Saw this on my friend, Groovehouse’s website. Yahoo! has apparently launched the BETA version of it’s new You Witness news website that allows internet users who witness news in action to upload photos, videos and text realating to the news story. It’s an interesting idea that works on Web 2.0 principals. Since Yahoo! already owns Flickr, this makes sense for them.
As someone who grew up in a family full of journalists, I’ll admit that this does make me a little nervous. Unlike traditional journalism, there is no way of sourcing something like this and verifying it for authenticity. But, in an increasignly media-hungry society, I guess it is the next logical step.
On the other hand, as someone who works in the website development industry and is fascinated by all things net, I find this an intriguing service that could be a big hit. Why not? YouTube is already proving that you don’t need big budgets to produce video worth watching.
I’ll definitely be watching this.