I’ve read that Whitewater’s switch to Vimeo for posting videos affords the city more information about how many times a video is viewed, and whether viewers linked, embedded, or downloaded the program. Some of the Whitewater videos recently uploaded have been viewed, linked, embedded, or downloaded many times.
(I’ve posted a few videos to YouTube, but the stats there are limited, and often inaccurate. For now, it’s still adequate for my needs. More citizen-recorded video would have been necessary if the city had not moved, as it rightly did, toward greater openness through more recordings of meetings.)
I’m not a bit surprised about how rapidly these videos can catch on – when people have a chance to see something on their own, and talk about and share what they’ve seen with others, news travels far and rapidly. For most people, it simply doesn’t make sense to create a separate website (like FW), as there are other powerful ways to share videos apart from blogs or standalone sites. Facebook, for example, lets people say what they want, when they want, and spread messages quickly. Between Facebook, Twitter, email, and texting, messages sail swiftly through a town (and to places distant).
It’s encouraging that some videos are catching on, as favorable stats confirm what’s been happening in towns across America: residents communicate electronically among themselves, expressing their own opinions, rather than relying passively on official or status quo publications.
There’s no stopping this trend – it has grown more powerful in spite of (or perhaps because of) a difficult economy. What’s significant isn’t solely the message in a video, but what people say to each other about that message. What residents say is beyond the control of local officials, as it should be, as an exercise of these citizens’ rights of expression.
Note to newspaper editors: if you’re editorials aren’t online, you’re missing out on shaping a very big conversation, one that’s swirling beyond your office doors. The online audience is vast, and when one looks toward it, one looks toward the future.