SF Mayor Gavin Newsom comes to YouTube

December 1, 2008 | Anthony Ha | Comments |

Looks like President-elect Barack Obama isn’t the only politician to see the value of communicating through popular video site YouTube. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom created a YouTube channel to deliver this year’s State of the City address — all 7.5 hours of it.

We’ve been fans of Obama’s YouTube addresses, because they make it much easier to see and hear the president-elect’s words. The first address has been viewed nearly 1 million times, and according to my highly scientific measurement of “what my friends talk about at parties,” these videos are starting to enter the general cultural conversation. That’s no mean feat — how many weekly presidential addresses (which are traditionally broadcast over the radio) did you listen to before this?

Not that Obama is the first politician on YouTube. In fact, Newsom actually modeled his channel on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Regardless, more and more elected officials are jumping on this bandwagon.

Newsom is approaching these videos a bit differently than Obama. The most notable difference is the aforementioned 7.5 hour length, spread out over several videos, each about 45 minutes in length. Apparently, Newsom took advantage of the freedom provided by YouTube to go on and on in much more depth.

On the one hand, it’s cool to see Newsom deliver a speech that could never have been broadcast on traditional television — except maybe on CSPAN? — and with more interactivity in the presentation. Instead of tuning in and out, you can just choose the video that you’re interested in. On the other hand, 45 minutes per topic is nuts. Will anyone other than the hardcore policy wonks sit through one YouTube video of that length, much less multiple videos?

New videos will be unveiled throughout the week; VentureBeat readers may want to tune in on Thursday, when the economic development segment gets posted. As a San Francisco resident, I’m pretty disappointed that housing isn’t one of the announced topics, but perhaps that will be part of the larger business discussion.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • First, why in the world would anyone need to talk for 7.5 hours? Less talk, more action. Second, why are you talking about Obama's YouTube presentations at parties?
  • 1) Well, there's probably enough substance to fill the time, but I think there's also real democratic (small d) value in communicating your main points in a video people could actually watch.
    2) I feel so alone right now.
  • Gav
    Housing in covered in the Economic section, of which there are actually TWO 45-minute Economic segments. Sorry, I can't remember which of the two it is in. Some of the points are the 15,000 new units in the last years, Schlage Lock property, the Hunter's Point project and the re-zoning in the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan.
  • Well, that's good, but ... TWO economic segments? Seriously? I used to attend city council meetings for fun, and I still think that's going overboard.
  • On a more serious note and from a politically strategic standpoint, think about how much open fodder this will create for re-election campaign time (not sure if this guy will even run again, but I assume he'll be running for something at some point). With 7.5 hrs of material, his opponents will have ample opportunity to just pick away at his words, particularly where things didn't unfold the way he outlined. To an extent, the same will go for Obama, but it's not as if there isn't enough opportunity to have video of any President saying something that wasn't followed through on. But, it is something to think about for Obama supporters ... the challenges for his administration are probably larger than any other in the last fifty years and hundred years with the exception of FDR. He has to perform at 150% on everything he does ... if not, people will turn fast. Voters tend to have short memories. I recall one guy winning with a historical record in 2004.
  • Mark,

    Although I agree with your argument, I think this may hold politicians more accountable in the long run. So I guess that sort of falls in on your argument. Either way I think this is a great resource that can be used to reach a larger audience.

    I guarantee you will see a huge rise in this.
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