Politics and Magnify

By Ben Joseph (Content Curation Expert, Video Artist and Intern at Magnify.net)

In our world, we are faced with an incessant amount of political news. In just the past few weeks, we have seen unprecedented violence as Iranians have taken the streets to protest the re-election of President Ahmadinejad.  In Iraq, further aggression has continued as the U.S. withdrawal deadline quickly approaches.  In northwestern Pakistan, soldiers have been relentless in their fight against the Taliban.  Even in national politics, we have seen a new President face a wide range of social and economic challenges.

Searching for political news, in a sense, can be an incredibly overwhelming task.  While major news publications, blogs and RSS feeds can supply filtered and updated information, a person is oftentimes left wanting more.  The same applies for online video.  Sites such as CNN and BBC will provide you with the most current video, but it can often be difficult to find past, related, or even relevant video to compliment your search.  And with sites like Youtube, the immense amount of unfiltered content can result in a very unfulfilling and overwhelming user experience.  

At Magnify, we feature a number of aggregation tools that help users customize their video experience.  It is simple to either find or create a site that contains curated content that either you have choosen or from a source you trust.  Check out some of our political sites, where you can find the latest video, blogs, photos, Twitter Feeds – all in one place. 


IranLIVE - www.iranlive.magnify.net

With the recent presidential elections, Iran is seeing its most intense riots and protests within the last 30 years. As a result, the production and publishing of online video has been extreme.  The IranLIVE site is great because it aggregates only the relevant content, and further organizes it into appropriate categories.  For example, the site features ‘News,’ ‘Protests,’ and even ‘Most Recent’ channels.  Within each channel you can find hundreds of videos relating only to that subject.  Furthermore, the site contains a live Flickr feed, RSS news section, and the much touted Twitter Feed.

Barack Obama and HealthCare - barackobamahealthcare.magnify.net

If you haven't been under a rock the last month, you have read or watched about how Barack Obama is attempting to pass an overhaul of the healthcare system. As these reforms are being talked about and possibly implemented in the near future, this channel provides you with the most relevant content surrounding these issues. Here you can find the most current video, news and events dealing with Obama's health care policy and reform. There are great RSS feeds and a really interesting twitter module.


Iraq War Video Archive - iraq.videos.magnify.net

This site is fitting because of its obvious relevance to current events.  When a nation finds itself in war, the amount of published content can seem unbound.  Rather than searching for individual videos, a user can visit this site and find the appropriate videos in one place.  This particular page features a great Tag Cloud, a ‘Featured Video’ widget, a current news section, and even an option where visitors can upload their own photos and videos. 

Barack Obama Economics - barackobamaeconomics.magnify.net

While this page may initially seem overwhelming, it actually works quite well.  For one thing, it attempts to focus on just one aspect of the Obama administration.  Too many sites try to tackle the broader subject, such as Obama himself, and aggregate any and all “Obama” videos onto their site.  This site does an excellent job of bringing together video dealing only with the economy.  While the one channel and 24,000 videos may seem vast, this site is a great example of how the Tag Cloud works.  Users can pick and choose words such as ‘Credit,’ ‘Debt,’ ‘Bailout,’ and ‘Mortgages’ to filter out only the videos they want to watch.

Got a Poltical channel you want us to feature? Send it our way at Billy (at) Magnify.net