(Cross-posted from The Official YouTube Blog)

It’s been 71 days since the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Since then, we’ve used our platforms to make sure that people can watch and participate in real time, access all the latest information on the crisis and response and share concerns through various programs and initiatives.

Now we’re teaming up with PBS NewsHour to take you to BP headquarters in Houston for an exclusive interview with Bob Dudley, President and CEO of BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization. In a live session moderated by the PBS NewsHour’s Ray Suarez, Mr. Dudley will respond directly to your questions.

Now is your chance to ask BP questions on accountability, the clean-up plan, recovery efforts in the Gulf Region, environmental impact, the status of the relief well drilling, the role of the U.S. government, the future of offshore drilling and of BP as a company.

Using Google Moderator on youtube.com/citizentube, submit your questions and vote the best ones to the top. Then join us for the live interview tomorrow, Thursday, July 1, at 3:30 pm ET/12:30 pm PT on CitizenTube. Portions of the interview will also be aired Thursday evening on the PBS NewsHour and available on YouTube.

Early on, we partnered with NewsHour to bring you a live stream of the oil gushing into the waters of the Gulf. On June 15, we streamed President Obama’s Oval Office address on the oil spill crisis on CitizenTube. After the President’s speech, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answered questions submitted by YouTube users, who cast nearly 200,000 votes to select the top questions from 7,000+ submitted.

We hope that these various opportunities to engage and participate in a current event help you and fellow citizens stay more informed and have your voice heard.

Posted by Olivia Ma, YouTube News Manager, and Ginny Hunt, Google Public Sector Manager

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(Cross-posted from the YouTube blog)

Tonight at 8 p.m. ET, watch President Obama live on the White House YouTube channel as he addresses the nation about the Gulf oil spill. Then 15 minutes after the remarks, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will answer your questions. Starting right now, you can submit questions about the disaster on Google Moderator, and vote the best ones to the top. Hear more from Mr. Gibbs:



Already, the conversation about the oil spill on the web has been lively. Earlier this month, thousands of you submitted your ideas on how to clean up the oil spill on YouTube, several of which were aired during the PBS NewsHour. And as more and more Americans are searching on Google to find information about the oil spill and cleanup efforts, we want to help you connect directly with the recovery process.

Now’s your chance to hear the White House’s response to your questions about what many are calling the worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history. Submit questions now and vote on the ones you think are most important; then tune in tonight to watch the President’s address live on YouTube.

Posted by Steve Grove, YouTube Head of News and Politics

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It’s flu season. Well, below the equator, it’s flu season. As we turn towards summer heat in the northern hemisphere, half of the globe has colder weather and more flu activity on the way. Just as we expanded Google Flu Trends to much of Europe last fall in advance of the winter flu season, we’re bringing Google Flu Trends to eight additional countries in the southern hemisphere where winter is approaching.

We now show national estimates (and a few regions too!) of flu activity for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, and Uruguay, bringing our grand total of countries with Google Flu Trends estimates to 28. As flu affects millions every year, these estimates made in near real-time give health officials an additional early warning tool which can help them to respond more quickly to flu outbreaks. This can be especially important when people from many countries converge in one place, like in South Africa for the World Cup. South Africa is the first country we’re adding in Africa, and we hope Google Flu Trends will provide useful information for football fans and foes alike.

Several of the newly added countries are near the equator which means they won’t show a strong seasonal peak of flu activity. Brazil provides a neat example of how the flu season in a country becomes more pronounced as you are further away from the equator. In Ceará, a Brazilian province that is nearer to the equator, the Google Flu Trends estimates generally don’t show a strong peak. The chart below shows the current season curve as compared with last year’s curve:


You can, however, see a stronger peak emerge as you move further south, away from the equator. Rio Grande do Sul offers a fine example of this, again comparing the current season with last year:


Where more people are searching, our models will likely be more robust. We won’t be able to provide flu-related estimates if people aren’t searching for flu-related information online. In the U.S. we’ve given estimates that are more than 90% accurate as compared with the CDC’s ILINet data from which our model was built.

Upon annual review of a country’s model, we may release an updated model. Just as we updated the U.S. model one year after launching, today we’re also updating the Australia and New Zealand models. We’ve retrained these models with an additional year of surveillance data and they should better reflect current activity levels.

You can also see animated Google Flu Trends for the world in the Google Earth layer now also available on the website. This video visualizes flu activity over the last two years in North America and Europe:



Check out flu activity in your area and stay healthy!

Posted by Corrie Conrad, Google.org

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