Would a ministry or church let their members upload videos to their website?
Even if videos require approval and review before publishing, would leaders give up that much control and let their members post their own videos to the site? Or would they remove a member's video if it doesn't represent their ministry in the best light?
Several months ago, Youtube announced an API that lets developers create Youtube applications on 3rd party websites.
An application programming interface, or API, is a way for developers to access features, databases, and other objects across the web. It essentially enables a website to be a platform where 3rd party developers can create applications and web services on top of it.
In Youtube's case, their API lets websites recreate Youtube's functionality on their own site. Sites can let their visitors upload videos and play them back on a custom player. This makes sense for a site that wants to upload, host, and stream lots of video content - but doesn't want to pay the bandwidth or storage bills...
End of tech background
I just finished a Youtube API implementation to let members easily upload church videos. It'll be interesting to see how churches adopt. Will members be encouraged by their church leaders to freely post videos? Or will "church videos" only be officially sanctioned videos of sermons.
- Joe Suh from MyChurch
ps. The Youtube API is one of the cleanest and easiest to implement that I've seen. Very clear documentation and helpful support from Youtube.
pss. Here's a free e-book by Seth Godin called Flipping the Funnel - challenging non-profits to let their fans speak up by flipping a traditional marketing funnel, into a megaphone for their members.
I'm doing just that with this rebuild of my church's site. We will have the necessary editorial controls in place, but I am really pushing for an open dialog with members and the general public.
As a corollary, I'm getting ready to invite the high school group to run its own site (with moderation as above). They have the most to gain (and give) by leading the web efforts.
Posted by: Kyle Kinnaman | January 30, 2009 at 10:12 PM
Kyle, thanks for the comment. Just FYI - you left it before I finished the post... (I accidentally published it early, oops!)
When your church site is up, please come back and leave a comment with the URL. Would love to see how your church uses member videos. Let me know if you need any help with the Youtube API.
Posted by: Joe Suh | January 31, 2009 at 12:29 AM