Archive for November, 2007
I blogged about the new ElectionLink vehicle that Fox News is rolling out to cover the campaign trail. Friday during the hostage standoff at the Clinton campaign office, Fox News used the vehicle and was live while on the way to the scene. At one point police cars could be seen racing past the camera. It was very impressive and pretty good quality video.
Note: The video makes it look like there was an audio syncing problem, but there wasn’t. (Thanks AG for helping get the video!)
November 30th, 2007
MySpace has launched its latest… um… innovation - the News Feed! OK, so it’s very smiliar to Facebook’s. Anyway, MySpacers can now opt-in or out of the system - deciding who they want to subscribe to, and who they want to block. Personally, I know several people who have turned it all off (me included). This is what has kept me from diding into Facebook - I don’t like to broadcast every little change in my MySpace life. Here’s a preview story from Reuters.
November 30th, 2007
It’s a new service that alerts your Facebook friends (via the news feed) when you buy something on sites like Travelocity, Fandango and Overstock, but after 50,000 Facebook members signed a petition dissing the new service over privacy concerns, Facebook now asks if users want to participate. “Beacon crosses the line to being Big Brother,” said Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, “It’s a very, very thin line.”
November 30th, 2007
As content gets distributed in more ways, NBC and Netflix announced a deal that will bring Heroes to Netflix subscribers the day after they air on NBC. It will work the same way Netflix users can watch movies on demand. In addition to the Heroes episodes, you will also be able to watch 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights and The Office.
November 29th, 2007
This was a new experience: propping my laptop on the kitchen counter so I could watch the Cowboys-Packers game live while I cooked dinner. At first, I was suspecting (as I blogged earlier) a terrible experience. After all, NFL.com said it would only provide live “look-ins” to NFL Network’s coverage every 30 minutes or so (along with plays in the red zone), but it turned out they simulcast the entire game. Well, almost. They clipped a few plays here and there, and at one point had their sideline guy yapping about this and that while the game was underway behind him. Super annoying, but not the “stupidcast” that I called it earlier. Perhaps the NFL bowed to the overwhelming pressure from fans and threw us a bone? Anyway, during the breaks a web studio team analyzed the action, aired some replays, ran some promos and occasionally plugged IWantNFLNetwork.com. Geesh.
Oh, and I gotta give the announcers (both Collinsworth and the web team) props for calling BS on the bad calls from the refs. As an NFL production, I thought they would sugarcoat everything, but they called it straight. (Yes, Cowboy fans, those were bad calls.)
November 29th, 2007
Of course, this is highly political, given the writers strike. But the Financial Times is quoting a media buyer’s estimates that the big four networks are in line to generate $120 million this year from streaming video ads. And that number is expected to rise sharply next year. “You get 85 percent recall [with web streaming] versus single-digit recall for TV,” said Tracey Scheppach, SVP and video innovation director for Starcom.
Related: ABC reaches contract agreement with news writers
November 29th, 2007
Armed with a Nokia N95 camera and a few accessories, a handful of Reuters reporters are beginning to experiment with shooting and feeding video, snapping photos and writing up text reports on location. If you can believe it, the phone even has it’s own mini-tripod in the “mobile journalism toolkit.” While the image quality and frame rate are very good for a phone, the video needs some kind of stabilizer (or steady hands) if you ask me. (Via Cyberjournalist)
November 29th, 2007
You gotta love this. In Touch magazine is showing photos of a text message in an effort to prove that its story about Britney Spears’ pregnancy is true. Then Huffington Post shows how easy it is to fake text messages. Sigh.
November 29th, 2007
Through partnerships with Maven and ThePlatform, Gannett is forming an online video network that spans most of the group’s 150 websites. “Our biggest need has been to find ways of growing our inventory,” explains Peter Lundquist, VP, content and product development for Gannett Digital in an interview with PaidContent. “Demand for advertising on our video players is very high, but we haven’t been able to keep up with the demand from a volume standpoint. So we’ll now be able to do two things: one, by scaling the distribution and having more inventory to sell; and two, we’ll be able to do more with ad solutions beyond just pre-roll video ads, which is primarily what we’ve been doing.” Rollout is scheduled for Q2.
November 29th, 2007
Can’t watch the Cowboys-Packers game on the NFL Network? Aren’t you in luck! The NFL just announced that you can watch the game live on NFL.com. Uh, wait. Let’s go to the press release for the fine print: “Fans will get a live look at NFL Network game action at :15 and :45 past each hour and during select action in the ‘red zone’ (inside 20-yard line). The NFL Network halftime show will also be shown on NFL.com.” Called “look-ins,” this has got to be the worst way to watch a football game in the history of the sport. Oh, correction. This same hacked-up coverage will also be available on the two-inch screen of your Sprint mobile phone. Woo hoo!
And if there’s any doubt of the purpose of these, um, stupidcasts, just look to this quote from NFL SVP of Digital Media Brian Rolapp: “Our coverage complements the complete game telecast on NFL Network and will showcase everything NFL Network has to offer.”
November 28th, 2007
A dozen support workers will be getting the axe in the New York Times, the first newsroom layoffs in recent memory. “We also expect to eliminate a few management jobs in administrative areas,” said Bill Keller, executive editor. “As we approach 2008, it is clear that the newsroom is going to have to do even more to tighten spending, and to help the publisher and the Times Company meet the difficult financial challenges facing our industry. While we are committed to retaining our competitive muscle, we will be facing some tough choices about where to save.” (Thanks, Rob for the tip!)
November 28th, 2007
Ok, these are very cool looking. The blog BigHeadDC has the story about two vehicles that will be hitting the road this week to New Hampshire and Iowa to cover the election race for Fox News. The ElectionLink vehicles are tapeless, and use IP technology to provide a hefty 750kbps stream for live video streaming, even while the vehicle is in motion. “YouDecide:” Cool?
November 28th, 2007
We just added this nifty little video strip across the right of the site (powered by VodPod), and we’re looking for current media-related clips on YouTube to rotate through it. Bloopers, cool techie stuff, that sort of thing. If you have a recent one, please send it to us via our tip form.
November 28th, 2007
A little promotional, sure, but Brightcove execs Jeremy Allaire and Adam Berrey have written a “state of the industry” report with some online video predictions for 2008. Like this one:
To date the advertising focus in the Internet TV market has been on monetizing video streams. But this focus is both shortsighted and not nearly as effective as thinking about how to monetize audience. By developing audience-centric strategies, content owners will look for new ways to blend ad formats, insertion policies, and targeting tactics across pages, short-form video clips, long-form shows, and open distribution.
November 28th, 2007
Comments about tonight’s CNN YouTube debate? There sure was a lot more attacking of each other in this debate compared to the previous YouTube debate. I noticed CNN promoted CNNPolitics.com during the debate. They seem to be pushing people to this site more and more, instead of CNN.com.
Update: Ooops, one of the questions came from the Clinton campaign.
November 28th, 2007
The partnership between Hearst-Argyle and Google that started with YouTube channels has now expanded to include a sales partnership with Google AdWords. According to Hearst-Argyle, the broadcaster “will use its Web sales force to provide marketers in its 26 local markets access to Google AdWords.” Press release after the jump. (Disclosure: You all know where I work.)
Adds Cory: Any comments about this? In essense, Hearst is saying that there’s no competing with Google, and businesses are going to learn about Adwords, anyway. So might as well get a cut of the action along the way.
Read the full post November 28th, 2007
Following up on TechCrunch’s “rumor” that News Corp. was thinking about acquiring LinkedIn, now there’s a report from VentureBeat that says “talks are serious.” VentureBeat also says the plan would be to integrate LinkedIn with the Wall Street Journal and other News Corp. papers. As I mentioned in an earlier post, LinkedIn’s best feature is its social job postings.
November 28th, 2007
This Thursday is one of the biggest NFL games of the year: the Dallas Cowboys (10-1) take on the Green Bay Packers (10-1), two teams with a national fan base. But… the game is airing on the NFL Network, which is not available in two-thirds of the country. That is, unless you want to pay extra for it. Both teams’ home markets will be able to watch the games on broadcast TV, but that won’t help the millions of football fans (like myself) who live outside the Dallas and Green Bay DMAs. As you might imagine, this all comes down to a pissing match between the NFL Network and Time Warner and Comcast. I’ll let FoxSports.com explain it for you:
The NFL had a near-future vision for itself: its own gravy train TV network. All it had to do was dangle some live games, games that otherwise would have appeared on free, network TV. And now, because the NFL overplayed its hand, preventing two-thirds of the country from seeing NFL Network games, the cable giants are the bad guys?
That’s right, NFL Network is blaming everything on cable. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who also happens to chair the NFL Networks committee, is spouting off so much that the cable companies got a cease-and-desist order for him to stop urging Cowboys fans to switch to satellite. I don’t know about you, but I’ve about had it with the greediness of the NFL. And so have many sports writers. “Since when does the NFL really care about the fans?” writes the Indianapolis Star. True enough.
November 27th, 2007
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