But exactly how did creating this take anything away from the rest of its home site? We should limit the creativity of web developers and designers because they might be taking something away from the “journalism” on a news site? (Note to self: remember that the folks on our team who can write Javascript and Perl must spend more time writing articles for our home page.)

Maybe I missed it somewhere along the way, but I thought the whole point of Lost Remote was that this really still is the “brave new world” and nobody has figured it all out yet, so by sharing and talking about what’s new, what’s working and what’s being paid Billions for now, is what was five years ago something most companies were paying more in lip service to–than cold hard cash, it might just be a good thing. (Sorry, Martha.)

You know, we might all get a little smarter in the process of figuring out “what the viewer wants” if rather than just believing our own knee-jerk reactions or having a deck of 100 Powerpoint slides with piecharts and graphs show us, that on occasion we took a few risks and embraced the “new and cool” if for no other reason that just because it was new and cool to somebody else. Because you never know when the somebody elses will count in the millions and you will have found “the next big thing”.

And folks, let’s be clear–I, for one, have no issue with anyone posting under whatever name they wish. I’m just too opinionated and probably too lazy to use any name other than my own. Of course, YMMV.

Will it make money? I wrote “The site is launching with sponsors.”

Will it drive online traffic? Kirk Varner wrote that posting chopper vids online already does .”

Is this just tech people showing off (to put your words into more polite context)? Steve Baron talked about one practical use for it - clearly a discussion that was had with editorial people, not just among techs.

So, in fact, the community tried like heck to give you answers. You may disagree, and you may not like the answers, but there they are. It’s hard to keep a healthy debate going with someone who only wants to shoot down answers and keeps insulting you when you bring one to the table.

And there was nothing “veiled” about the insulting language you used.

A classical contrarian keeps a healthy, skeptical eye on conventional wisdom. When you just shout “no” all the time, you’re Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic.”

Guess that means you don’t have a real response, just a veiled insult.

Got it.

“A cynic is the man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
— Oscar Wilde.

Or, to bring it closer to home, The Smoking Gun gets millions of hits, but includes little more than text and some images…and a LOT of actual information.

I apologize. I am in favor of creative, new ideas. My beef is with web designers who create stuff that impresses THEM but has little value to the viewer.

Creativity is valuable, but its value lies in innovation that increases viewership, not ideas that make blogs like this one.

Why is this a “more resources being taken away from Journalism” contention? (Yes I spelled it with a big “J” on purpose.) Why do we have to feed that dead horse argument on why television news is dying and anyone over 30 just doesn’t know it yet?

We don’t know why people go to one site over another with any more precision than why they choose one tv newscast over another. So why not try as many new things as “code heads” can come up with and see what’s “sticky”?

Oh yes, that would be innovating and we just couldn’t have any of that, could we? After all, it was only a few minutes ago on the cosmic timeline when the experts were saying that this whole web thing wasn’t going to amount to much at all.

As FSJ might say–Namaste, Steve Baron

tdc’s grandaddy always said: if a guy is intent on digging a hole, then offer him a new shovel.

new shovel, contrarian?

@Steve: It’s NOT about giving the veiwer more information. They don’t need more information about a warehouse fire. It’s really about using another gee-whiz, Doppler 60,000, super-amazing, look-what-we-can-do gimmick.

Put the resources you’re using to create this crap into actual journalism instead of covering warehouse fires in the first place, and you’ll serve the viewer much better…if that’s what you really care about.

Make it work well. Chasing perps through Central LA for footage to sell to a TV show isn’t worth it.

Let’s throw out an example of an expected use.

A large warehouse is on fire in Chicago.

We post a link to a live video stream from the helicopter of a bunch of flames coming out of a building.

The headline says “Live Video: Warehouse Fire in Chicago”.

Users get pictures of flames, but not much else. That was before we got the tracking working.

Now, with GPS tracking in place, we post a link to the AirFoxLive.com page.

Now users have a frame of reference to place the video - they can look at the map and see where the fire is, what it’s close to, and maybe even how it could affect their commute, or something along those lines.

The GPS map from the chopper is basically geotagging the story in real-time.

Take that model and move it into a newscast.

The chopper arrives on the scene of a big news story.

What’s the first thing a producer does? They order a map!

Well, now, since you’ve got this plugged into Google Earth, you’ve got a map already made.

Its a second live source to go to while the rest of your assets (live trucks, phoners, etc) get into place.

It’s all about giving the user/viewer more information to do with what they please.