Last week, both The Star and Sunday Times ran stills from a video taken of Saddam Hussein's execution. The Star's stills were printed above the fold, placed so that anyone driving past a newsstand could see them.
News of his execution quickly became a hot dinner-table discussion topic. A relative asked me whether I considered this to be front-page news and we had a discussion around what makes news and the variables that are taken into account when deadline is looming.
Oddly, he didn't ask me what I thought of the fact that there is clearly a video of the execution out there, a video that can easily be found online.
Perhaps this is because my relative is a director himself, and knows how pervasive video can be, especially in an age when the Internet is omnipresent and omniscient.
Instant stars
Or, maybe, it's because he knows how impossible it is to keep content off the World Wide Web, himself featuring in several YouTube clips. In today's world, anyone with a cellphone can turn into an instant director and become world famous.
Some clips include celebrities, others show babies doing, well, what babies do best.
Nicola Mawson, senior journalist, ITWeb
A quick glance at the video-hosting portal indicates what people are watching when they really should be slaving away behind their keyboards. Some clips include celebrities, others show babies doing, well, what babies do best. That particular clip has been viewed over two million times!
YouTube, which flights over 70 million clips a day, says it empowers people to "become the broadcasters of tomorrow".
"Everyone can watch videos on YouTube - both on YouTube.com and across the Internet. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests, and discover the quirky and unusual."
Content is king
YouTube is perhaps the best example of convergence around. And it's free. Web sites globally pick up on videos on the Web site, and link them to their own sites. People blog about YouTube.
All of this traffic can only be good news for advertisers - where else can you talk to a global, tech-savvy audience of millions?
Perhaps this is why it really should not be surprising that Google recently bought YouTube for $1.65 billion, and then made a joint video cast announcement.
Even the question of "what next?" is old news today. Cellular providers are already positioning themselves in the mobile television arena. Even Yahoo is getting in on this action, with a joint venture with Vodafone to offer advertisements via mobile phones.
I guess it won't be long before the virtual world becomes the only world.
Share