YouTube for traders

David Carr of the New York Times writes Monday about “Reuters Insider,” a new video product being launched by the financial wire later this week that he calls “YouTube for the financially interested.”

Carr writes, “About 15 percent of the content on Reuters Insider will come from the service’s own studios and desktop nodes, while the rest will come from major media outlets like CNBC, Sky and Forbes, along with a lot of content from analysts at UBS, Roubini Global Economics and JPMorgan. Oh, and a long tail of hard-core niche providers most civilians have never heard of.

“As part of the initiative, Reuters is sharing a suite of elegant and easy tools for desktop video production, even if some of the footage that comes back looks like a hostage video. ‘Not everybody is going to take to this immediately,’ said Mike Stepanovich, the managing editor of Reuters Insider, diplomatically. ‘Some of our partners will be quicker adopters than others.’

“It sounds wonderful, and probably will be one day, but the density and relevance of information still need work. And on-demand Web video, as anyone can tell you, won’t always do what you demand. Thomson Reuters says that it will iron out glitches as they occur and that it expects that, as some of its partners begin to see a marketing benefit from their video content, their contributions will grow in depth and quality.”

Read more here.