Over the past few weeks, YouNews™ has been getting tremendous usage in Seattle and Portland as the severe weather hitting the area gave the KOMO and KATU news teams a chance to let their viewers “do the reporting from their own backyard.” The News and Web teams at both stations did a tremendous job promoting YouNews on-air and running the submissions as part of the news coverage as they came in.

The results were incredible in terms of traffic and submissions, with thousands of video and photo postings coming in over a 36 hour window during the weekend. A great example KATU YouNews report video is one like this:

http://www.katu.com/younews/37304054.html?vid=a

Given the shifting demographics in television viewing, I think it’s interesting to note that this “YouNewser” is a teenager who obviously is excited to see her posting on TV and on the KATU website. I can’t think of a better way to reach out to the younger demographics in our audiences than encouraging them to participate in the news cast through social media applications such as YouNews.

Also, YouNews submissions even caused a scientific study at Washington State University to begin, as described in this newspaper article in the Kitsap Sun:

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/dec/30/mysterious-worms-weave-web-of-intrigue/

(Note: the Kitsap Sun is not a YouNews affiliate, so they were covering the submissions purely as local news)

Original YouNews posts:

http://www.komonews.com/younews/36837654.html

http://www.komonews.com/younews/36761024.html

For me personally, the biggest charge I get out of being an entrepreneur is seeing things like this happen. The impact of social media on local news has only just started to resonate, and I’m thrilled that YouNews will be at the center of allowing the general population to participate in their local news coverage.