Just saw the news on Sam Jackson‘s blog (who reads religiously TechCrunch, so you don’t have to ;-)
YouTube has just launched a “private” channel dedicated to college videos indexed by institutions.
“Want to see the highlights of last weekend’s game (or last night’s party)? It’s easier than ever to share videos with friends at your college on YouTube—join up and add videos to the pool. You can also start or join groups within your college, to hook up with others who have the same interests.”
More than 30 institutions are already listed in the index, 30 more are coming soon and you can suggest yours.
The rules of engagement?
An edu email address is required to sign up, check out and upload videos.
Apparently, you can only view the videos of your institution (not sure about that as mine wasn’t listed yet, so I didn’t get instant access)
As I hinted in the title of this post, this new service seems to have the flavor of a “facebooked” YouTube.
Probably something to watch closely if your institution let alums keep their edu email… (to learn about anything broadcasted there before they do ;-)
Right now, I don’t see how this could be used to market your institution as it’s only open to people already members of its community. But, what do you think?
Shame it’s .edu only – hope they open it up to the rest of us asap.