. - Rolf Schewe

Here's my post about this... http://moourl.com/qpopu - Allen Stern

If the government was to start trying to make everyone happy when making these kinds of choices you can kiss any of these progressions goodbye. Can you imagine the possibilities? Why use Twitter and not Identi.ca? What?! FriendFeed and not SocialThing and Plaxo? The travesty! Hey Barack are those Macs you are using? Not PCs? WTF. This is a slippery slope argument that can result in a stalemate and kill any advances. Sorry but words like "endorsing" and "appointing" (YouTube) are loaded terms. - Rolf Schewe

Rolf...don't disagree with the general issues of using tools that make sense and not fussing about it, but this is a case where there is an easy solution for what will be a major and important Obama initiative....communicating via video, producing dozens per week....so why not have a player and embed everywhere and have channels on all the major sites....rather than promoting YouTube at every chance? - dan farber

Interesting. I didn't get from your piece, Dan, that you were objecting to his tilting the table toward YouTube. If so, we are in agreement. It's totally not appropriate and the Obama people need to hear that loud and clear. (I added a link to your piece from my piece about it today.) - Dave Winer

http://www.scripting.com/stories... - Dave Winer

Yes...the tilt is unnecessary, not the same as Blackberry-iPhone, PC-Mac. Obama' s people need to have an unbranded player (Brightcove can do it) and embed whereever rather than promote YouTube/Google because its big and easy... thx for the link Dave. - dan farber

"In the case of uploading video, the Obama team can create its own branded, video-sharing service neutral video player that allows anyone in the world to embed the content" Do you realise just how much work would be involved in this? I'm fairly sure they have more important things to be doing. - Adewale Oshineye

Maybe it's my Libertarian streak raising a red flag but the idea of the government using taxpayer manpower and money to develop apps that they can get for free makes me cool to the idea. My Progressive side says use Open Source, use every service equally, etc. I just don't think you can get things done being fair all the time. To me it is a net gain that he is using YouTube at all. The use of YouTube is in my opinion pragmatic, not promoting it. - Rolf Schewe

Adewale...very little work...and with the amount of video the administration will be pumping out....a worthwhile investment - dan farber

All they would have to do is upload the video on an public (ftp?) site (in an open and widely used format) and send out a notification to all registered services. Anyone interested, youtube, yahoo, blip.tv, you name it, would just have to upload the video to their service. It's the press release they'd send out anyway. Fair and equal, minimal cost to tax payers. - Panayotis Vryonis

There is nothing easier than just posting it on YouTube. No middlemen. Bang! It's up. - Rolf Schewe

@Panayotis I like your idea but they'd have to either run their own FTP server (cue hordes of people trying to hack into it) or choose an existing one (cue various people accusing them of favouritism for picking a BSD host over Linux). The fundamental problem is one of expectations. Dan seems to be under the impression that being President(-elect) means you have the luxury of being able to examine every possible choice for all possible negative consequences. - Adewale Oshineye

You can either make decisions and live with the unintended consequences or allow yourself to be paralysed by the ramifications of the exact choice of blue you choose to paint your bikeshed. There's a reason why professional pundits/critics tend not to become leaders. - Adewale Oshineye

come on guys; he is trying something. Make a suggestion, not a criticism of you want to help. TubeMogul maybe, but don't just gripe. That's for you Dan Dave and Allen from your mother! - Francine Hardaway

Francine, that's pretty close to as rude as you can get. Don't use gender and age unless you want it coming back at you (which I assume you don't). And if you reduce your comment down to action -- you're telling three people here to shut up. - Dave Winer

First: patience, guys. You really expect to see anything before January 20th? Or glean everything about Obama's communications strategies from the first trial baloon? http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic

Getting the word out to the masses has always meant hitting the larger outlets and letting the smaller ones pick it up from there. Everyone gets it. Setting up their own content distro system for this would be a huge waste of money. We don't watch TV addresses now on the Whitehouse Channel, nor should we; we watch them on a major network. afaik, there's nothing at all that's YT-exclusive about the content, so anyone is free to grab it and repost it. No different than normal MSM distro of such content. - abacab

I don't disagree with the ideas in this comment thread. It all comes down to pragmatism. People use YouTube. Just put it on YouTube. If you put it everywhere sure it will make people feel all warm and fuzzy but how many people will actually see it outside of YouTube? The only people using YouTube alternatives are tech geeks like myself. We live in a no-attention-span-bumpersticker-talking society. YouTube is well known, easy to find and already there. - Rolf Schewe

Francine - I did make a suggestion in my post. I wonder what the reaction would be if Obama says all tech news will now be posted on change.gov and http://www.centernetworks.com - ok with that? - Allen Stern

I wouldn't be OK with that, as CN isn't a major video outlet for the Internet masses in even remotely the same way as YouTube, but I'm guessing you would be OK with that, Allen? - abacab

do you see my point now? - Allen Stern

@Allen: No, frankly. I could understand if the point was, say, for them to clarify the terms under which you could re-use the high-quality video download they provide. Then, if it was clear, other sites could easily upload it themselves, as would any 2nd Tier media source. As far as your "don't embed or run a bid" idea, that's a lot of work on a very minor topic for a team trying to staff up to run this gov't at a critical time. This business is small potatoes -- and should be. - Woodrow Jarvis Hill

The post on Change.gov embeds YouTube player and the familiar YouTube logo looks like an on-air network bug. They also included the full text transcript. If they continue to distribute videos on YouTube I'd like to see them incorporate the new YouTube captions feature so that it would be easier to translate his message into different languages and make it more accessible for the hearing impaired. That would be an added value to using YouTube as a distribution platform. - Larry Kless