A few days back, YouTube informed the world that it has exceeded two billion video views per day.  There are now also more than 24 hours worth of video uploaded every minute, and the site has become the second largest search engine.  All of this, in just five years!  For a bit of history, check out their birthday video below..

• Featured video on the YouTube homepage
• Prizes from Flip Video and Nonprofit Technology Network
• Recognition at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Atlanta on Saturday, April 10, 2010
• A $2,500 donation from the Case Foundation
• Screening of the video at a special event in Washington DC, hosted by Nomadsland.com, a publishing platform for nonprofit videos.

To find out more and to submit a video to the contest, visit www.youtube.com/nonprofitvideoawards.

Below, spokesperson Jesse McCartney tells more about the project and speaks for the project’s non-profit partner Stand up to Cancer.

The video has caused especially wide commenting in the US where texting while driving is not illegal in all states.  The trend in anti-texting messages there has so far been to try and get across more gently through humour.  In this case though, grim reality seems to be working;  one survey in the US found that 80% of people who had seen the Gwent film were less likely to text while driving than before…

Non-for-profits should consider this growing trend in their communication plans, ensuring they include short, engaging clips in to their outreach toolbox, such as this one by WHO:

WHO raised the pandemic level to an alarming 5 (out of 6), and panicked people across the globe turned to the Internet for information: In no time, blogosphere discussion on swine flu surpassed even the buzz created by singing star Susan Boyle. Hundreds of updates were made to Wikipedia’s swine flu page, and 500+ Facebook groups were established. Twitter ruled online discussion, with more than 10,000 tweets on swine flu recorded per hour!

Throughout this feverish online activity, WHO was fairly absent (though being quoted in all media). CDC ,on the other hand, has been using social media tools in textbook manner, establishing themselves as the trusted expert and online voice of reason. Through two Twitter accounts: @CDCEmergency and @CDC_eHealth they are providing information updates, and followers has risen to more than 65,000 (from 600 prior to the outbreak). Through Twitter, CDC has also directed people to their YouTube channel where videos related to swine flu have so far clocked up more than 800,000 views. They’ve also set up a page on their own website, with RSS feeds, podcasts, subscription to email updates etc.. The approach is paying off, with total website visits having grown by 123% this week alone.  Need one say more?

This, a ground-breaking approach for WHO, comes at a time when Europe’s immunization programmes are facing grave new challenges: the effectiveness of vaccinations in reducing the incidence of what were once common diseases have led to public misapprehension with regard  to vaccines. A combination of complacency and scepticism has allowed for the persistent propagation of misinformation, facilitated by online discussion fora and blogs.

Meanwhile, 423 000 European children were unvaccinated last year for diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DTP vaccine) and 633 000 children did not receive their first dose of measles vaccine, resulting in one new measles case every hour.  The campaign seeks to counter this worrying development, stressing that immunization is every child’s right and vital in protecting from disease.

The social media based initiative covering countries from Tajikistan to Ireland, has been developed by M4ID, together with Laundry.

For more go to the EIW site.

Unfortunately though YouTube’s non-profit partner programme is currently only available for organizations registered in the US and the UK. If you are video advocating/communicating from one of these countries, you can easily add the feature from the video edit options (there is a built in form with a headline, ad text, destination url and possibility to upload a photo).  Hopefully these tools will also becomes abvailable to a larger user group soon!