You tube becomes "Viewtube"!

Youtube has brought all the UK Political Party Youtube sites into one portal to make them easier to find.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched the site appropriately through a Youtube Video!

This should be a useful resource to all citizens or "netizens" in the coming years and is likely to receive a lot of hits at the next General Election. It should reach out to groups such as young people, who are hard to reach through other campaign techniques.

It will be interesting to see whether unofficial videos made by individuals rather than political parties are also placed there?

TCC uses web 2.0 systems such as Youtube and wiki sites for community engagement where the public can add their own content on websites. We believe this has a lot of potential for social marketing and community cohesion work as well as more general campaigning.

As online video becomes easier and cheaper to upload, we could see entire debates conducted through video blogging (Vlogs) and through sites as Youtube. This has potential to revolutionise how the public express their views and could make politicians much more accountable to the public they serve.