The Google News Blog is asking Google News publications to sign up for the YouTube Partner Program in order to get your videos more exposure.
If you use Google News, you would have noticed that they are playing up YouTube videos. Many of the results contain little YouTube icons, at least for the past month or so, to encourage people to view those videos. Here is a screen shot of how those icons are displayed in Google News:
Since we do weekly videos, I think it might be a good match for this site. Maybe I'll start doing more videos, if they bring in more traffic. We will see.
Right now, Google News only told Google News publishers to apply to the YouTube partner program. What happens afterwards is a bit of a mystery. Google said, "will do a separate review and follow-up about including your videos in Google News." So we are waiting further instructions.
A WebmasterWorld thread is not too happy about this request. One said:
And that's why I prefer Yahoo! News. Too many low quality blogs in there passing as "news".
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.