Archive for February 22nd, 2007
Jeff Jarvis makes an excellent point in this blog post that urges news organizations — especially newspapers — to focus their dwindling resources on their strengths instead of trying to duplicate coverage that’s widely available elsewhere. Newspaper sites are already posting more national wire and syndicated stories to free up their reporters to cover more local news. But Jarvis goes a step further to suggest they link to sites that are doing a better job covering a story.
There’s an interesting implication here for TV news, as well. The majority of stories in local TV newscasts (and the networks, too) are exactly the same. This sameness is not a detractor in a linear world: most people who watch TV don’t turn off a newscast if they’ve already read or seen a story somewhere else. But on the web, sameness is a drawback: people who have already read or seen a story somewhere else aren’t going to click on it to read it again. Posting the same stories as everyone else has a more tangible impact on pageviews than airing the same stories has an impact on ratings. This becomes even a bigger drawback when you consider all the stories TV newsrooms get from newspapers, which have already been online for most the day before they end up on the TV websites. In the end, covering unique, original stories is a must for TV sites — resources willing — even if it means diverging from TV’s daily coverage. Or better yet, TV newsrooms should cover more enterprise stories as a percentage of daily assignments.
February 22nd, 2007
No surprise here, but MSNBC’s Countdown is the most time-shifted cable news show on TV, according to Keith Olbermann in this interview with TVGuide.com. I’ve been recording the show religiously since the moment it launched. Plus, watching it on a DVR makes it a snap to fast-forward through the interviews. Ah, if they only made this show 30 minutes instead of a full hour… (Via TVNewser)
The masthead from Countdown’s new blog, The News Hole.
February 22nd, 2007
As always, the Lost Remote team will be in Las Vegas this April 15-18 for television industry’s biggest technology event. It’ll be our 7th year blogging NAB-RTNDA — this time we’ll be shooting a lot more video — and we’ll be holding our annual RTNDA panel session. This year, it’s called “Redesign your Web Content with the Lost Remote Guys.” We’ll have more details as the convention grows near.
February 22nd, 2007
Tewksbury, MA
Read the full post February 22nd, 2007
Couples who submit wedding announcements to NYTimes.com can also upload their own videos explaining how they first met. “How We Met” is NYTimes.com’s first user-created video feature (and most likely not the last), and it’s powered by Brightcove. Beet.TV interviewed NYTimes.com Nicholas Ascheim about the project, and you can watch the video here. A few more details in the press release below…
Read the full post February 22nd, 2007
The Yahoo post below got me thinking about local TV stations’ efforts to produce original video online. My definition of original video doesn’t include anything repurposed or repackaged from TV, such as having an TV anchor host a web newscast. Has anyone had any success with a unique concept using video shot exclusively for the web?
Adds Alan in comments: “WFAA.com in Dallas has its own web video reporter, the Mobile Journalist or ‘MoJo,’ who files 2-3 reports a day exclusively for their site on various topics. He’s carved out his own niche on their site.”
Adds Jason in comments: “My colleague Ben Tracy (at WCCO) does a segment called Good Question every night. He gets a ton of e-mailed questions, and answers one a day in a video e-mail that people sign up for.”
February 22nd, 2007
In its first original video project since In the Hot Zone with Kevin Sites, Yahoo News will soon launch Odd News Underground, a unique take on the news that features a singing anchor. Yahoo isn’t saying much about it, but says the host has experience both in news and as a musician, and is not an unknown. The new video “newscast” will debut by the end of the quarter. Should be interesting.
February 22nd, 2007
The Television Bureau of Advertising announced it would commit $5 million to build an online platform that would allow ad buyers to purchase local TV and ultimately online advertising. The goal is to have the first layer up and running early next year for TV ad buying, with future expansions into ad space on TV websites, mobile platforms and digital subchannels. One of the chief criticisms of buyers looking to place national ads across multiple stations is it’s too labor-intensive. “It’s crystal-clear that some of the shrinkage of national spot is because of the process,” said TVB President Chris Rohrs. Called ePort, the TVB’s platform would streamline the buying process with the aim to be completely paperless in 2009. “There is very strong broadcaster commitment to this project,” said Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith Broadcasting and TVB board chairman. “We are putting our money where our mouth is.”
February 22nd, 2007
With the broadcast and cable networks turning their backs on YouTube (see yesterday’s story), Google CEO Eric Schmidt promised that the video site’s much-anticipated copyright filtering tools are “going to roll out very soon” and they’re “one of the company’s highest priorities.” YouTube’s biggest mistake was promising the technology — which would identify copyrighted video by unique “fingerprints” — would roll out at the first of the year. Since then, Viacom has pulled all its clips, CBS’ deal is “unraveling” and NBCU’s lawyers have told the site to remove all its video.
February 22nd, 2007
The two companies have settled Cisco’s lawsuit over Apple’s use of the iPhone name, which is trademarked by Cisco. There’s no mention of financial details.
February 22nd, 2007
MSN execs toured Revver’s headquarters in Los Angeles last month to see if the video site’s technology would be a good fit for Soapbox, Microsoft’s new video sharing site. But a source tells News.com that Microsoft doesn’t seem to be interested in buying the company. Meanwhile, Revver’s CEO says the company is not for sale. “We believe we are in the right place at the right time with the right technology, and we continue to focus on enhancing the Revver service and forging new distribution deals,” said Revver CEO Steven Starr. But some analysts say that Revver needs to start generating more revenue soon or identify an exit strategy.
February 22nd, 2007
