In what appears to be a move to help monetize their video search business, Google has begun incorporating YouTube videos into their Google News site.
Here’s a screenshot of the front page of Google News:
And this is the results of a search for Barack Obama:
So what does this mean for communication professionals?
Well, it adds another more powerful dimension to reputation management and crisis communications practices, that’s for sure.
I’ve only noticed video from traditional media companies like the AP and local TV news. So it remains to be seen if citizen generated or amateur video will be included.
Google currently has a process in place to allow you to respond and/or comment on a given article if you are quoted in it or are a subject of it, but that has been just for written stories.
One would hope that Google would put into place a similar process for people to respond via video in the same fashion, given how much more emotionally compelling video is over written news.
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