YouTube’s built in search facilities are pretty good for finding clips based on keywords. There are though a range of other free tools which search YouTube and present the results in different ways. Two of these are likely to be of particular interest to people involved in politics.

Mappeo: searching an area

Mappeo lets you see all the recent films added to YouTube plotted on a map – handy for people wanting to see what’s been added in their ward, constituency or region.

This only works on films which have had their location set by the person who uploaded them, but many films about a specific area or geographical issue do seem to have this information.

A tip: you can enter something in just the geographic area search box, leaving the other one blank.

TimeTube: searching over time

TimeTube lets you enter a search term and presents all the results laid out in a timeline. For example, Nick Clegg’s YouTube presences are mapped out at http://www.dipity.com/timetube/YouTube-Nick-Clegg.

Very useful to see how a person or issue has been covered over time, and as an added bonus you can sign up for email alerts by clicking on the “follow” button in the top right.

Note: for more general tips on finding political information online, see my previous posting Staying in the loop.