[Web4lib] YouTube's: Project Awesome

[Alnisa Allgood]

I haven't seen this mentioned on the list yet, so thought I'd share. On Dec
17, 2007 the YouTube Most Discussed video page was completely taken over by
a project initiated by two 'nerdfighting' brothers, Hank & John, of
Brotherhood 2.0  http://www.brotherhood2.com .  They created a nonprofit
activism project called Project Awesome; and while I'll go into the project
a bit more later, the reason why I thought it was of interest to te group,
is because of the number of individuals who created videos supporting
libraries or various reading efforts.  From Reading is Fundemental to
FirstBook to local and college libraries, also Room to Read, and the Magic
Yeti Library. All toll there are 4,110 related videos to the project:
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=project+for+awesome&search=Search
and the project really is very awesome.
Anyway, here's a quick write up on the project that I did for my
organization on FaceBook  http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=8825146030.
 I'm just hoping to spread the word. The project reigned over at YouTube for
two days, and even still there are a number of the project messages showing
up in the most discussed videos

Written 18 Dec 2007
Two brothers, Hank & John, have inspired YouTubbers to take action, get
involve, and support their favorite nonprofit or nonprofit cause. They've
introduced the project, Project Awesome, and it currently owns almost ALL of
the video slots as the most discussed video(s) of today. Take a look
http://youtube.com/browse?s=md .

Hank & John have a video blog, Brotherhood 2.0, which you can visit at
YouTube: http://youtube.com/profile?user=vlogbrothers or at their website:
http://brotherhood2.com/ Both brothers are kindy of geeky, and eco-activists
to some degree. But this project is more than that.

They've gained the cooperation of a number of top vloggers to each post a
video about a cause or organization they support, and then had not only the
vloggers normal audience, but 4,000 volunteers watch, discuss, and act on
the videos. This action has gotten YouTube excited. Just the 5 videos I
watched had accumulated over 175,000 views. Now that's probably note 175,000
individuals, but could easily account for 100,000 active individuals in 1-2
days. And the best yet, is that there are at least another 10-15 videos to
get through.

I watched videos that supported Teenage Cancer Trust, Mr. Holland's Opus,
Kids Alive, First Book, Reading Is Fundamental, Hurricane Katrina, and the
Elliot Smith Memorial. I was impressed, am impressed. What an awesome
project! Not only did it introduce me to a couple causes that I hadn't heard
of before (which is kind of hard, I am in the nonprofit business), but it
was amazing to see so many different people come out and stand-up for
something. Plus the efforts have generated a lot of traffic ad hopefully
even some donations for the various charities.

I urge you all to get over to YouTube today, so you can see the project
still at its height:http://youtube.com/browse?s=md But if you can't visit
today, just search on 'Project Awesome' on YouTube and pull the may videos
and video responses.

This project was a great use of technology being used to support nonprofit
causes; as well as an innovated use of coordinating a global effort to
encourage people to act out and be active in the world; or as Hank & John
say, 'reduce world suck!'

Alnisa