Community service is "Most Popular" on YouTube...when Chris Brown is doing it

Never has a community service video raced to the top of YouTube's "Most Popular" list faster than this video of Chris Brown, serving his 180-day court-ordered community service for beating ex-girlfriend Rihanna:



The video, which has close to 300,000 views, depicts Brown clearing weeds at police horse stables in Virginia. At about :56, he appears to be heckled by a man wearing a "Break the Cycle, Stop Teen Violence" t-shirt.

Smarter searching in All for Good

[Cross-posted on Google Public Sector Blog. YouTube's Video Volunteers platform uses the All for Good gadget to connect nonprofit organizations with skilled video-makers.]

One of the top concerns we've been hearing from nonprofit organizations who list volunteer opportunities on All for Good is that their opportunities aren't updated on the site as frequently as they need. This happens because All for Good doesn't directly receive volunteer opportunities from nonprofits - we crawl feeds from partners like VolunteerMatch and Idealist just like Google web search crawls web pages. Crawlers don't immediately update, they take time to find new information.

Today, we're rolling out improvements to All for Good that will help solve this problem and improve search quality for users. The biggest change, which you won't see directly, is that our search engine is now powered by SOLR, an incredible open source project that will allow us to provide higher quality and more up-to-date opportunities. Nonprofits should start seeing their opportunities indexed faster, and users should see more relevant and complete results.

We're also making searching easier by launching categories. When you go to All for Good, you now have the option to search by categories of listings in addition to keywords, making it easier to find opportunities you're interested in. Categorization is just the first of several features we'll be adding in the coming months to help you find interesting ways to give back to your community.

We hope you'll try out All for Good and participate in a service activity this summer. If you're interested in helping others do good, you can get involved in All for Good by contributing to our source code, developing an application with our API, or embedding the All for Good gadget on your web site or blog.

Posted by Leon Palm and Eric Hysen, Public Sector Team

A CNN for the slums

Spotlight on a cool YouTube channel doing innovative things with video in the developing world: Video Volunteers. This non-profit group is creating a self-described "CNN or BBC for the one billion people living on less than two dollars a day."

Their idea is pretty simple, albeit not easy to pull off. Basically, they're trying to empower people living in slums and villages around the world by giving them the tools to produce video content. By enabling local communities to create videos telling their story with affordable video and editing equipment, Video Volunteers hopes to set up a "global community media network."

They're doing amazing work already in India. Take a look at this video, in which young kids take action on the lack of a playground in their neighborhood:





http://www.youtube.com/videovolunteers

Get a Call from Mrs. Obama

Last week, President-elect Obama and General Colin Powell called on all Americans to devote next Monday, Martin Luther King Day, to community service and volunteerism through the Renew America Together campaign. Now, the campaign is teaming up with YouTube to sponsor a video competition encouraging citizens to document how they are making a difference in their communities on MLK Day:



All you have to do to enter the contest is post your video as a video response to the above video. The winner of the single best video will receive a personal phone call from First Lady Michelle Obama.

Still don't know where to go to volunteer on the 19th? Visit www.usaservice.org to find a community service opportunity near you.