Regular readers know that Socialmedia.biz covers not just social media but also citizen media — and it's all melding together anyway into one giant conversational media ecosystem, right?

So I was gladdened to hear that Google and YouTube have taken another tentative step forward into the realm of citizen journalism with Monday's launch of the YouTube Reporters' Center. Above is one of the featured videos: NPR's Scott Simon on How to Tell a Story.

YouTube has done some great work in the space with its pioneering Ask the presidential candidates a question in the CNN YouTube Debates and with its citizentube project currently documenting the turmoil in streets of Iraq.

While the pleas of some in the news profession for Google to step in and "save" the U.S. newspapers industry are downright silly, Google and YouTube are doing the smart thing by focusing on the journalism, not the underlying publishing platform, and by underscoring the need to uphold journalism values and standards instead of throwing it all on the scrapheap and starting from scratch, as all too many bloggers want to do.

Here's a guest post by my friend Oliva Ma of YouTube's News & Politics team announcing the new Center:

Helping you report the news

Ever captured a natural disaster or a crime on your cell-phone camera? Filmed a political rally or protest, and then interviewed the participants afterward? Produced a story about a local issue in your community? If you've done any of these things or aspire to, then you're part of the enormous community of citizen reporters on YouTube — and now we're launching a new resource to help you learn more about how to report the news.

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The Intel Insiders program just marked its first anniversary, so it's worth mentioning a few highlights over the past year. We advise Intel on social media matters. (I wrote about the program at its launch a year ago and posted this disclosure statement.)

I'm glad to see Intel taking out an even greater public presence this year, with its co-sponsorship of PBS's NewsHour and its deepening commitment to educational and charitable efforts around the globe. Some highlights for me:

• Trading ideas and comparing notes with some of the other Insiders, including Tom Foremski and Sarah Austin (both of whom will be part of the Traveling Geeks trip to London July 4-11), Cathy Brooks, Justine Ezarik, Brian Solis, Frank Gruber, Adriana Gascoigne and others. Intel is the chief underwriter of the Traveling Geeks trip, and I hope to post a few dispatches on their site during the trip.

• Our interview with Intel chairman and former CEO Craig Barrett. Here's our video interview with him at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year where he talks about corporate social repsonsibility. The following day he announced a wide-ranging new initiative by Intel to support the philanthropic micro-lending efforts of Kiva.org and the nonprofit charity Save the Children all across the globe.

• Here's my one-minute Animoto remix of my photo gallery of CES, set to a wicked soundtrack. (Intel paid for my trip to CES.) Which reminds me ... I need to use Animoto more often!

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I heart Facebook. This morning I awoke to Yet Another Facebook Innovation (YAFI). Facebook amazes me because they are driven to make things easier for me — or at least give it a go. Facebook is willing to suffer constant backlash in order to improve usability and efficiency.

Case in point below:

In this particular case, the innovation is what I call a “Twitterish” innovation — stealing something directly from Twitter. A couple weeks ago, I stayed up until 12:01AM to secure another hype-drenched Twitterish innovation: vanity URLS: facebook.com/chrisabraham — I am such a sucker!

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Murphy-Goode Winery becomes the talk of the Twitterverse

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AqKRvFFH_E[/youtube]

I’m not going to lie. It’s hard to work in PR and branding these days. You are bombarded with all sorts of expert information and advice. People are constantly suggesting you try this strategy, platform, or network. Your brand is not only expected to sustain a stable presence on old media channels but reinvent itself and strive under new media expectations.

All day I read articles, blogs, case studies about brands that tried something -- usually -- missed the boat, and are now enjoying the not always positive feedback we are all so ready to give.

But then again, every once and a while a company comes along and really hits the nail on the head. Today’s gold star for Social Media Dominator goes to: The Murphy-Goode Winery. Their latest social hiring strategy and contest has all the components of a successful online media initiative: purpose, vision, viral potential, rich media goodness, and more.

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NBC News' Ann Curry on Twitter from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Ann Curry, news anchor of NBC's "Today" show, spoke animatedly at the 140 Character Conference in New York last Monday about the importance of news and journalism as a public service rather than a business and the growing impact of social media services like Twitter.

I caught up with her as she was leaving and did a 3-minute video interview before her handlers ushered her away.

"Journalism is an act of faith in the future, and it is a war," she said. "Oftentimes I feel bloodied with a sword unsheathed. That's because you're fighting for stories that you want covered."

Curry smartly uses Twitter as a sort of electronic newspaper to spread the word about stories that didn't make it on air. (She tweets almost daily at @AnnCurry.) She points to the fact that many important stories don't get a lot of attention — in both traditional media and on Twitter. Viewers and users "want to watch something more salacious and that makes me crazy," and during the panel she bemoaned the items that often receive the most attention on sites like Twitter.

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Tools don't matter, and the best ones get out of the way, allowing people to connect more easily and effectively. That was my big takeaway from last Friday's second-annual Blog Potomac.

Obsessing about "what's next" in online services and technology saps too much valuable attention away from what's really important: connecting with people. We need to stop obsessing on what comes after Twitter and focus instead on how best to connect to, communicate with and relate to our clients, colleagues and consumers.

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When old-school advertising and PR bump up against modern media realities

Earlier this year Grey Germany put out three condom ads for Doc Morris pharmacies. They were attempts to wittily imply that the human race could have been spared three uber-butchers of the past century (Mao Tze-Tung, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden), and the horror and suffering they brought, by a simple condom (a Doc Morris condom, natch). The humble rubber as a superhero and savior of humanity -- there definitely is potential for some wonderful, dark, absurdist humor in that idea.

I can totally see how a certain young, urbane sector of German society could find these ads really quite funny and compelling -- as they did the suicide-themed Pepsi One ads done last year that offended so many outside the target demographic.

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We've said from the beginning that this would not just be a business blog but also a news blog about interesting things we're involved with.

So here are some oustanding photos I managed to capture this past weekend at the Santa Clara International Grand Prix swim tournament down the road in Silicon Valley. It was my third straight year with a photographer's media credentials, and I have to say I got some shots that were better than what I've seen from the Associated Press and Getty Images.

I'm releasing them all under a Creative Commons Noncommercial Attribution license — something you won't see from AP or Getty. :~)

Among those on hand: Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Leisel Jones, Summer Sanders, Ricky Berens, Kirsty Coventry, Stephanie Rice (Olympians all) and an amazing crop of talented up-and-comers from Cal, Stanford and around the world.

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Personal News Network from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Here's an 8-minute video interview with Leigh Behrens, president and editor-in-chief of PNN.com. The Personal News Network is a community site and blog platforms that targets mostly women, "the fastest-growing segment of user-generated content creators," Leigh says.

PNN allows you to easily get up and running with a blog and add your own voice and "to begin to grow your own social content on the site," she says.

"The feedback we keep getting is that there's really a kind of an intimate, personal and supportive feeling that goes back to our name -- Personal News Network. People like the idea that they can share their thoughts and ideas in an environment that's really supportive."

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