Katy Perry Gets Intimate With Lisa Nova (And 2 Million Viewers)

YouTube star Lisa Nova sat down with “California Gurls” singer Katy Perry for an exclusive 30-minute interview that featured questions submitted by text and video from the YouTube community through the newly-launched Moderator tool. Over 20,500 text and video questions like “Did you really kiss a girl?” “Do you ever laugh at the parody videos making fun of you?” “Are you and Russell Brand planning on having kids?” were submitted for which over 401,600 votes were cast.

The video makes use of a new YouTube feature that allows channels to poll their audiences in a way that’s more structured than sifting through a heap of text comments or video responses: an embedded customized version of Google Moderator, the conversation and polling tool released in fall of 2008. The Moderator feature enables channel subscribers to vote up or down on text and video responses to questions posed by the channel owner—a more effective way to asses popular opinion.

“Helping the world find the best input from an audience of any size,” Google Moderator allows content creators get to know their audience by letting them decide which questions, suggestions or ideas interest them the most. Useful comments will rise to the top, instead of being lost in the onslaught of spammy and idiotic responses.

Moderator has been featured on few events on CitizenTube, where it was successfully used to pull together questions for President Obama that had been voted on and chosen by viewers. Now it’s available to all channel owners.