DailyTech - Yahoo, Reuters Launch "You Witness News" Service

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Internet Yahoo, Reuters Launch "You Witness News" Service
Michael Hoffman (Blog) - December 5, 2006 12:01 AM

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5 comment(s) - last by Dfere.. on Dec 5 at 3:50 PM

Yahoo and Reuters are the latest organizations to launch a service that allows people to contribute photos and videos

With hundreds of millions of people having access to camera phones that are able to take high-quality photos and videos, Reuters and Yahoo want your participation. Yahoo and Reuters are inviting users to submit photos and videos for possible publication in a new project launching later today. You Witness News, the program which will allow users to unofficially become photojournalists, will publish content on Reuters.com and Yahoo News, the site that comScore MediaMetrix says is the most popular news web site in the United States.

Reuters plans on distributing some of the submitted content to print, broadcast and online media outlets. Even though the focus of the service will originally surround news, You Witness may solicit contributions for entertainment, sports and content that fits other subsections of the site.

BBC recently launched Your News, a service that features user-generated material only. CBC will also allow citizens to upload video and pictures of news events to the news organization's Vancouver news bureau.

News organizations across the world often times rely on amateur videos and photos during coverage of major events such as the Asian tsunami and Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

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Subject to misuse.....

By crystal clear on 12/5/2006 6:40:57 AM , Rating: 4

*As an idea it sounds great but in reality its subject to misuse & reliability.

*Technology of today provides you the oppportunities & abilities to tamper photographs(by the sender) as you want &
like.

*Will definetly be used as propoganda material & vechile by
Fundamentalist organization & other not in this catergories.

*Very hard to judge if the photos are geniune or fakes or
tampered.

*Cannot be trusted.

In todays world of journalism & reporting -verification of
contents-Text & Vedeo & photos is extremely important.

Misuse of this facility is immense.

RE: Subject to misuse.....

By Chase Tacos on 12/5/2006 8:14:12 AM , Rating: 2

I think its a damn good idea.

Gives people and kids who have nothing to do all day (like myself) something to do (thought I wont end up doing it)

Its good training for people who want to be photojurnalists and it gives us even more thing to read about than what we already have (Which I find as a damn good idea)

The news is interesting and now we have a whole bunch of it from places that we didnt even know could have news.

Downside is that yes crystal, people are gonna take advantage of it and mess around with fake stuff just for fun. But im sure theyll be watching over whats been uploaded before they even make it public.........unless their not thinking correctly of course.

Parent

great

By jmunjr on 12/5/2006 1:07:22 AM , Rating: 3

just what we need. a world full of paparazzi..

I think you have missed the point so far.

By Dfere on 12/5/2006 8:33:13 AM , Rating: 2

This is about competing with Youtube.

Have you seen the ad for aol video .com?

Same thing.

New business model, everyone rushes to imitate it. Funny thing is, everyone can, there is not a huge cost (in big business terms) to enter this new "market". But they do need to get people to post stuff. Advertising companies must be loving this.

I think I figured part of it out.

By Dfere on 12/5/2006 3:50:29 PM , Rating: 2

Check out CNN.com article on Youtube today. Apparently, the videos on Youtube are now being used for product placement. How sneaky would it be to be paid to load commercial ads in with "real videos"?