‘Wii News Channel’ to launch this weekend
Steve Safran January 26th, 2007
I love this idea. On Saturday, the “Wii News Channel” is slated to start up. Wii users with an online connection will be able to get AP news and pictures, with the news displayed on an interactive map. You can bet video isn’t far down the line. Talk about an innovative way to distribute information. Imagine offering your local content on that map. You’d have a captive audience and a niche market all at once. People are getting news through their gaming consoles. That’s a breakthrough.
5 Comments Add your own
1. discreet_chaos | January 26th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Doesn’t the Wii play on a television set?
2. morman | January 26th, 2007 at 10:59 am
We’re still trying to patch our demo Wii to download the software for the channel…
Nora Paul at the U of MN has been talking about this as an inevitability for years, and finally here it is. The map is a huge benefit, but I wish the iterface were snazzier.
I can’t help but think Nora will be a bit disappointed that the delivery is so traditional, given the 3D display power of the console.
Still, this is probably a more resonable delivery vehicle for your local news content than, say, Second Life.
3. astowns | January 26th, 2007 at 11:15 am
I just downloaded the software update. I’m impressed. In addition to scaning headlines in the normal way - the Wii allows an interactive map view. You can drag across the map, zoom in and out - finding news by region. News items are marked with icons containing images from the articles.
My 9 year old is shouting that “this is so cool!”
4. Jake B | January 26th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Good meeting you and Stephanie last night at BIMA.
What if the Wii wand moved the news camera in the story, and pointing the wand at various people on the tape would zoom in on their story like a microphone?
It still wouldn’t be true “Two” Point Oh so to Web speak. Peer-production of local news with home video cameras, desktop video editing, and a “re-broadcast” like a more collaboratively edited YouTube… this is more what we were talking about last night, right?
Thank you for the invitation to join your blog, Steve!
5. Rob | January 27th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Just read an AP article on the Wii News Channel, caught this interesting ‘graph:
There were no immediate plans to sell advertising space, said Perrin Kaplan, vice president for marketing at Nintendo’s U.S. headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
That’s kind of unbelievable … a new content channel without any plans for advertising?
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