U.S. Congressman Leverages Online Video, Open APIs
Open APIs (application program interfaces) seem too technical to be truly important. Yet, for communicators they can create a whole new world of opportunity.
The recent trend of social media organizations such as Facebook opening their APIs to outside programmers means popular web apps — including video — can now reach members of these communities. Miller TV is a great example.
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., recently launched his own video blog to Facebook members through a customized service developed by SplashCast. This makes the congressman’s video channel available to anyone in the Facebook community, and enables Facebook users to embed it on their profile pages.
Miller now has direct access to members of a vast, red-hot online community, where opinions spread like wildfire at the click of a mouse.
But there’s more. Miller also has created a virtual dialogue across all layers of the Web by using the tag “askgeorge.” Citizens can videotape questions to the congressman and upload them to YouTube, SplashCast, BlipTV or Google Video, as well as post them on blogs. Miller’s team simply captures the questions by searching for the tag.
Miller, who states on his website that he’d like to use Miller TV to “hold a running virtual town hall meeting on the war in Iraq,†has found a pretty ingenious way to do just that — leveraging online communities and the growing power of Web 2.0 to communicate with his constituents and the public at large.
Professionals in other fields could easily follow suit.
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