John Edwards just sent me an email that prompted me to act.
The email asked me to contribute money to help him put an ad, about ending the war, on TV in Washington. I didn't do that.
It also asked me to create a video. That I did.
Edwards says:
I asked my staff to create an emergency television ad that would bring the people's voice directly to Congress, calling on them to make the right choice. They worked late into the night and we now have a powerful message ready to go on the air in D.C. as soon as tomorrow morning.
I get lots of emails similar to this one. They always ask for money to put an ad on TV, and I always wonder why they don't encourage people to spread the videos on line.
This time the ad is up on YouTube, and there is something different at the end of the email too.
Edwards asks people to contribute to the ad by recording video of themselves saying "We the People":
We've designed the ad so you can actually add yourself in online. We hope that dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people will send in video clips of themselves echoing the message of the ad — "We the people" are asking Congress to stand up to Bush.
This makes it very easy to participate and collaborate with the campaign to send a message to Washington.
Anyone with a webcam can post a video response. People are already discussing the ad's merits, in the comments, on YouTube.
I'll be interested to see how many video responses get posted. They've made it easy to participate and it's an issue that a lot of people feel strongly about. At this early stage of the campaign, I think a lot of people like myself who haven't yet decided on a candidate, might contribute to this video, since it's more about the issue, and less about endorsing a candidate.
The campaign has it set up so that video responses will be posted after they have been approved by the video owner.
Read more here - John Edwards: We The People.
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Great idea, but YouTube falls short
This video is a great example of the type of rapid response video that we're going to see over the next two years.
However, YouTube is not the appropriate host for the video. Here's the problem, when the video is embedded onto a site like Steve did in his post above, YouTube ends the video with two options: watch again and forward to a friend. But as Steve noted, that's not the intended purpose of the video, it's real ask is to accumulate donations and get people to upload their own video.
YouTube doesn't allow users to embed their own clickable ads. Blip.tv does, so does Veoh.com. Campaigns should become fluent in content delivery systems and not just throw their videos on YouTube. Blip and veoh would expand the viral effect of the video by giving all viewers, not just those on the email list the same opportunity to take the desired action of uploading video and making a donation.