YouTube and the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) have announced a new channel dedicated to broadcasting videos of missing children, called Don’t You Forget About Me. The announcement was made on the 100th day since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
According to the press release, photographs are currently the most useful tool in finding missing children. It’s only logical that as people are spending more time online, such important information is finding a way to adapt to the new medium. The ICMEC saw YouTube and its growing popularity as a natural means of broadcasting their message.
Madeleine’s parents are very enthusiastic about the new venture. The videos are accessible to a much larger audience in a relatively short amount of time. Apart from videos about the missing children, the channel will also feature child safety information and messages of support from high profile people.
I think that the channel is a great idea, although it is only effective if people pull together and post the videos on their sites (which makes the fact that the embedding function on this Find Madeleine video has been disabled a real pity…). The reason why photographs have played such a large role in recovering lost children is that they are prominent features in mainstream media.
Coming from an SEO perspective, I know all too well that it’s not enough just to have something on the Internet; it needs to be in front of people’s eyes. But judging by the immense international support for The Find Madeleine Campaign, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Quirk is a marketing agency. Born digital. Driven by creativity. Disciplined by results.
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Finding Missing Children with YouTube
by Alice Gnodde
2007/08/13
Comments
Wow.
Well, that is certainly a very admirable initiative on your part and I hope things work out well with YouTube.
There are definitly greater social issues at stake when it comes to finding missing children.
You're right though, the URL isn't very memorable. But YouTube and ICMEC have given the public a platform, now we just need to work with it
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Hi,
It is indeed a great initiative. The day it was launched though, I thought the URL was not very memorable and in the long-term could be forgotton. It will therefore rely on continous PR and links from other sites. Keep in mind also, that none of their videos are allowed for embedding, which means other sites cannot make better use of my 'eyeballs'.
In the meantime, I remembered seeing a very fitting domain name for sale www.MissingChildren.tv and thought it would be perfect for the concept of it being a more memorable video 'channel' so why not buy it and try and help the overall initiative - linking to their YouTube channel and offering my support.
I have sent a message to them but suspect they are very busy right now with the amount of initial interest, but hopefully they will reply positively to collaborate. Even if it only helps to find one more child, it will have been worth the effort.
Best wishes
Posted by vince on 2007/08/16