Youtube and government

I read today that Obama is using youtube for his weekly addresses as president-elect and it made me wonder what the impact this high level endorsement of technology might have on its up-take by the average archive or archivist. (Incidently, the wonder of the Internet allows us to listen to Roosevelt's fireside chats and compare the two formats for ourselves.)

I did wonder whether this was going to be an area where the UK was slightly behind but it turns out the Prime Minister already has a youtube channel, with 500+ videos . There is also a UK parliament pilot channel on youtube. Who'd have thought it?

I wonder whether the use of these kinds of technology by government bodies will have an impact and make those organisations that have been more conservative and hesitant in their approach to Web 2.0 look again at them? Does it legitimise Web 2.0 activity?