Tuesday, September 2, 2008
YouTubing the Office
Coming soon, to an office near you, Web video about your job and workplace--a private YouTube just for your organization.
Google Video for business, launched Labor Day, allows any company, agency, nonprofit, you-name-it to host its own internal YouTube for the enterprise. For a mere $50 a seat, Google will give an organization a secure spot to store videos created by employees, the same viewers and ease of uploading as YouTube users get, but the videos are not available for the public to see.
Without a doubt, many employees soon will be viewing, rather than reading, quarterly reports, messages from the agency head or CEO, instructions, emergency missives, training and more. Heck, the Office of Personnel Management might just film the snowfall as evidence the next time it closes the government in Washington! Just like YouTube, this new app lets viewers rate and comment on videos, no doubt giving rise to a whole new form of office etiquette: artfully responding to videos of higher-ups. Hint: rate 'em high!
As easy as it is to use YouTube once you've got video to share, it's now becoming just as simple to shoot the stuff. Macs come with built-in video cameras--just tilt the screen and shoot. And the new Flip video camera is supremely user-friendly and lets amateur Spielbergs just plug it into the USB port and upload directly to YouTube and now to YouTube for business.
To be fair, there is another company in this market, a 2007 startup called Veodia, but it's hard to imagine Google won't own the space now that it has entered it.
For a workforce as large and far-flung as Uncle Sam's, this promises to be a huge boon for communications, if agencies adopt it. And who knows, with the right acquisition strategy--say a Networx contract for Google--agencies might just get YouTubed for a song. If the District of Columbia can afford it . . .
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5 comments:
The YouTube option won't work at USDA -- they've blocked YouTube at the firewall and it's not accessible from any agency computer.
Ah, but that's the ingenious part of Google's new offering. Knowing that many organizations block YouTube, they now are offering them their OWN YouTube behind the firewall. Thus, USDA officials and employees (with permission, presumably) could post videos on USDA YouTube for only USDA staff to see. It's a way for Google to "own" the Web video market outside AND inside enterprises. But for organizations, companies and government agencies, it does offer a pretty nifty option: a corporate video intranet.
Looks like the DC government is leading the charge,"With Google Apps, we can have employees working from home, employees sitting in traditional offices, and other employees on travel, all working on the same document, updating it in real time and collaborating." (Vivek Kundra, CTO of Washington DC, in an article by Doug Beizer Federal Computer Week, Sept. 1)
Yes, the DC government has hopped aboard, as I note in my post and as is clear in the video at the end of the post. That was my point, If the DC government can afford it, federal agencies surely can!
Google Video is a great internal solution, but there still needs to be further updates to ensure that it is full intergrated with Google Apps Premier Edition.
YouTube is several versions ahead, but based on Google Apps updates it will only be a matter of months before Google Video for Business is enterprise ready.
There is already a fair demand for enterprise video solutions within the Australian market, these great developments empower Google Apps users.
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