Internet Broadcasting turns former WCCO site back on
Michael Gay August 2nd, 2007
There’s an interesting story happening at Internet Broadcasting’s headquarters in Minneapolis. I’m based here, so I’m seeing it all happen. The company used to manage Channel4000.com for WCCO-TV here in Minneapolis. That relationship ended and WCCO changed their URL to wcco.com. That left Channel4000 pretty much dead. It became an automated weather site for the last few years. But, when you have a company packed with journalists, and a story happening in our own city, the site was turned back on and packed with Minneapolis Bridge Collapse content. There are a number of Web journalists on the scene last night and today, and they are producing content that is being shared with the other IB stations around the country, and the new partnership with CNN.
Update: CNN.com is now linking to the Channel4000.com coverage of the disaster.
26 Comments Add your own
1. Jason | August 2nd, 2007 at 8:38 am
This is cool, Michael. It’s neat to have the video from all the TV stations aggregated on the front page of Channel4000.
2. theminneapolischannel | August 2nd, 2007 at 9:10 am
you stole my frickin idea!
i was on the site last night and the usual weather page was all that was there.
interesting!
3. theminneapolischannel | August 2nd, 2007 at 9:12 am
matter of fact, i think i was there EARLY this morning too… like 7am eastern.
what time did they tip it up?
4. theminneapolischannel | August 2nd, 2007 at 9:15 am
ok, so you didn’t “steal” my idea. but you did ‘use’ it.
good tinkin’
5. Mike Escutia | August 2nd, 2007 at 10:03 am
Now THAT is a brilliant idea, though I imagine WCCO is less than thrilled about their old website rising from the dead.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the site gets a quick redesign over the weekend. It looks older than the old-school IBS sites that the COX stations still have.
6. theminneapolischannel | August 2nd, 2007 at 10:48 am
so you don’t actually need a ota station on the ground in any given city to make it happen online?
hmmmm.
i’ve always said ib should have more than one “channel” in major cities even if they have nbc as the lone affiliate now.
the competition will spark innovation.
7. Vlajbert | August 2nd, 2007 at 10:49 am
Umm, what idea did IB steal?
8. Rex | August 2nd, 2007 at 10:54 am
Hmmmmm… Michael should know better than me since he works there, but is Channel4000.com truly “back from the dead”? It’s always been there, right? At least until a year ago, it was maintained as a weather site.
9. Michael Gay | August 2nd, 2007 at 11:19 am
You’re right Rex. It was just “turned off” in the sense that it was automated and no editorial was done on it. As you can see now, it’s packed with editorial content today.
10. Rex | August 2nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Cool. Either way, it’s indeed a great idea. I spoke to a few IBers yesterday… glad everyone sounds safe.
11. tmc | August 2nd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
personally, i hope numbers blow the top off the meter. seriously.
it’ll illustrate my point of a physical station being a non-essential.
i can imagine the de facto “authority” cnn was linking to earlier today and last night ain’t too happy though. and they just unveiled that new design too. bummer.
12. Jason | August 2nd, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I assure you there’s plenty of web traffic to go around on this story.
13. tmc | August 2nd, 2007 at 2:14 pm
errr, i was referring to wisn.com, but that’s ok.
i found that odd too since milwaukee is a long walk from minneapolis.
the “problem” with jason’s ‘assurance’ is quite common; nd’s look at this traffic spike and might think it’ll last forever.
if something major happens tomorrow in BFE the traffic will be gone. if not, in a few days it will be. just look at graphs for wlky.com when the story (heartbreaking as it was) broke about the young girl losing both her feet to an amusement ride.
that’s why it is essential ALL you guys realize your traffic is from EVERYWHERE online and plan accordingly.
you are now global.
carry on.
14. tmc | August 2nd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
ps. i see LR made google’s 1st page of results when one submits ‘minneapolis bridge’
15. tmc | August 2nd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
omgosh, look at all those glorious links to OTHER stations in town.
seems like only days ago someone was commenting that amid the helicopter crash in phoenix one station refused to even acknowledge the competition.
how quickly the internet teaches.
cool.
16. Rob | August 2nd, 2007 at 3:18 pm
To springboard off TMC’s comments, on one hand, it’s exciting that they - IB and their Channel4000 site - were able to build a destination from the ground up within hours.
On the other hand, it’s scary that they don’t have any affiliation with a station in Minneapolis. If they could do it there, what does that say about their ability to aggregate content and localize it if something like that ever happened in my neighborhood?
And as for traffic I totally agree TMC and Jason. We saw a moderate spike in traffic yesterday as we did after the Virginia Tech shootings and we’re nowhere near either location. The online “market” really is global.
17. discreet_chaos | August 2nd, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Semi-Related, but still…
Hey Rex - I saw that you were twittering for witnesses, video and the like, once things got rolling. Considering all of the questions about the reach of Twitter outside of the Valley - How’d that work for ya?
18. discreet_chaos | August 2nd, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Correction - I should’ve said “twittered”. I wouldn’t want to make anyone sound callous and am mostly wondering about the function.
19. tmc | August 3rd, 2007 at 3:55 am
very cool how they are simply AGGREGATING the existing resources on the ground.
yesterday’s links to streams are now links to specific stories at various local stations.
AND
links to local bloggers - although the one that is label “mexico” does not belong. otherwise, me thinks they have stumbled upon a new business model.
go for it.
20. Rex | August 3rd, 2007 at 11:21 am
It’s an interesting question… Twitter is becoming a good source for gathering information (it’s the place I first found out about the bridge accident). However, it doesn’t seem to be the best place to make requests… the way relationships work, it’s not broadcasty.
Anyway, I have 300+ followers on Twitter, and maybe one-fourth are Minneapolites. None of them seemed to have any first-hand accounts or media. (And, thankfully, all of them were safe.)
We (MSNBC.com) did really well on the UGC front, but nothing came in via Twitter — a lot did come through other personal relationships, though.
21. Rick Ellis | August 3rd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Twitter is one of those things that should work better than it does. Part of it is scale, I think. I’ve read that they have about 500,000 active users, which is big, but perhaps not big enough to be useful nationally.
We tried it with the Emmy nominations a few weeks back. We sent the major noms via a Twitter account to maybe 300 people. And while it worked fine, I don’t know that it’s worth doing on an ongoing basis.
22. Rex | August 3rd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I sorta disagree with that… Twitter works absolutely perfectly for what it’s supposed to do… but Twitter just isn’t made for MSM people to broadcast their messages… it’s about community and communication, not broadcasting and publishing.
23. Michael Gay | August 3rd, 2007 at 4:35 pm
*Raises hand.* Is a Twitter like a Twizzler? Those make my mouth happy.
It’s Friday. You know you smiled when you thought of a Twizzler.
24. Rick Ellis | August 3rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Yeah, Rex, but I would argue that community and communication and broadcasting/publishing aren’t mutually exclusive.
But back to Twitter. I think it’s one of those things that an interesting technology looking for a killer use. Using it as a way to send “hey, guess what I had for lunch” messages to friends seems like overkill. But it doesn’t quite work as a one-way broadcast medium, either.
FWIW, I think using it for something like very specific breaking news makes sense.
Say, a twitter account that would send a message every time Barry Bonds was at bat (until he broke the record).
Of course, I could be a completly wrong about this. Actually, it’s probably likely.
25. discreet_chaos | August 3rd, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Rex - After I posted my question, I realized that though I see your “badge” on your site, I don’t “follow” you and I originally learned about your Twitter because it was mirrored onto the MNspeak blog. Perhaps, if MSM has someone like yourself, who has ties to a community and Twitter-friends among its populace, it could work as a way to get tips or as in the recent case, the tweets could be an easy way to reach out to a segemnt of the blogosphere, but as you say - The fact that the general public doesn’t have immediate access to the tweets (except maybe through that map mash-up that Scoble linked the other day or something similar), it probably has very limited value in these situations.
I just thought it was neat that you had tried and I wondered if it had bore any fruit.
Also, I kind of like Rick’s idea of an outlet creating a Twitter account for something less than a breaking news story, but because I’m outside of the Valley, I’ve found that I have to explain Twitter and the further away you get, the less-value such a venture might have.
Though still, a Twitter account is free, so it wouldn’t cos a lot to try.
26. discreet_chaos | August 3rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
My kingdom for the old “preview” button, where hopefully, I wouldn’t make so many speed-related errors within a single comment.
PS) I need a Twizzler.
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