Thursday, May 28, 2009

Default page for News & Politics category should be "Most Viewed"

I posted this important suggestion on the new YouTube Help Forum, please visit this link and post a reply to show your support for this suggestion: Default page for News & Politics category should be "Most Viewed" The way it is set up now, videos in the News & Politics section are handicapped so this is really important if we want YouTube to be a fair platform for political speech. I plan to upload a video about this later today, in the Nonprofits & Activism category.

The text of the comment is below, but remember to visit this link in order to show your support for and give your opinion on what I am suggesting.

Default page for News & Politics category should be "Most Viewed"
Please change the default page for the News & Politics category back to the way it was, to the way it is now for other countries like Canada and the UK. I'm sure others would want the situation with the News & Politics section to be improved because the way it is now, the News & Politics section is handicapping political speech. When a YouTube user in America or "Worldwide" clicks on News & Politics, they are taken to something called "Top News" as the default. That section is often lately limited to only 1 to 3 pages of listings, well under 100 videos, while every other section gives 5 pages in order to display 100 videos. Also, we are given no information on how it is determined which videos get listed in "Top News," the default page really should be "Most Viewed" so people can know that what gets listed prominently in News & Politics is determined fairly. Could you please give American users the same opportunity to see the 100 most viewed videos easily as users in Canada and the UK can? We here on YouTube certainly don't deserve to be subjected to the same bad habits of marginalization and narrowing of political discourse which permeate other American media outlets. Let's allow Americans the same degree of political discourse here on YouTube as other YouTube users are getting now in Canada and the UK. What we are asking is that the default page for News & Politics be the "Most Viewed" the same way it is now for people in Canada and the UK and other countries. That means at least 100 videos (it should be even more) in the default category of "Most Viewed" and without the content being marginalized down the page by "Top Headlines" and "News Near You." And please don't change the other countries into the poor way it is now for "Worldwide," the point is "Top News" is not a good default page. Also, a user has to scroll down to see the top videos listed and this bad layout undermines the exposure of the ad on that page too! (I only see half of the ad without scrolling.) That would at least bring it to the same level of fairness which users in other countries are getting now. 

I suggest that all categories be expanded to at least 1000 videos and this change would be beneficial to YouTube, it would make for more page views - more ad exposure for YouTube. This would be a major improvement and I am sure it will increase ad revenue for YouTube.

Friday, May 15, 2009

3 Years! Now Let's Get to the Next Level of Publicity.

SEE VIDEO: 3 Years! Now Let's Get to the Next Level of Publicity.

Before joining YouTube, I already was blogging and before I started my blog I had a public access show on MNN (Manhattan Neighborhood Network.)

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Strategy to Protect our Rights

The establishment of a representative media with a representative press is arguably the most important strategy to protect our rights. The way things are now, our rights are constantly being trampled and we are paying an enormous cost. I think a good plan of action is to boost this platform, what I call "Representative Press" (the YouTube Channel, the blog, website etc.), because the more people that see these ideas, the more we have moved closer to our goal. People need to hear about how things could be better if we just work together to establish a system which will be beneficial to us all. Part of the mission is to point out how propaganda is used to undermine attempts to keep powerful interests in check.