Google, along with Apple and Facebook are slowly taking over the world in a trial to retain even more users and offer a most extended set of services. YouTube just came from unveiling a new section in their features that will contain eyewitness recorded videos. The new section is called YouTube Newswire, offering journalists and news aficionados the chance to watch raw footage from around the world.
YouTube Newswire already featured the latest videos about the mass shooting in Charleston, the war in Syria and the storms in Oklahoma. This separate section in YouTube only selects the videos that are already there, as thousands of people upload amateur images from places of events all around the world. This will work as an exclusive news hub, separated from all the entertainment sections on YouTube.
By making the service official, YouTube will offer unlimited access to journalists that rush for newsworthy material, meaning that the broadcasting video service is targeting a new mass of public.
For the time being, Newswire will be curated by Storyful, an Ireland-based news verification startup. The partnership between YouTube and Storyful has been active since 2011. Storyful expanded their partnership with Facebook, and they are now responsible for verifying social media accounts for Facebook’s curated Newswire feed.
All the material we will be able to watch on YouTube Newswire will benefit from a selection program, as YouTube already began to work on a set of guidelines with a group of news verification experts, to check up and select the most relevant videos, photos and tweets that can be used or annexed as news material.
It seems that Google is getting more and more serious in the realm of information dissemination, as the world is inflated with tons of material from all over the world that doesn’t benefit from a good selection criteria, having us exposed to all sorts of inappropriate and irrelevant pieces of information. By launching YouTube Newswire, Google raises the standards in the news area, offering more relevant sources for news and at the same time, the chance for journalists to reveal most surprising facts all over the world.
Information is precious and with this new product, the tech giant will be offered an increasing role in helping the media to produce news. YouTube outlines the importance of crowd-sourced information, especially as there are millions of people who use smartphone cameras to document newsworthy material.
Image Source: 9to5google.com
