In a recent blog post, Storyful editor and TED speaker Markham Nolan says that YouTube is ”becoming the most important repository of documentary evidence about humankind in existence.”

What makes YouTube so important, and why it it important to monitor it?

It’s a valuable primary source

YouTube is a source of original, unedited videos of events and presentations that aren’t available elsewhere. Media will edit, spin, label, and otherwise attempt to color the raw material.

As Markham Nolan says:

I wanted to watch the [Democratic National Convention] unadulterated, without commentary, without the partisan hackery or faux-objectivity of the networks. YouTube had a page dedicated to the conventions, where I could browse in and out of the live action as it happened, or, when things became a little dull, review videos from speeches I had missed.

Your niche industry is covered

Broadcast media, such as cable news or radio, have a set number of channels or frequencies and can only dedicate limited time to any single event. YouTube, on the other hand, has no such limits. No matter how small a subject is, it can be covered in great depth.

Nolan remarks on the recent Red Bull stunt:

Felix Baumgartner’s edge-of-the-atmosphere parachute jump was the second. Eight million people logged on to watch that little hop live via YouTube. News channels couldn’t devote the adequate time to it and would skip in and out, but Red Bull’s YouTube channel streamed the entire thing.

Get deep coverage

To paraphrase David Bowie, with YouTube we can be journalists, if just for one day. Gain access to raw information not available to journalists or that are too small to have covered in detail.

Nolan gives the Arab Spring as an example of this:

We are now the most chronicled generation in history. There has never been a greater level of unfiltered documentation of humanity (caveats coming) in history. It also gives us a window into countries that old-school news would never have shown.Through YouTube you get to see past media stereotypes to get candid glimpses from Saudi Arabia, central Russia, caucus states, Pacific islands and elsewhere.

What does this mean for you?

There is an ever increasing amount of content to monitor and analyze and YouTube is a space where this is occurring. Your tools should be keeping up with the pace and helping you sift through this potentially overwhelming information.

Although traditional broadcast, print, and online media are still dominant and where most people go to get their news, YouTube is growing. It’s more important than just rounding out your monitoring and competitive analysis. It’s indispensable.

See a TED Talk by Markham Nolan TED Talk here:

(Hat tip to Kate Torovnick at the TED Blog)

Love her or hate her, there is no denying Rebecca Black is a Web phenomenon right now with her “Friday” song clocking in at just over 47 million views on YouTube.  When the video was first pointed out to me this time last week (thanks to office superfan Mick!)  “Friday” had a paltry 14 million or so hits, but the past seven days has seen that number skyrocket.  While only a few million of those could realistically be attributed to our office superfan, it seems there are a whole bunch of you out there who just can’t get enough of Rebecca Black and “Friday”, so bringing the people what they want here is that now infamous video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0]

The overall trends do appear to paint a pretty decent picture of what grabbed our attention over the year, although seeing Justin Bieber in there at number 8 does make you question if we all had a little too much time on our hands in 2010!  Facebook have produced a similar list (#6 Justin Bieber) from the year’s Status Updates and as such the list is distinctly different from those generated by Google and Twitter.  For the full Facebook Memology check out the Facebook blog here.

However, it is not just the social networks making these lists.. the 2010 Zeta Buzz Awards measure the popularity of the Web’s major social media sites over the year.  YouTube and Flickr come out as the big winners, gaining positive mentions 91% and 98% of the time respectively, but further illustrating how the once mighty have fallen both MySpace and Friendster dropped out of the Top 10, and I wouldn’t hold out much hope of them returning in 2011.

How do these findings strike you?  Surprised?  Will Biebermania prove even more popular in 2011?  Let us know your thoughts below!

(image credit GooseGoddessS)

We posted just last week about ‘local’ being the new ‘social’ for news publishers and it seems the guardian.co.uk (perhaps even taking editorial inspiration from the Moreover Blog!?) agrees.

The Digital Content Blog has posted a nice write-up of just a handful of the developments over in the States where many online news outlets are already trying to take advantage of this new ‘hyperlocal‘ buzz. AOL and some former eBay execs are both taking interesting steps in this direction, with AOL looking to expand it’s recently acquired Patch network and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar bidding to kick-start his local news service Peer News. Not forgetting that we have blogged in the past about YouTube’s efforts in this area and with foursquare regularly being touted as the ‘next Twitter’ is hyperlocal getting you excited?

Above showing an example screenshot of a quick search over Microblogs in Newsdesk.

As we look to grow our social media monitoring tools and content we will be continuously adding to our “White List” of feeds, so as conversations happen across the Social Web the best place to track, analyse and manage your information is Moreover’s Newsdesk.