Whether you need an image for your blog post, a soundtrack to your video or that YouTube clip for your documentary, if you’re dealing with multimedia it’s likely you’ll end up using – or wanting to use – someone else’s work as part of your own.

Here are some basic tips on finding and using multimedia across the web in a way that won’t (hopefully) land you in hot water.

The public domain myth

One of the mistakes that has repeatedly landed journalists and their employers in trouble is confusion over the term “public domain“.

Public domain has two possible meanings. In copyright terms, public domain refers to work whose copyright has expired, meaning that anyone can use it without having to ask the copyright holder. Disney – a fierce lobbyist itself for extending copyright – has used ‘public domain’ material as the basis for most of its cartoons, from the work of the Grimm Brothers to a host of other fairy tales, myths and legends.

But sometimes you will hear journalists talk about something being “in the public domain“, in other words ‘public’. For instance, when the Irish Daily Mail published photos of an air traffic controller from her website, they defended the decision on the grounds that the image was “in the public domain”.

But this is not the same.

For example, pretty much every piece of media, almost by definition, is “in the public domain”. Newspapers and magazines sit on the newsstands; television and radio reports are broadcast on huge city centre screens and speakers.

But if you take that content and reproduce it in its entirety without permission, you are breaking copyright law.

It seems odd that media organisations so used to protecting their own, very public, content, should think that another person’s photo, or video, or report, should be fair game because it is “in the public domain”. But they do.

If you want public domain (in the sense of ‘copyright expired’) content, there are some useful sources. The Public Domain Review, for example, publishes a range of public domain work and has this guide to finding them. And Angela Grant writes here about finding public domain video, among other things (note that Angela refers to US law, not that of other countries).

But never assume something is public domain because it is “in public”.

One point to make: while an image, story, or composition may be out of copyright, its performance, re-design or re-telling may not.

Just ask Disney.

Creative Commons – making UGC copyright explicit

If you’re dealing with content that’s been published on a platform like Flickr or YouTube, you may be able to find out the copyright status of that content relatively easily.

Both allow users to easily establish copyright through the Creative Commons licence. You can either look for that licence in the relevant part of the page hosting the content.

On YouTube it is under the video:

On Flickr this is on the right hand side under License:

Make sure you click on that licence to find out what terms it requires.

Creative Commons, for example, has a number of elements:

• Whether the material can be used only in noncommercial contexts, or for commercial use as well
• Whether the material can be adapted and changed, or must be left unchanged
• Whether you must use the same CC licence if you use this material (e.g. you cannot use a noncommercial licence but then allow your work to be used commercially)
• Whether you must attribute the work (this is where many people breach the licence)

If you’re unsure of where your work fits against those criteria (for example, whether it’s considered as “commercial”), then approach the copyright holder for clarity. Remember that the CC licence is only a default position, and can be negotiated. Also, if you cannot get any response and decide to publish anyway, your attempts to contact the copyright holder will be important if there are any legal proceedings.

If you want others to publish their content under a CC licence, it helps if you publish at least some of your own work under a CC licence too. Indeed, if it contains other CC material, their licences may require you to.

Embedding versus re-broadcasting

If the media is hosted on a platform like YouTube, you may be able to embed it on a webpage without seeking permission at all: if the creator* has enabled embedding then they would have little argument in suing for breach of copyright because a) by enabling embedding they have given an ‘implied’ right; and b) they could stop you publishing it instantly by disabling embedding. Also, your embedding of their media would not lead to any loss of revenue (as advertising is embedded too), so it is unlikely that there would be any damages to sue for.

*note: this does not apply to video created by other people and uploaded by someone other than the copyright holder.

Reality bites

Of course, it’s one thing to talk about the strict legal position, and another to talk about what actually happens. Journalists regularly publish content that breaks the law – but make a judgement about the likelihood of ending up in court over that. For example, I can say that the Queen is corrupt (a defamatory statement) and be almost certain that the Queen is not going to sue me (because she has a history of not doing so).

Media lawyers are not just there to advise publishers on their strict legal position, but on the balance of risk involved, and how to reduce those risks. While you cannot always avoid risks, you can avoid them in simple ways:

• Always try to establish the copyright situation regarding any media you use: who holds the copyright (there may be more than one copyright owner: for example, performer and composer), and what are the terms of the licence?
• Try to contact the copyright holder if you’re in any doubt – even if you can’t contact them your efforts to do so will help you if you do end up in court.
• Always attribute authorship and link to the source (this can be done in title credits, captions and/or links on the host webpage). Copyright claims normally revolve around loss of earnings: anything that may have contributed to that (i.e. not linking to the source) will likely add to damages.

For more on these issues, and for related tools and links, see my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/paulb/creativecommons

PHP Freelancer

The Guardian has been talking about being ‘of the web’ rather than ‘on the web’ for some years now, with a “federated” (as some staff call it) approach to publishing which often involves either selling advertising across, or pulling in content from, other sites (disclosure: this is one of them). Its Open Platform is a technical expression of the same idea, allowing others to build things with its content – which can then take advertising with it. And its successful Facebook app shows its ability to adopt any platform that works.

Now it has announced a partnership with arts organisations – and YouTube – that demonstrates a further development of this approach. 

It’s a recognition that it’s not just media organisations that are now in the content business (witness Manchester City’s policy of recruiting digital heads from press and TV) – and a news publisher’s role has to be re-assessed in that context (better to be partners than competitors, perhaps?).

Here is a list of what’s going to be produced as a result:

• Glyndebourne: live-streaming five operas, as well as “recordings to accompany two other productions this season [...] Each opera will be available to view again on the Guardian’s website, and each will be accompanied by a series of podcasts and videos as well as related editorial, blogs, picture galleries and live chat with the Guardian’s expert team of critics.
• Royal Opera House with YouTube: streaming “a full day of rehearsals from The Royal Ballet from the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, featuring live streams of two ballets currently in development”
• The Young Vic: “working with them to develop an exclusive short film starring Patrick Stewart”
• The Roundhouse:  live streaming Cirkus Cirkör Undermän
• Artangel: streaming “intimate live performances and recorded podcasts by a number of renowned artists”

Naturally, acting as a platform for third party content raises the question of how this affects editorial integrity. In the announcement Stephen Folwell, Business Director, Multimedia and Brand Extensions, Guardian News & Media, mentions “the diverse [multimedia*] packages we can offer other potential partners.” But it wouldn’t be the first time a news organisation has had to manage this tension, as I coincidentally blogged about in my previous post - it’s just the old problem in a new suit.

Meanwhile, in the same newspaper, art critic Jonathan Jones writes about how his role changed as readers became content producers too.

*Clarification from a GNM spokesperson, who adds: “We also offer sponsorship opportunities around multimedia content”

PHP Freelancer

Over the weekend the BBC had to deal with the embarrassing ignorance of someone in their complaints department who appeared to believe that images shared on Twitter were “public domain” and “therefore … not subject to the same copyright laws” as material outside social networks.

A blog post, from online communities adviser Andy Mabbett, gathered thousands of pageviews in a matter of hours before the BBC’s Social Media Editor Chris Hamilton quickly responded:

“We make every effort to contact people, as copyright holders, who’ve taken photos we want to use in our coverage.

“In exceptional situations, ie a major news story, where there is a strong public interest in making a photo available to a wide audience, we may seek clearance after we’ve first used it.”

(Chris also published a blog post yesterday expanding on some of the issues, the comments on which are also worth reading)

The copyright issue – and the existence of a member of BBC staff who hadn’t read the Corporation’s own guidelines on the matter – was a distraction. What really rumbled through the 170+ comments – and indeed Andy’s original complaint – was the issue of attribution.

Why is it that news organisations still attribute images and video to the platforms they were hosted on?

The BBC – thanks to the UGC hub that Chris heads up – are actually better than most news organisations on this front. Channel 4 News can be seen broadcasting footage captioned “Video from YouTube”; newspapers and magazines will similarly occasionally credit images as being “from” Twitter or Facebook (or link to a research journal’s homepage rather than the research paper being reported on, as one commenter pointed out).

It already seems like a statement from a bygone era. Tom Morris, for example, argued:

“When someone calls you Crimewatch, you don’t thank BT or Vodafone or T-Mobile: not seeing the human at the end of the line, that’s the damn problem.”

Of course, the comment overlooks one of the characteristics of digital media: the ease of replication. Quite often an image or video will reach us through a dozen intermediaries: publishing and distribution overlap.

Coupled with the time pressures of newsrooms, this can lead journalists to use media without knowing their true authorship.

And there’s the problem.

While we may occasionally think that some stories are too important to waste time tracking down the copyright owner of images, the importance of identifying the provenance of those images – and of giving the viewer the critical context to make a judgement on it – are not trivial matters.

Just as we expect journalists to have a very good reason to use quotes without attribution, the same should apply to images and video.

Social networks can make attribution easier: during the Chinese earthquake, for example, I could trace the source of a tweet relatively easily. And there are a variety of other tools and techniques for tracing information online. The BBC, again, is actually very good at this.

But even when the source cannot be traced – and we are confident of the material’s validity – we need a better way of describing the source of that material, or the point at which the journalist came across the material: “Photo published on Twitter by Janet Jones”; “Video republished by youtube.com/anaconda” or even “attribution being sought”.

(Given that we are often publishing cross-platform a similar option may be to have a page which provides further information about the provenance of UGC material used on-air and in print, a sort of iReport in reverse)

A failure to do so betrays not just a lack of respect for the users of social media who created that media or brought it to our attention, but a lack of care in the process of journalism itself.

PHP Freelancer

I have to admit I didn’t see this one coming… traditional media corporations in Latin America are launching news sites based exclusively on content originated in social media.

First of all, we have 140 – news of Twitter, a new web site lunched by Perfil in Argentina, intended as a site for “people who don’t have a Twitter account but want to find out what’s happening” in the microblogging world.

Twitter has had a tremendous growth in the country in 2010, thanks mainly to TV shows that sudenly began using Twitter as a live interactive tool with the audience.

Then local celebrities and world-cup football players joined the conversation, finishing the job of popularizing the social network, and now even politicians replace their traditional press releases with fleeting 140 character messages that sometimes end up in front pages.

140 was created by Darío Gallo, executive editor of Perfil.com and former Director of Noticias (the most popular political magazine of the country), one of the early adopters of Twitter in Argentina. He assured me the new project is receiving good reactions and traffic.

The website feeds itself with Twitpics from celebrities, political “debates” or any piece of news that transcends Twitter.

Meanwhile, one of Gallo’s former colleagues in Perfil, Pablo Mancini, has just created a website named ReporTube as a new project from El Comercio of Peru: “A gateway to the portion of the audience that is interested in producing content”.

They already have more than a thousand video reporters in dozens of countries; but it’s not a merely citizen journalism initiative since they see ReporTube more as an aggregation site of audiovisual testimonies.

The creators say that ReporTube is an online news site, under the umbrella of elcomercio.pe, 100% made with YouTube content with a productive model in permanent construction.

“The massive amount of content available led us to believe that remixing and aggregation are concepts that complement participation and quality content that is not necessarily synonymous of original content”, Mancini explains.

Especial thanks to Facundo for helping me with my lousy English.

PHP Freelancer

On May 25th we celebrate the Argentinian Bicentenary. And while the big media aren’t showing any really interesting initiatives, we have Tu Bicentenario, an independent and experimental journalistic project that aims to give real-time coverage to the main events of the celebrations with social tools and user-collaboration.

With a highly customizable website that integrates different movable boxes, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Maps and mobile streaming, they are trying to facilitate the creation and publication of content not only by the creators but by the audience too.

The most interesting content that came out of the project so far -in my opinion- is the survey in pictures and videos of historic sites, contrasted with old images to show the changing of cities. This material is being geolocated in Google Maps.

Some Argentinean Google Maps users also upload 3D models of the most important sights so you can do a virtual tour of the country.

PHP Freelancer

(Editor’s Note: This is the last in a three-part series on local online news video, summarizing the findings of a thesis study that examined the Minnesota media market and their use of online video. Part one looked at content and part two examined design and usability. Love to hear feedback in the comments below.)

______________________

It is clear that the economy has damaged efforts to expand and improve online video. Many local news sites have had to cut staff, and they are working to produce content in survival mode. However, video advertising is expected to have the largest growth out of any sectors in online advertising. In December, eMarketer released predictions for video ad spending, saying that it would rise by 45 percent in 2009 to reach $850 million. Though ad spending has slowed a bit, video advertising remains strong. The opportunities are tremendous. However, half of the local news sites have yet to implement or even sell a video advertisement.

Taking advantage of the expected growth and monetizing video content:

1. Internal hosting: It provides more opportunity to monetize videos. News sites with a significant interest in monetizing video content should move away from hosting content on sites like YouTube, which provide little opportunity for profit from revenue sharing.
2. Pre-roll advertising: It has proven the most effective thus far. Half of the local sites included pre-roll advertisements, while the rest did not incorporate advertisements in videos at all. The Star Tribune uses an effective system based on length of content, rather than a number of videos, before showing a pre-roll ad. This seems to be the best balance in incorporating advertising within videos without ruining the reader’s experience. WCCO’s Daenzer said post-roll ads are not attractive to clients because viewers rarely stick around to watch them. With pre-rolls, on the other hand, viewers already have an interest in watching the video and are more willing to sit through a short advertisement, Daenzer said.
3. Complementing ad forms: Incorporating a banner ad that complements the video ad provides more exposure on the page and is usually more attractive to advertisers.
4. A 15 second rule: None of the five news organizations that displayed ads used ones that were more than 15 seconds long. Because the attention span of online video viewers is lower than that of television, advertisements longer than 15 seconds are likely to lose a viewer, Daenzer said. Hulu and other sites have had some great success with offering longer ads to be able to watch shows ad free, but it is hard to tell whether a similar practice for news webcasts would be acceptable with viewers and appealing to advertisers.
5. Search: Search advertising is expected to grow as well, and news sites could take advantage of the revenue that Google search has been making money off of for years. If local news sites incorporate specific video searches, they could sell sponsored links to appear at the top.
6. Producing advertisements: According to Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, news companies need to create a separate staff with divergent ideas that will sell online advertising. As the economy recovers, local news sites should seek to hire specialized video advertising producers and online sales staff to tap into the online market. Video ads are still only a small piece of advertising. It totals only 5 percent of website revenues for newspapers and 10 percent for television websites.

More importantly, in all aspects, to expand and improve video, the local news sites will have to focus more efforts and resources online to decrease the gap difference in online versus print or on-air advertising. The need for quality, innovative approaches to online news video are greater than ever.

____________________________________

Sites studied:

• Star Tribune (www.startribune.com) – Daily Metro Newspaper
• Pioneer Press (www.twincities.com) – Daily Metro Newspaper
• Minnpost (www.minnpost.com) – Online-only News Website
• The Minnesota Daily (www.mndaily.com) – College Newspaper, 4-days a week. (Disclosure: I have served as editor at this paper)
• WCCO (www.wcco.com) – Metro TV station
• KSTP (www.kstp.com) – Metro TV station
• KARE 11 (www.kare11.com) – Metro TV station
• FOX 9 (www.myfoxtwincities.com) – Metro TV station
• Minnesota Public Radio (www.mpr.org) – Public Radio station
• Minnesota Sun Newspapers (mnsun.com) – Community Newspapers (Most papers are weeklies).

PHP Freelancer

(Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series on local online news video, summarizing the findings of a thesis study that examined the Minnesota media market and their use of online video. The second focuses on design and usability. Tomorrow’s part three will explore advertising. Love to hear feedback in the comments below.)
__________

In addition to yesterday’s look at what’s working and what’s not in online video content, local news sites have a long way to go in reaching usability standards for video players, including location, presentation, buttons, hosting and more. Many news sites simply don’t have the resources for a redesign, especially at smaller organizations.

Corey Anderson, Web editor at the online-only Minnpost, said as a result of time and budget constraints, Minnpost.com has not been able to organize and showcase its video on the website. Clonts from the Pioneer Press had a similar sentiment, saying that the current focus is to develop a strategy in content and then build a strategically-designed multimedia page.

Usability improvements that should be made:

1. Location: The majority of the sites featured video content on the front page of the site. TV news sites especially did a great job in featuring its video players prominently on the front page. However, only two of the 10 sites featured the video player above the fold of the site. If news organizations are serious about exposing readers to its video content, the location of the player is very important. Furthermore, news organizations that place its player in the right sidebar should consider a re-design, since research shows readers viewing the first dominant image on the left side of the site first. John Daenzer, director of new media at WCCO, said he thinks having a player in the sidebar, above the fold, devalues the lead story at the center of the page.
   

   Presentation:	Number of sites (out of 10)	Specific sites (or exceptions)
   Embedded in articles	5	Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, Minnpost.com, KSTP, FOX 9
   Right column of story (sidebar)	2	KARE 11 and WCCO
   Link/thumbnail in article to video page	2	Star Tribune, The Minnesota Daily
   Independent on its own page	9	All except Minnpost.com
   Pop-out player	2	Star Tribune, WCCO

2. Connecting, embedding: Only half of the 10 sites connected readers between print and video stories that were related. Evidence shows that readers are much more likely to watch videos that are related to a print story. Anderson of Minnpost said that judging by the page views, videos seem to work better on the site when used with a story to enhance the readers’ understanding of the subject matter. The Star Tribune did a good job of connecting readers to its video content through multiple levels, something that other sites might take note on. Star Tribune’s site showcased video individually, embedded, on the front page and video page. This gives the viewer more possibilities to be exposed to the content. Durkin, senior Web producer at FOX 9, said not only is it beneficial for the design of the site and usability of the user to embed the player with related text stories, but it also keeps video content in context.
3. Navigation: It also plays a key role in exposing viewers to video and makes it easy for them to find video content. Sites such as the Pioneer Press and MPR did not include links to video content in its navigation bar, a poor example of providing useful navigation for viewers. This not only makes it more difficult for users to find video content, but likely contributes to fewer video plays.
4. Sharing and Buttons: The local news sites are still working to develop the technological platform that provides users with tools to better use and share the content. Some of the sites are still lacking fundamental buttons that should be included with all players. For example, KARE 11 does not include a volume button on its player. Only five of the ten sites included an embeddable player or link/HTML buttons. These options could increase the exposure of the videos by being embedded within external blogs and being linked from other websites.

Things to be considered in design and usability:

1. Button options: Because there is still very little research on the topic, news sites will have to conduct their own testing to determine which button options are truly helpful to readers. While players like that of Minnpost are simple in design, making it easy for a viewer to use, the readers also lose out on options to control the player’s functions and how they view video. However, a player that has complex options such as that of KARE 11 or WCCO may be overwhelming for the viewer, despite providing many options to control the functions of the player. The goal is to find a balance. WCCO’s Daenzer said the strategy behind the design of its player is easy usability by readers, which is why the player has a “pop-out” option that gives readers the ability to let the video load in an independent window as they browse the site. The news sites should look at the frequency use in each specific button and determine whether users truly find it helpful.
2. Hosting content: Where to host content is a question that is yet to be answered. While sites like MPR are posting their video content onto YouTube, other news organizations such as MN Sun are implementing their own video players and moving away from hosting content externally. Though posting videos onto YouTube may provide more exposure on that site, hosting content externally poses navigation issues from the internal site. For example, users navigating MPR’s website are not effectively directed to MPR’s YouTube channel. Furthermore, it requires readers to go elsewhere to view your content.
3. Mobile video: Similar to live video, mobile video is said to be the next big innovation in Web video. Providing readers with more ways to consume the content has become more important. As smart phones become more affordable, more readers will likely begin viewing content through handheld devices, and news organizations need to be prepared to meet that demand.
4. Categorization: It allows users to better interact and navigate through video content available. Most of the sites categorized content in the video section page, but editors may also consider placing content-specific videos within coverage sections (business, sports, etc.). For example, the business section would only include business-related videos. The concept is an expanded version of the principle of embedding related content. It is more likely to get played.

Tomorrow’s piece will look at how local online news video is incorporating advertising in an effort to monetize the content. I appreciate the feedback thus far. I will not for clarity that this study was done between January 2009 and was completed in May. Some of the sites have made changes since then and there is plenty more to investigate beyond this study, as noted in this thorough response and reflection on the study. There is still very little research out there and I hope that this will spur some discussion on the topic of online news video and whether news organizations should truly be investing their time into producing it. Perhaps the reward in ad revenue will justify an investment. Come back tomorrow for more on advertising.

____________________________________

Sites studied:

• Star Tribune (www.startribune.com) – Daily Metro Newspaper
• Pioneer Press (www.twincities.com) – Daily Metro Newspaper
• Minnpost (www.minnpost.com) – Online-only News Website
• The Minnesota Daily (www.mndaily.com) – College Newspaper, 4-days a week. (Disclosure: I have served as editor at this paper)
• WCCO (www.wcco.com) – Metro TV station
• KSTP (www.kstp.com) – Metro TV station
• KARE 11 (www.kare11.com) – Metro TV station
• FOX 9 (www.myfoxtwincities.com) – Metro TV station
• Minnesota Public Radio (www.mpr.org) – Public Radio station
• Minnesota Sun Newspapers (mnsun.com) – Community Newspapers (Most papers are weeklies).

PHP Freelancer

(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series on local online news video. The first focuses on content. Tomorrow’s part two will explore design and usability and part three will take a look at advertising.)

Though local news sites have expanded their production of content and made great strides in technological advances on their video platforms, they haven’t exactly reached the next threshold or industry standard in online video. In many cases, this “standard” is being set by media giants like CNN and user-generated social media sites like YouTube. In fact, a recent study shows that watching online video is more popular than Facebook or Twitter. The trend is continuing in that direction and the time spent watching online video has increased as well. And with YouTube now getting into the local news business with its News Near You feature that will grab news clips from sources that are 100 miles from your computer’s IP address, local news organizations should worry.

Many of the local news sites are still experimenting and beginning to define the type of video content they would like to produce. Below are lessons learned from a thesis study that examined how 10 local news sites in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, USA market used online video. The conclusions made here, are also gathered through interviews of editors at the respective organizations (Note: Several did not want or could not appear for publication as a result of organizational policies). The full study can be found here (beware it is about 60 pages in length). Below are the sites studied. However, I will also note that the study did not include TheUpTake, which actually provided a lot of online video content for many of the sites below and has had led some great innovations in online video.

• Star Tribune (www.startribune.com) – Daily Metro Newspaper
• Pioneer Press (www.twincities.com) – Daily Metro Newspaper
• Minnpost (www.minnpost.com) – Online-only News Website
• The Minnesota Daily (www.mndaily.com) – College Newspaper, 4-days a week. (Disclosure: I have served as editor at this paper)
• WCCO (www.wcco.com) – Metro TV station
• KSTP (www.kstp.com) – Metro TV station
• KARE 11 (www.kare11.com) – Metro TV station
• FOX 9 (www.myfoxtwincities.com) – Metro TV station
• Minnesota Public Radio (www.mpr.org) – Public Radio station
• Minnesota Sun Newspapers (mnsun.com) – Community Newspapers (Most papers are weeklies).

Here’s what’s working in content:

1. Feature news: Evidence points to most local news sites using video to cover feature stories. That is mostly because these types of stories have visual elements that lend themselves well to video footage.
2. Breaking news: It comes in second place for most produced video and works well. Even if it is raw, most editors agree that breaking news footage can really complement a story and drive a lot of traffic. Videos of the Fargo floods were among the most popular for the Star Tribune, many of them shot as news unfolded. Expanding breaking news video coverage will become less challenging, as more reporters become trained in shooting video. Corey Anderson, online editor at Minnpost.com, said that the veteran reporters at the organization have embraced the possibilities of new media and how video can further enhance their stories. As the technology gets cheaper and economy gets better, Anderson said Minnpost hopes to include video cameras in the journalists reporting “tool kit”.
3. Local video: Local coverage may be the golden rule. Most of the editors noted that local coverage received a more significant amount of traffic for its local videos. It is what viewers want and expect, said Mike Durkin, senior Web producer for Fox 9.

Content news organizations could do without or needs improvement:

1. Limited national news: It’s not ideal, but because local news videos are in higher demand, national videos are not. At least not for these local news sites, or not to the extent that the investment is worth the gain. Local news organizations that currently pay for Associated Press content may want to invest that money into funding more local coverage from its reporters.
2. Talking-head: News organizations should use talking-head video sparingly, if at all. Because users on the Web are easily distracted, this type of video content does not work well.
3. Engaging, shorter pieces: In general, news organizations that are new to video, such as the Pioneer Press, will need to extensively train their videographers in shooting quality video. Beyond the quality, news organizations need to better adapt their video content to Web users who expect shorter and more engaging content. The attention span threshold that most agree on and studies have shown is roughly 3 minutes, though it is expanding with the trend toward watching online TV shows on Hulu, etc. Chris Clonts, Web editor at the Pioneer Press, said his staff aims for 2-minute videos, but is still working on transitioning to the shorter style. “We need to do a better job of picking our subjects, but that is the goal of the attention span we are going after,” Clonts said. Here is the breakdown of average video length based on the 10 most recent videos:

Content that needs more exploring:

1. User-generated content: It could build a strong sense of community on a website. Most of the editors expressed interest in expanding or implementing user-generated content. Durkin from Fox 9 said he thinks user-generated video will be the next big development in online video for many news sites. Currently, out of the list of 10 local sites, only four sites (Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, MPR and MN Sun Newspapers) include user-generated videos. However, the question is whether users will continue to use platforms such as YouTube, rather than going to a news site. Regardless of how successful the user-generated content becomes, it is a low-cost way for a news organization to increase content and traffic with almost no cost in staffing.
2. Live online video: It’s expected to be the next big step in online news video. Some TV stations, like KARE 11 and FOX 9, have done a good job in using live video, but expanding it will be the key in driving traffic through video viewership. Online users expect immediacy, something that online live video will provide. Live video could also increase online competition. For example, newspaper websites may now be able to compete with TV stations in covering live events through a Web stream. Also, live video could be the spark that makes “talking-head” video more interesting and relevant. Live video can bring webcasts, like the Star Tribune’s “News Break”, to life by providing immediacy and an element of surprise to the content.

Tomorrow’s piece will take a look at usability and design and will also include comments from John Daenzer, new media director from WCCO. What’s working for you? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

PHP Freelancer

She was trying to make sure media (literally) used the “right” image of Barack Obama during the campaign. Jodi Williams was one of the many young brains behind Barack Obama’s media campaign.

I met her at the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels to talk about the digital changes in campaigning and dealing with the media. She had no doubt that all the new digital tools made it easier for political candidates to communicate independently from mainstream media, on their own platforms.

- Absolutly. Even though mainstream media always will be important, the digital tools have given politicans fantastic opportunities to communicate directly with people. It will give a huge boom to any campaign. If Obama wants, he can address the nation every night as long as people are interested, says Williams.

One of the important differences is how easy and cost-efficient it has become to distribute campaign materials, unlike in the past, when candidates had spend fortunes on tv commercials, to use for example direct mail or hope the New York Times used a picture that made the him or her look pretty.The Obama campaign’s Flickr images from election night have already become legendary.

- When you see these images, you understand much more, you see that even a presidental candidate has to tie his shoe laces. That makes the candidate seem much more human, says Williams.

-In the past, candidates have been able to talk to people through the radio. Now, Obama was able to talk through images.

She is now working in the private sector for a company called Premier Digital Services, but before joining Obama’s team in 2007, she was also part of John Kerry and Howard Dean’s teams.

- I was present when Howard Dean did the famous “Dean Scream”. It wasn’t nearly as damaging in person as on tv. When I came back to my hotel room that night and saw this horrible soundbite on tv, I got surprised. There was so much energy in that room, so Dean’s outburst wasn’t that out of place. But the soundbite brought it out of proportions, says Williams.

She also mentions how the spread of George Allen’s 2006 racial slur on YouTube eventually took down his campaign. The digital tools are powerful, and can easily build up or break down a candidate.

As we’ve already read about, lots of bloggers followed the 2008 presidental campaign, and after Obama entered the White Office, a Huffington Post reporter made history when he became the first member of an Internet-based news organization to be called upon during an official White House press conference.

- Some bloggers, like Ben Smith from Politico, followed us almost full-time. And on all the stops we did, there were lots of bloggers who approached us. We had some safety concerns, because how can you decide who are credible or not? We only had one incident when we had to remove one blogger. But generally, they were asking really interesting questions, says Williams, and adds that a mainstream media reporter such as Brian Williams from NBC understood that he became less relevant in competition with all the bloggers.

During the DNA conference Williams got asked about mistakes done during the Obama campaign, which has been called “the perfect campaign” by many.

“The roll-out of the vice president announcement via SMS could have gone much smoother” is all she will say about that.

-Internet gave Barack Obama a fantastic opportunity to communicate directly to people.But the next five-ten years will be bumpy, and it will take time before we reach true participatory democracy, says Williams.

PHP Freelancer

In another sign of their savvy web strategy, The Guardian have signed up YouTube makeup star Lauren Luke to write a column (with accompanying video) in the revamped Weekend section (they also just happened to run a full page story on Luke in Saturday’s paper.)

The importance of people like Lauren - a 27-year-old single mother who lives with her son, mum, sister and nieces - to online news distribution is made pretty clear by the following quote from the article:

“A brief BBC interview with Luke for a local Tyneside news programme has been seen by more than 2.2 million people, becoming one of the most viewed BBC clips on YouTube worldwide.”

And here it is:

I’ve written previously that if you want to get into journalism you should have a blog. I’d add to that: if you want your own column, you should build up a following on YouTube too. News organisations will increasingly not just be looking for people who know what they’re talking about, but how to distribute it effectively online.

Shame the video’s not embeddable though.

UPDATE (of sorts): As if to reinforce my point, the Washington Post “has appointed a new multimedia journalist as a result of his participation in a YouTube contest” – although this was a more traditional reporting job obtained through a YouTube journalism contest – Project:Report.

PHP Freelancer