Tag Archives: online video

Magazines: Web Sites will be about UGC & video

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It’s all about user-driven content and video says MediaWeek of the Magazine Publishers of America conference:

“Marthastewart.com, the umbrella Web site of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, this summer will introduce new ways for audience members to share information with each other, said Susan Lyne, president and CEO, MSLO. And as MSLO looks for growth avenues, it’s looking at community sites, among other acquisitions.

“Dennis Publishing also is embracing user-driven content, though in a different way. Stephen Colvin, president and CEO, who joined Lyne on the panel, said Dennis’ Maxim magazine has in the works MyMaxim.com. Launching in three to four weeks, the new site will let visitors customize the text, images and video they see when they go there

“Executives noted that the Web has become a strong source of new subscriptions and in so doing, helped magazines lower their direct mail costs.

“Case in point is Blueprint, the lifestyle/shopping magazine MSLO launched with a test issue in May 2006, and which will publish bimonthly this year. The magazine derived two-thirds of its subscriptions for its first two issues from the Internet, Lyne said.

DMNews also reports that “155 magazine digital initiatives have been activated” at the conference:

“MPA members who announced digital initiatives included BusinessWeek, which will offer exclusive online content, a mobile edition for PDAs and cell phones, online business school rankings and multiplatform distribution of rich media and video content.

“Conde Nast, who this year will produce an online film festival, user-generated content on Web sites, interactive dating blogs, an online video series, an online radio station, bridal sites with virtual fitting rooms and PDA-enabled editions with mobile sites and text shopping/buying from cell phones. ”

“A section of Magazine Digital Initiatives has been created on the MPA’s Web site at www.magazine.org. It offers complete, detailed lists of new products and platforms for consumer magazines.

“The lists will be updated weekly and feature information with links to press releases and articles where available.”

Online journalism documentary – and why video blogging is ‘a good thing’

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PBS have been doing a TV series called “News War: What’s Happening to the News”, which is a comprehensive history of journalism in the US. Of interest to us OJ types, however, are parts 19 and 20, ‘The New Universe of Online  Media’, and ‘The Revolution’s New Synergies’ which are available to watch on this page.

‘The New Universe of New Media’ features interviews with the team behind online TV news service Rocketboom, the founder of massively successful blog the Daily Kos, and Jeff Jarvis, as well as stuff about important events like the Trent Lott story (kept alive by bloggers) and Rathergate (a documentary’s veracity being questioned by bloggers).

‘The Revolution’s New Synergies’ is about how mainstream media have incorporated new media forms like blogs, and taken up leads through new media.

Bill Cammack gives a more thorough overview of the series, and the accusations that blogs lack original material, from a videoblogging perspective:

“With video blogs, I think [the lack of original reporting] is much less true. Granted, there are video blogs that are really videotaped versions of text blogs. Instead of typing the information they got from search engines, people sit in front of a video camera or webcam and talk about it. Not much difference from text blogs there in terms of lack of originality. ANYONE could do it who chooses to use a search engine to look up their chosen topic. What I’m talking about is the ability to show someone, anyone… somewhere, ANYWHERE (that has a viable internet connecton) something that they otherwise would not have been able to see. I don’t see any way that anyone could deny that visual and audio documentation of something that happened can be AS relevant and important, if not MORE SO than a shot, produced, scripted and edited news piece, such as the Frontline piece I’m currently commenting on.”

In other words, the very fact that you are filming video – assuming it is not of you talking – means you are creating original content. This is probably the most persuasive argument I’ve heard for bloggers taking up their video cameras and audio recorders – it (hopefully) forces you to leave the desk, and find material. Of course, it will not be searchable, and it will be harder for someone to scan. So it had better be good.

Online video: how it should be done

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I’m still cranky from too much Lemsip Max, but grateful to Robert Freeman for pointing me to an example of how online video should be done.

On the award-winning Eastern Daily Press website the video for ‘Your chance to name leopard cubs‘ ticks every box for me:

  • Short (53 seconds)
  • Illustrates something that couldn’t be described as well in words alone (by most people)
  • No anchor – in fact, no commentary at all
  • It runs alongside, and complements, a text-based article, rather than replacing it.
  • Compelling content (i.e. cute animals – well, until they start snarling)

Interestingly, the lack of commentary initially confuses, but you quickly get used to this. In fact, it reminds me of the moving images on newspapers in Harry Potter films – perhaps we need to think of video in those terms, though not always.

Online video: can it get any worse than this?

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It is with a deep sense of shame that I nominate the newspaper I grew up with – The Bolton (formerly Evening) News – for the worst attempt at online video I’ve seen so far.

Today’s Bolton News Video page features the often repeated mistake of the ‘news anchor’ reading out news stories – nothing new there, although as I’ve blogged previously, the role of the news anchor is already being performed by the website: if we want to know the latest headlines we can read them in our own time on the homepage.

But then it gets much worse – as the first story is introduced, the camera cuts to… an image of the article in that day’s paper. Now that’s creative and engaging storytelling.

Further stories cut to stock images of: a hospital; a firefighter; and a footballer. In fact, the only point at which we leave the office is… for the weather – probably the one piece of journalism that doesn’t require a journalist to leave their desk (thankfully we were spared images of clouds, rain, etc.).

I’m getting close to the point of making my own online news video service. It will consist of me sitting in front of a camera reading out the day’s headlines, then holding the paper up to the lens. Really, I could steal their viewers in an instant. And I would do the weather as a separate video because, frankly, if someone is looking for the local weather forecast online they’re not going to sit through five minutes of headlines to get it.

If you’re going to do online video, integrate it with the rest of your journalism. Television presenters are for TV; newspaper layouts are for print; stock images are for brochures. Send your journalist out with a video camera or don’t bother at all.

Stop trying to make television – it’s video

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The online video bandwagon rolls on, with Media Week reporting that the Telegraph is to team up with ITN  for the “supply of broadcast content” (note the word ‘broadcast’). Meanwhile, today’s Press Gazette reports on the launch of new TV studios at VNU, and the Exeter’s Express & Star.

In all cases publishers seem to be making television – not video. A good example is the Telegraph’s video on London Fashion Week (WMV). It starts well – lots of footage of catwalk action: the sort of thing you can’t get across in print. But it then falls into standard TV package fare – headshot interviews with designers which could be much better placed in print where the reader can scan-read.

My suggestion: either drop the headshots and run the interviews over catwalk shots; or combine video footage with a text report.

A much better example – ‘Elephant Rampage’ (WMV). Quirky, compelling visuals, and a short piece which you could imagine on YouTube.

As for the Exeter Express & Star’s ‘Fire in Sowton’ piece, this begins with a TV news-style ‘presenter’ introducing the item before handing over to a reporter on the spot to deliver it. Why? On television, the presenter is there to anchor the whole and link different items, but online the webpage performs that function. This use of a presenter is not only wasting the viewer’s time, but the TV studio’s time. In fact, it begs the question, why do you need a TV studio at all? These publishers may come to realise they’ve wasted their money. 

Will online video work? Only if it’s made for the medium

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Someone agrees with me about the online video bandwagon (read my previous rant informed analysis here). Meanwhile, I am softening a little after reading the thoughts of the Guardian’s head of editorial development Neil McIntosh, who is quoted in a lengthy feature on video in this week’s Press Gazette (not online – argh!):

“Asking users to ‘sit forward’ and watch video online is a ‘big commitment,’ he says, but the rise of YouTube has shown that there is a huge market for ‘good, gripping video in short bursts.’ McIntosh argues that this has been almost completely ignored by other newspapers.

“‘They are often producing very long things or content that is not very gripping at all, or full of stock images of men in suits walking through revolving doors. That works perfectly well on broadcast television but when you’re demanding that the user pay attention for short bursts, you’ve got to do better than that.'”

More behavioural targeting for advertisers as Times revamps website

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Times website 19 April 2007MediaWeek has lots of blah about the Times revamp meaning ‘upgrading’ audio and video (whatever that means) and “more analysis” (you need to ‘revamp’ a website to do that?). But what’s this hidden in par 2?

“Zach Leonard, digital media publisher of Times Online, said the site would also offer more contextual and behavioural targeting for advertisers and sponsors.”

Sounds like that’s the real headline story here.

UPDATE (Feb 6): There’s an ‘ask the designers’ feature at Times Online where they explain the process of the redesign, including the reason for that strange lime green. Georgia works well but it is very ‘now’ and may start to date in a few years…

UPDATE (Feb 9): There’s even more at Press Gazette on the systems that are being used to integrate print and online, to handle comments, and the future plans around video and archive content.

Review: Convergence Journalism (Kolodzy)

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This originally appeared in the Blogger-hosted predecessor to this website.

‘Convergence’ is one of many buzzwords currently doing the rounds in the news industry, and like many buzzwords, there is often confusion about what it actually means. For some it represents a new model of mixed-media journalism; for others it represents a change in organisational structure.

For Janet Kolodzy it’s both, and more besides. Kolodzy takes that term ‘convergence’ as her starting point, and spends the whole of the first chapter outlining its different forms – from the convergence of technologies that has taken place with digitisation, to economic convergence in media ownership, through to the journalistic convergence that is seeing both a combination of media forms into one ‘multimedia’ form, and a multiplication of delivery systems.

From there she looks at how newsroom practices have had to change as a result of convergence, and at news values. To her credit she speaks to the people working in converged newsrooms and the book is littered with case studies – essential when looking at a medium that is being made up as we speak – and there are conceptual models for the theorist too.

There is a chapter on gathering and producing a news story in a convergent age, which gives a good insight into the different considerations in gathering video and text material – although more thought could have been given here to audio and interactivity. Indeed, a journalist following the steps outlined here would be guilty of traditional linear storytelling: while interviews are covered, for example, no mention is made of the option to get readers to post questions online, or indeed to arrange a live chat.

These ideas are left instead for the chapters on broadcast, print, and online ‘basics’. To her credit here Kolodzy does not stop at how to write for the web but also outlines non-linear forms from polls and forums to quizzes, timelines, calculators, slideshows, animations, webcasts and podcasts. A traditional journalist could be forgiven for getting dizzy at the raft of options – and that’s even before we’ve covered “Participatory journalism” (citizen journalism, wikis), which is given a chapter of its own under ‘The Next Wave’ section.

It is a sign of how fast things are moving that that particular ‘next wave’ is probably already with us, but in the final chapter Kolodzy quotes media design consultants Bowman and Willis on a trend that may be more significant in the longer term: “While news organisations may see their audiences as readers and viewers,” she notes, “the next wave are increasingly gamers, who like to explore.”

This is an unusual book. Most authors would identify themselves as practitioners or academics, and set out to appeal to an audience in their own image: either the budding journalist, or the student of the craft. Convergence Journalism, however, dares to assume the reader is interested in both the how and the why. Perhaps we are finally seeing a convergence of the two?

Review: Online News (Allan)

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This review is republished from the version on the Blogger-hosted predecessor of this site 

In 2004 American technology journalist and publisher Dan Gillmor published We The Media, a book that described how journalism in the new media age was changing from a `lecture’ to a `conversation’. It quickly became the bible of online journalism, while Gillmor was heralded as a guru on citizen journalism in particular.

With Online News Stuart Allan has produced a book of comparable importance, but from a much-needed British – or at least transatlantic – perspective.

The concept is straightforward: an overview of online journalism in its different forms, with a historical perspective focusing on key events. The execution is clear, critical, and thoroughly researched, and even much-repeated stories – such as the `Rathergate’ or `Memogate’ affair that led to Dan Rather’s resignation – are illuminated with fresh detail.

Allan identifies two key `tipping points’ in the development of online news: the tsunami in South East Asia and the importance that that gave to citizen journalism – and the speech by Rupert Murdoch which finally acknowledged the need for newspapers to embrace the web – or be buried by it.

From there he explores a number of other `tipping points’: how September 11th “redefined” news when mainstream agencies crashed under excessive demand, and smaller sites took up the strain; how the Iraq war created a demand from readers for alternative voices from abroad; how participatory journalism is creating opportunities for news outside of commercial pressures; and how bloggers have become both news source and news watchdog.

What is laudable here is the rigour with which Allan approaches his subject matter, and his avoidance of the hype that characterises so much writing on online news. While the importance of blogs are acknowledged, for instance, the potential for descent into `mob rule mentality’ is outlined – for instance, in the way in which rightwing bloggers targeted what they perceived as the `liberal’ CBS and CNN. Likewise, while bloggers can be seen as `democratising’ journalism, Allan points out that there is an emerging hierarchy of “celebrity bloggers” that dominate that conversation; and that “bloggers who actively resist pressures to conform – that is, who continues to strive to speak truth to power – will find it that much more difficult to reach a broad audience”.

In his final chapter Allan notes the importance of Google News and its `computer editors’ for the future of journalism and news distribution, while also identifying how “notions of `authority’, `credibility’ and `prestige’ are in flux”. The BBC is held up as an example of the genuinely empowering possibilities of new journalism technologies – particularly the organisation’s moves to make both software and archive content available to users – but ultimately “too often the pressures of the marketplace being brought to bear on online news are working to narrow the spectrum of possible viewpoints to those which advertisers are inclined to support”.

Summing up, Allan identifies a worrying trend in online news becoming “aligned with the `attractive wrapping’ of commercial television”, a trend which has most recently been reinforced by The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Sun and Trinity Mirror all making moves towards producing online video. If the promises of online news are to be fulfilled books like this deserve the widest possible readership.