Yesterday, YouTube announced the formation of YouTube direct- a new platform for news organizations that allows them to “request, review, and re-broadcast user-submitted videos with ease.” It’s a new idea already in use by the likes of NPR, ABC News, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and more. I wonder what it does to:

A: the economics and structure of news organizations
B: The attitude and perspective of “citizen journalists”

This means lots of things, in no particular order….

1. I think it continues to set YouTube ahead of the smaller (and really smart, good ) competitiors like Vimeo, Viddler and more. They thought they had their work cut out for them before, look out now…

2. It will change the way news organization gather their information. The Channel 7  news truck won’t have to head to the fire on Main Street because videos are being uploaded already by citizen journalists. They can simply report back on the story from their cozy studios and get  the facts from interns and young reporters on their cell phones and laptops.

3. What’s in it for the citizen journalist? Nothing really. What’s the incentive of sending ABC news the exclusive (and only) video you caught of say, the plane landing in the Hudson river? It will get uploaded and viewed on ABC News and abcnews.com, not necessarily to your YouTube channel- if you are a new business owner trying to make a name for yourself with some video, forget about it.

4. What makes a “news organization” in this day and age? Dialogue just signed up  (applied) for this program last night. Am I an official news outlet? Why? Why not?

5. How is this going to sync with the existing YouTube channels created by News organizations? Will this simply complement the effort or begin to take traffic away from the channel.

So, these are some initial thoughts for the day. What do you think?