This week, we take a look at YouTube's effort to aid citizen journalism, Oprah Winfrey's end date for her long-running talk show, and augmented reality being incorporated into the marketing strategies of the movie Avatar

YouTube launches channel for citizen journalists

Citizen journalism received a boost when YouTube launched YouTube Direct, a service that makes it easier for TV and online news editors to obtain amateur videos of a breaking news event, town-hall meetings, and Jessica Alba.

News agencies that are testing out YouTube Direct – including The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post – will have a YouTube Direct section on their webpages to invite readers to upload videos about a particular topic. The news agencies will then be notified of new videos uploaded, and editors would vet through the videos before publishing it on their websites.

“As YouTube has become a global platform for sharing the news, media organisations have been looking for a good way to connect directly with citizen reporters on our site so they can broadcast this footage and bring it to a larger audience," wrote YouTube's head of news and politics Steve Groves in a blogpost.

"It's an incentive to upload great video, because of the recognition you'll get from legitimate news organizations," he added.

Grove highlighted examples of situations in which YouTube Direct can play a big part in delivering and democratising the news-gathering process, including the a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in China and the controversial elections in Iran.

Watch the video below to learn more about YouTube Direct:

Oprah Winfrey to end talk show in 2011

Oprah fans, start bringing out those tissues, for the Queen of Talk is finally closing the curtains on her long-running talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, on Sept 9, 2011.

On last Friday morning, a tearful Winfrey made the formal announcement of the news, which broke the night before, that she would end the show after 25 years.

"After much prayer and months of careful thought, I've decided the next season, Season 25, will be the last season of 'The Oprah Winfrey Show,' " she said. "I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it's time to say goodbye. Twenty-five years feels right in my bones. And it feels right in my spirit."

This doesn't mean that Winfrey is retiring from broadcasting, however. According to an anonymous source quoted in The New York Times Blog, Winfrey would then concentrate on her upcoming cable channel, The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), which is scheduled to premiere in January, 2011.

Winfrey told her staffers that she will not transfer the show to cable, and is expected to produce new programmes for OWN, a 50-50 joint venture between her production company and Discovery Communications.

Winfrey’s net worth is estimated by Forbes to be USD2.7 billion (RM9.72 billion) with “The Oprah Winfrey Show” being successful talk show in syndication and reaches about seven million viewers a day.

Augmented reality apps to penetrate mainstream campaign

Augmented reality (AR) – a hologram-like technology where viewers can see an altered view of reality through virtual computer-generated imagery – may be a relatively new technology, but Twentieth Century Fox, together with Coca-Cola and McDonald's, are willing to include it into their mainstream marketing plans for blockbuster Avatar.

The James Cameron-directed blockbuster, due out Dec 18, would see McDonald's and Coca-Cola produce millions of AR-enabled merchandise in the weeks leading up to the movie's debut. To enable an AR-image, one would require a webcam and software (usually embedded within a website) to "translate" an image printed on a physical surface into a 3-D image. An example of how this works can be seen with the AR interface below, which was developed by Sony Pictures to market the movie District 9:

It remains debatable whether such a unique campaign would reach out to a wide audience, given the barriers to entry of having a webcam and Internet connection. However Rita Drucker, the senior vice president of film promotions at Fox is confident that AR would capture the audience's imagination.

"Augmented reality has become a unique way for consumers to interact with an IP, and for us it's a way to extend the experience with the movie," said Drucker in an interview with AdAge. "Given that consumers are interacting with the interactive space in a much more aggressive way, we're looking at unique ways to engage that digitally."

Coke Zero would produce 140 million cans and more than 30 million fridge packs, as well as bags, bottles, popcorn bags and drink cups that would be imprinted with Coke Zero logos and utilise AR. McDonald's is set to employ a similar tactic, with special Happy Meal packaging that will take kids to anAvatar-branded site that would then lead to a McDonald's virtual world.