AP makes its video available to embed
Steve Safran February 28th, 2007
The Associated Press has entered into a partnership to allow people to embed its videos on their websites. The AP announced a deal with syndication network Voxant to distribute the vids on the web, with the Voxant site TheNewsroom as the base of operations. Good start, but a few issues may get in the way of this becoming the success it could be: you are asked to provide an email address to TheNewsroom to get the embed codes. That may not seem like much, but you don’t need to do any such thing at YouTube, ComedyCentral, or many other video sharing services, which one of the big reasons for their sharing appeal. Also, the AP will be running pre-roll ads. Still, full credit for allowing the embeds. Here’s a sample - raw vids of landslide damage in San Francisco…
Update from Cory: I’ve removed the player because of technical issues (see comments).
12 Comments Add your own
1. Greg | February 28th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Compared to YouTube, this seems a little big don’t you think?
2. Steve Safran | February 28th, 2007 at 8:43 am
It’s got some quirks, yes. For one, on my Mac in Firefox, the bottom cuts off the line of text where we have the tags. But I like to give props to any first attempt at something LR has been espousing for years. Having done a little work with the folks at AP Video and spoken with the folks at Voxant, I am absolutely comfortable that they want this stuff to work and they’ll continue to tweak.
3. Kerri | February 28th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Steve: Thanks for the comment.! Just wanted to point out that the reason Web publishers who mash content sign up and provide an email to TheNewsRoom is so they can get a cut of the advertising revenue. Voxant also tracks where the content is mashed and how often it’s viewed — something the content providers and advertisers appreciate. Also, content can be mashed from wherever it is — from TheNewsRoom to another site and from there to still more sites, and so on.
4. Steve Safran | February 28th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Kerri: (I’m assuming you’re affiliated with The NewsRoom or the AP) - that’s excellent information. A couple of questions:
In the online world “Mashed” usually refers to remixed, as in “mashups.” Is that something one can do with your video?
I certainly understand why publishers should sign up, especially if they want money. But if I don’t want a cut of the revenue (I assume I won’t be getting much for posting the clip here at LR), why should I have to input my email to get the code? I know from the publisher’s standpoint it’s good to have that to track. But from the blogger’s standpoint, any whiff of that sort of thing is bound to raise red flags and hinder rather than help distribution.
These are all, truly, critiques rather than criticisms. You’re doing exactly what LR has been calling on video producers to do for years. I’m genuinely curious about your thought process and I’m sure the LR Faithful are as well.
I will happily put your notes on the front page of LR. Thanks!
5. Cory | February 28th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Worked for the morning, now it’s not loading. ‘’A problem has occurred accessing this content. Null.'’
Wait, now the player is back, but no video, just a blank spot.
Update: I waited 20 seconds and the video finally appeared.
Seems they have a little more work to do.
6. WiggyWack | February 28th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I’m getting a pop-up now from TheNewsroom.com every time I access the main LostRemote page…. And the embedded video doesn’t show up on the page either. Using IE 6 and Windows XP right now…
7. Kerry | February 28th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I’m also getting an annoying pop-up (except it’s a blank page) and there is a hole there the supposed video should be. Using XP Pro and IE7.
8. Cory | February 28th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
In Firefox, I get the blank pop-up over LR’s home page, too. And the player doesn’t display at all.
So I’ve removed it.
Clearly not ready for primetime.
9. themanhattanchannel | February 28th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
cheer up, i here terry gross on npr has a series next week on “the next big thing in tv”. she does the Fresh Air segment that runs 3-4pm here.
should be interesting.
they mention in their promo “it could be worth m-i-l-l-i-o-n-s of dollars!”
geez, somebody better tell them “new media” only accepts BILLION dollar bills.
10. jeff crigler | February 28th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
The reason we ask for the email is so we can contact folks and PAY THEM MONEY! That is the difference between Voxant and GooTube.
If we have no way of reaching the masher we have no way of paying them for taking our news.
11. Steve Safran | February 28th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Jeff:
Due respect - you need to make that much clearer. Nowhere on The Newsroom’s front page does it say that. Nowhere in the embed-one-video terms and conditions does it say that. It’s not on theTerms of Service page, either. I consider myself fairly web-savvy and I didn’t know this was a rev-share deal until Kerri posted it above. In fact, the only place I can find it is the third question on your “Help” page. I respectfully suggest better placement.
Something else to consider: there are a good deal of bloggers who are dubious they will ever make money from the few views they will get for your video and they would rather keep their privacy than trade it for a few bucks. Many - most - people blog as a passion, not for the money.
All I’m suggesting is that you give your audience options. Make it clear they can have a rev share if they want it. Or they can put up the information and get nothing if they want to do that too. My information is my currency online. I get to determine the value of that transaction. Your role is to give me the value proposition.
But first, work out those bugs.
12. Jeff Crigler | March 1st, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Steve,
Thanks for you comments. First, we definately need to fix the prominence of our “value proposition” to folks like you. It is buried and needs to be surfaced. We’ll get that and some of these other bugs fixed shortly.
In addition to financial reason we ask for an email… there is one other. Unlike some other sites, we have a legit license to our content and have worked out arrangements with our providers to transfer that license on a selective basis to the members of our network, ‘if the sign the use agreement’. Collecting the email helps us assure our content providers that we are doing that. Also imagine if you were contributing your content to the Voxant network for distribution (which you will soon be able to do) wouldn’t you like to know who has taken your content and be able to check out how they are using it.
Finally, we take the financial stuff pretty seriously. While its true that lots of blogger do what they do from passion… many are also serious about trying to generate income. We are working on three things in that regard to help them. 1st, we offer them up to 20% of the ad revenue if the register. 2nd, we will soon announce a program to help drive traffic to their sites… this will be a free benefit of joining the network. 3rd we will let them submit qualified news content to our netowrk and so they can earn their own ad revenue on other network sites.
An Idea we are considering is to also pay folks who take network content for their sites, if their own readers (who are not in our network) copy and embed the content on their own sites. So our distributors would be compensated when their readers further distributed and embedded the content. I would be interested in knowing what you and your readers think about that idea!
Jeff
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