Government hits YouTube

The Cabinet Office has placed two promotional videos on the YouTube file sharing website One of the videos promotes the Transformational Government strategy, while the other deals with the theme of leadership. A Cabinet Office spokesperson told GC News on 22 August 2006 that it was an "unofficial" trial designed to test the potential of the site. "It's not a bad idea to communicate with people through a website that is proving very popular," the spokesperson said. "It's not future policy to use this kind of communication but we are interested. Given that we are a major source of information and services for the public we need to find new ways of communicating." The videos have been on the site for three months, in which the one on Transformational Government has attracted 790 viewers and that on leadership has pulled in 430. There was only one comment on each, describing them as government propaganda. The spokesperson added that the Cabinet Office is ready to consider the possibilities for communicating through other channels. Source: KableDIRECT Publication date: 22/08/2006 15:16:16