C-Span Opens Up

Via OpenCongress:

Advancing its longstanding mission of bringing government closer to the people, C-SPAN announced today two major initiatives designed to greatly expand citizen access to its online video of federal government activities, such as congressional hearings, agency briefings, and White House events. These actions are intended to meet the growing demand for video about the federal government and Congress, in an age of explosive growth of video file sharers, bloggers, and online ‘citizen journalists.’ The policy change is effective immediately.

C-SPAN is introducing a liberalized copyright policy for current, future, and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency– about half of all programming offered on the C-SPAN television networks–which will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution.

In addition, C-SPAN also announced plans to significantly build out its capitolhearings.org website as a one-stop resource for Congressionally-produced webcasts of House and Senate committee and subcommittee hearings.

Now to just get them to partner up with YouTube and maybe we can really enable some powerful citizen democracy. Glad to know we’ll be free and clear when it’s time to post hundreds of hours of oversight hearings yet to be distributed via YouTube.

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2008 Presidential YouTube Rankings

Here’s my half-assed ranking of the most web-savvy campaigns, judged solely by analysis of each campaign’s official account stats. I gave consideration to the campaign’s date of registration, videos viewed and how many are posted. No matter how you decide to weigh the numbers, there can be no doubt that the Democrats own YouTube.

[UPDATE: I decided to give Bill Richardson a bump to 3rd. The primary factor in this decision is the fact that Richardson has nearly a thousand more hits than Clinton, despite having less than half as many interviews, a four month gap between registrations. Not to mention the fact that Hillary’s name recognition has to be way above Richardsons. This says to me that Richardson must have a bit more juice online that Clinton, and so now I’m saying it to you.]

1. John Edwards
2. Barack Obama
3. Bill Richardson
4. Hillary Clinton
5. Mitt Romney
6. Joe Biden
7. Rudy Giuliani
8. John McCain
9. Dennis Kucinich

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My Case for Net Neutrality

As someone who has worked in the interactive industry for nearly a decade, I can say without a doubt that abolishing protections that keep the Internet free from corporate interference in the flow of information would be a major step backwards and diminish the United States’ in the global technology market. I’m writing on the concept of Network Neutrality. If you haven’t heard of it, check out http://www.savetheinternet.com. You don’t have to look to far into this issue before you realize that this is an issue which could fundamentally alter the future of the Internet, and not in a good way.

Here’s how things work now, with net neutrality intact. Let’s say that I wanna start producing hilarious cartoons or videos and build a website around them. I pay a hosting fee that is determined by how much storage space my website requires and how much traffic I expect to receive. But no matter how small or large my hosting package is, my site will be delivered to anyone who views it just as fast as Amazons, Comedy Central, ESPN, etc. If my cartoons are really popular, I have to buy a larger hosting package to accommodate my traffic, but that is my decision as the content provider.

Now let’s take away net neutrality from this scenario. Now my website can be moved into a ‘slow lane’. For an additional fee on top of my hosting costs, I have to pay in order to get my site to go as fast as Amazon, Comedy Central, ESPN, etc. All who have way more money to outspend the average person, and thereby diminishing the quality of the internet for anyone who might not prefer to use the services of sites that can afford the ‘fast lane’.

The growth of YouTube and other broadband-intensive services is opening up vast new markets both in terms of economic expansion and personal expression. To abolish net neutrality would cease to give the consumers control of which services are successful, and place it in the hands of a few telecom companies that may not always have the consumers needs and interest ahead of short-term profits or stifling competition.

My entire career has been predicated on the technologies and trends that the openness of the Internet has fostered. The more control we give to private corporations over which trends and technologies will succeed, the less people like myself will be able to contribute to the market, ultimately stifling progress and possibly putting my economic stability at risk.

‘Nuff said, go sign the petition.

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Le Grand Content

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Web 2.0, Nicely said [typed]

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