A
Gulf
Leak Meter widget and live video stream of the BP oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico have provided
PBS NewsHour with a "significant
increase" in Web traffic, the show reported today (May 27).
Newshour
and NPR are providing the embedding code for the widget free and it has
been used by more than 3,000 websites including YouTube, Huffington
Post,
New York Times,
Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The
Atlantic, The Guardian, Wired, ProPublic, Florida Democratic Sen.
Bill Nelson and many local PBS stations. Subscribers to the
PBS
Newshour YouTube channel doubled in one 24-hour period. More than 1
million viewers have watched the video feed via
Newshour and
NPR websites. The crisis began April 20 when an explosion on the
Deepwater
Horizon oil rig killed 17 workers and left 11 missing, and oil
continues to flow from a well some 5,000 feet below the surface. The
widget debuted May 9.
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