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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Swine Flu Online; Disney Joins Hulu
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the positive -- and negative -- way the Internet, blogs and Twitter have spread information about the swine flu. There are great resources, maps and tracking sites, but it's easy to get in a panic as well. Also, Disney joined up in the video site Hulu, putting...
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EducationShift
Advice from the Pros to Journalism Graduates
It's an anxious time to be graduating from journalism school. The economy is in the tank and newsrooms are being decimated. But yet, it is also a great time to be a journalist, with more news and information available than ever before and more ways than ever to reach audiences. At the recent International Symposium on Online Journalism at...
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Culture
How Charities Harness Social Media to Raise Awareness, Money
On April 14, actor Hugh Jackman pledged to give AUS $100,000 to the charity that could best convince him, via Twitter, that it was deserving of the award. On Friday, Jackman announced that, unable to decide, he had chosen two winners to split the prize: Operation of Hope, a medical foundation that donates surgical procedures to children in developing countries...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: HuffPost Investigative Fund; AP on Mobile Apps
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the new Huffington Post Investigative Journalism Fund, which has $1.75 million to start a new non-partisan site that will do investigative work and then give it away to any news organization. I also look at the latest moves by Disney, distributing video on YouTube and possibly on...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: Hearst E-Reader; Boxee vs. Hulu
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I talk about how the New York Times launches hyper-local sites right as Google's Tim Armstrong launches Patch.com hyper-local sites -- both in New Jersey. Plus, Hearst says it will develop a new e-reader device like a Kindle, but with a larger, flexible screen, likely coming from E-Ink,...
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5Across
Lively Roundtable Discussion on Making Compelling Online Video
When I launched MediaShift in early 2006, I wanted to go beyond writing about all the trends in online media -- blogging, podcasting, online video, etc. -- and actually do those things myself. Walk my talk. I recently launched the 4-Minute Roundup audio podcast, and today I'm launching a new monthly video roundtable called 5Across that will include 5...
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Legal Drama
How Animal Rights Activists Beat the Rodeos in Videotaping Events
As cell phone cameras and palm-sized videocams have become cheap and ubiquitous, there is little if anything that is immune from being documented and displayed on the web, as numerous celebrities and sports stars have learned to their regret. In the realm of hard news, the result is that citizen journalists are able to bypass big media news organizations and...
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PoliticalShift
How Obama Inspired Israeli Politicians' Online Campaigns
Just as television changed the way political campaigns were run in the 1960s, the Internet has changed the way political campaigns are run in the 2000s. Upwards of 70 million people watched the more aesthetically-pleasing JFK debating the more radio-suited Nixon on the tube in 1960. Nearly 50 years later, the YouTube debates of 2008 allowed people to ask their...
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World View
How Social Media War Was Waged in Gaza-Israel Conflict
Both sides deployed dangerous new media weapons during this latest round of fighting in Gaza. Armed with Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, and Lavazza espresso, warriors fearlessly and tirelessly scoured the cyber battlefield searching for enemy (blog) outposts. Outfitted with high-tech ammunition like HD videocameras, firewire 800s, and white phosphorescent keyboards, they attacked one-sided videos, slanted essays, and enemy propaganda with...
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PoliticalShift
Obama, Congress Enlist 'Direct to Constituent' Communications
Professional communicators are paying close attention to the rise of "direct to consumer" (DTC) communications. This is a phenomenon largely enabled by the rapid proliferation and adoption of online technologies, whereby organizations can communicate directly to the public without filters or mediation from the press. Corporate blogs or advocacy groups' online "action alerts" are just a couple examples. As a...
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Media Usage
How Forwarded Email Jokes, Hoaxes Evolved with Social Media
When I first ventured online in the late '90s, my in-box was constantly flooded with email forwards. Friends and co-workers alike tossed around lists of jokes, hoaxes and cautionary urban legends, pleas about a dying child in Idaho that needed your prayers or horror stories about human fingers discovered in fast food hamburgers. Today it seems that there are fewer...
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Embedded Report
The Big Video Debate: Rough or Slick?
Video is one of those new practices we have to get used to as newspaper journalists now working in a Web 2.0 world. One of the key issues is the quality of the video. Do we always need slick, television-style video, which require more specialized skills, or will our community accept "rougher" video, made by amateurs using less sophisticated cameras?...
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Online Video
YouTube Helps Video Journalists Get a Start
When discussing the travails of major news outlets online, it's not uncommon for someone to mention the effect that companies like Google and Craigslist have had. But seemingly overlooked in this debate is Google's own YouTube, which has become a breeding ground for unknown and upcoming filmmakers and broadcast journalists. In what way could the online video giant use its...
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TVShift
Public-Access TV Fights for Relevance in the YouTube Age
Public-access television is a sometimes bizarre world where anyone with the time and inclination can appear on television. It's where you find the rants of Colombus, Ohio, goth Damon Zex and the strange instructional videos of Let's Paint TV, where Los Angeles host John Kilduff taught viewers how to paint and make blended drinks all while exercising on a treadmill....
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World View
Innovative Web Video Series Shows Real Life in Gaza, Israel
One sense of fear, two armies, and three rows of electrical fences separate Israel and the Gaza Strip. For the past 10 years, it has been difficult for residents of these two places to ever imagine meeting one another in person. Now, thanks to a new documentary project produced by French/German television station Arte TV and a handful of Israeli...
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World View
Video Report from Jeff Pulver's Tel Aviv Breakfast Meetup
I thought I was going to a breakfast where people actually ate food. But food is hardly the top priority at a Jeff Pulver breakfast, where people are too busy pitching their latest ideas to investors, scoping out the competition, or scoping out the eligible singles on the market. Jeff is known for being one of leading innovators in voice-over-IP...
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Embeds
FriendFeed Widget Motivates Reporters to Use Social Media
Blogs should be conversations. At least, that is how we think about blogging at Mediafin, Belgium's leading publisher of business newspapers and websites. This last week, I have been busy reorganizing our major financial blog, Bear&Bull, adding FriendFeed widgets in hopes of encouraging more audience interaction. The results have been surprising -- although the audience has been slow to react,...
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EducationShift
Learning How to Make Multimedia Story Decisions
Multimedia journalism is one of those terms often used to refer to a wide range of online content. Recently, I began a discussion with my students at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism to define exactly what the term means and how we can harness the many forms of online media to produce quality journalism. We started by first asking...
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Online Video
Can Pulitzer Contest Boost Serious Journalism on YouTube?
Whenever news breaks, the first people on the ground, before reporters arrive, are ordinary folks with cameras. Citizen journalists have played an important role in getting us the first glimpses of developing news, from the London transit bombings to the Southeast Asian tsunami to the Virginia Tech massacre. With the advent of YouTube as a hub for video-sharing, there's finally...
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PoliticalShift
How Greenwald's Brave New Films Spreads Its Political Message Online
Last month, Politico's Mike Allen asked presidential hopeful John McCain the seemingly innocent question of how many houses he owned. McCain's response -- "I'll have my staff get to you" -- became a major focus for both the media and Obama's campaign, who repeated it in just about every speech to illustrate that the Republican candidate was "out of...
more »Digging Deeper
Lessons from Katrina Help Media, Volunteer Efforts in Gustav Coverage
When Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast, the evacuation of the area went much more smoothly than during Hurricane Katrina three years ago. This time, the local, state and national agencies were more prepared for a potential disaster. Similarly, online media outlets and volunteer efforts were also better prepared for this hurricane, having learned their lessons from the Katrina...
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NewspaperShift
Newspapers Can Do Online Video on a Modest Budget
I was as excited as anybody to be able to post video on our website. Our newspaper readers were turning more and more to their computer screen to read our news and it seemed logical that they would appreciate and enjoy seeing video enhancements for the print edition. My excitement soon turned to frustration as I started to run into hurdles.
more »Legal Drama
Should Copyright Law Change in the Digital Age?
This is the final part of my three-part email roundtable discussion looking at the new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use of Online Video created at the behest of the Center for Social Media at American University. In the first part, the respondents in this email roundtable talked about what the Code means, how they might put it...
more »Embedded Report
How Outside Firms Like TownNews.com Can Help Small Newspaper Sites
I decided early on that the best strategy for our newspaper to grow its web presence was to not to hire people, but to find other firms to partner with.
This took us from working with a guy with a server is his apartment to working with a phone company and finally a newspaper-specific host/content management system. We gave up control over many aspects of our website in order to remain flexible.
more »Online Video
Creating a Video to Help Educate People on Fair Use
Last week, I ran the first part of a special three-part series on fair use in online video. With the release of the new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use of Online Video, the question was how this Code might help video producers, remixers and mash-up artists use copyrighted works legally under "fair use" rules. In the first...
more »Digging Deeper
Will Code of Best Practices Help Video Mash-Up Artists Stay Legal?
You just created the best video mash-up ever, taking a speech given by John McCain broadcast on Fox News, remixing it with the song "Ol' Man River," and quick-cutting in clips from gangsta rappers. You upload it to YouTube and other video-sharing sites, and watch the views pile up. But have you run afoul of copyright law? Do you...
more »Embedded Report
NBC's Penguin Story Goes from Web to 'Nightly News'
It was a seemingly prosaic moment at the end of the "Weekend NBC Nightly News" program Saturday, July 5: Lester Holt wrapped up the show with one of those ever-popular cute animal stories. The piece was about a baby penguin rejected by its mother and now being raised by a zoo worker in Boston. But there was a lot more to this story than met the eye, as Holt hinted at with his introduction: "It's a story we first reported on our website. It got a lot of traffic there, so much in fact that we thought maybe we'd air it right here. So here's NBC's Clare Duffy with our report."
more »Your Take Roundup
Keep Video Ads Brief, Contextual
Online video usage is exploding online, as people watch everything from YouTube to TV shows to sporting events -- but mainly, YouTube. But the question is how sites will be able to pay for all that usage. Most video viewers would prefer not to pay for them, nor watch any advertising either.
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Quick Video Services Spark Conversations, Boredom
Online video has moved way beyond simple video-sharing on YouTube. A growing number of services are allowing users to make video on the fly and stream their material live or near live to the web or from mobile devices. Instant video content, often just conversations between the producer and his or her audience, or video comments back and forth, is much different from content that is recorded, edited and posted onto video-sharing sites like YouTube.
more »Digging Deeper
Online Video Ads Finally Find Their Niche
The numbers tell the story of the disconnect between online videos watched and online video ads sold: In December 2007, Americans watched 10 billion online videos, according to comScore. For the entire year of 2007, advertisers spent just $554 million on online video ads, according to Jupiter, while they spent $21 billion on all online ads. So many people are watching online videos, but so few advertisers are trying to reach them.
more »NewspaperShift
Post-Mortem on the Multimedia Boot Camp
For five and a half days, a group of mostly newspaper journalists (with a few broadcasters and non-profit folks thrown in) took an intensive boot camp multimedia training at UC Berkeley through the Knight Digital Media Center. The idea was to learn as much as possible about shooting and editing video, capturing and editing audio, building Flash animations, doing...
more »NewspaperShift
Flash Techniques, and the Participatory Push by Current TV
BERKELEY, CALIF. -- The week-long training at UC Berkeley in multimedia has now moved to a new phase. After getting basic background on audio, video and photographic equipment, we went out into the field on our group's assignment. My group, Team Gecko, went to visit Professor Robert Full to learn about the work he's done in biomechanics. Full's lab...
more »NewspaperShift
Hands-On Training with Videocameras and Shooting for the Web
BERKELEY, CALIF. -- After our long storyboarding sessions, it's now time to move into more hands-on training and seminars on doing video shooting, audio recording, digital photography and using Macintosh computers. So far, there's been a good mix of lectures, discussions and collaborative work on storyboards for our projects. The group is very inquisitive, and the instructors have done...
more »NewspaperShift
Storyboarding Basics and Finding Your Dream Job
BERKELEY, CALIF. -- It's Day 2 at the Knight Digital Media Center's week-long boot camp for journalists learning to do multimedia reports. On the agenda for the day is learning about doing "storyboarding," or laying out how a multimedia report will work. And there will also be some basic tutorials on using videocameras and techniques in video shooting. (Some...
more »NewspaperShift
Live-Blogging the Multimedia Boot Camp for Newspaper Journalists
BERKELEY, CALIF. -- With MediaShift, I've always had a plan to add video and audio along with all the text reports I do here. As I want to "walk my talk" about media outlets using multimedia, I felt it made sense to do them myself. This week, I'll be auditing a week-long boot camp in multimedia training at the...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Web Serials Find Their Niche vs. TV
Everyone's a producer -- or so it seems with the availability of video-making tools for just about anyone these days. With the arrival of cheaper, more compact equipment and the rapid of advance of technology in this area, it's possible to shoot a pretty good quality video with a small digital camera or even a high-end cell phone. Plus,...
more »Social Networking
Africa's Social Media Conundrum
"Web 2.0 [is] a venture capitalist's paradise where investors pocket the value produced by unpaid users, ride on the technical innovations of the free software movement and kill off the decentralizing potential of peer-to-peer production."
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Lately, it seems everybody's a video producer. From YouTube to BlogTV to Seesmic –- it's as if everyone's doing something with a videocamera. Last year, I wondered if the transition from blogger to video producer and host might not be the best route for everyone. It seemed that bloggers were eager to jump formats and just "do video," and the...
more »Digging Deeper
BusinessWeek.com Pushes into Aggregation, Video, Participation to Stand Out
Business news is often about numbers. And when you check the audience numbers on the various top financial news sites online, the portals such as Yahoo Finance and MSN Money come out on top, followed by a jumble of online magazines such as Forbes.com, wire services such as Reuters, and online-only pubs like TheStreet.com. As of last August, BusinessWeek.com...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
The Benefits and Pitfalls of Using Social Media for Reporting
Because we live in an age when social media sites are our daily bread, it seems natural to turn to them as resources for writing a story. When I wrote a piece about the popularity of Facebook all over the world, I went straight to Facebook to get the user interviews I needed. And when I wrote about the...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
5 Places to Watch Movies Online Legally -- and Free
The spread of broadband Internet access has made online video a much better experience, allowing movie fans to catch a flick on the Net without having to rent a DVD. Depending on the kind of system and monitor you have, watching films on a computer can become almost as enjoyable as watching them on your television. For instance, with...
more »Digging Deeper
Anti-Piracy Dragnet Could Hurt 'Fair Use' of Copyrighted Video
All the lawsuits and rhetoric around people uploading copyrighted material on video-sharing sites such as YouTube make it seem like a black-and-white situation: either you're shooting your own original video or stealing it from someone else. But what's lost in that simple either-or interpretation is the more gray area in copyright law known as fair use, which protects people...
more »PoliticalShift
Iowa Caucuses Blanketed by Twitter, Blogs, Video
If you were anywhere in Iowa yesterday, you might as well assume that anyone around you could report on what you were saying, even in what you thought was a private moment at a restaurant. That's the hard lesson learned by veteran GOP political strategist Ed Rollins, who was repeatedly flummoxed in a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace,...
more »MediaShift
10 MediaShifting Moments of 2007
As the year 2007 sets in the distance, we can take some time to consider the year that was. I'm not a huge fan of year-end lists, but sometimes they help us get a grip on what transpired -- and ponder what's to come. What's perhaps most amazing about 2007 is that two distinct phenomena -- the iPhone and...
more »Digging Deeper
When Will Google's 'Big Project' YouTube Bring in Profits?
In its brief 22-month history, video-sharing site YouTube has become a cultural phenomenon. The Iraq War has been called the "YouTube War" because of the videos that are regularly uploaded by soldiers and insurgents. The upcoming U.S. presidential race has been called the "YouTube Election" with its own "YouTube Debates" thanks to the questions for candidates uploaded by the...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
YouTube, Flickr Become Forces for Cultural Change
The term "social web" brings to mind images of people around the world interacting with each other without borders or barriers. With the arrival of more and more sites that help us connect, express ourselves and share media, it seems like we're advancing toward a more open Internet, in which everyone has the right to view or post whatever...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Bloggers Make Jump to TV Shows -- But Should They?
It wasn't that long ago that I was marveling over the fact that mainstream media was paying attention to blogs, particularly for culling public opinion on hot button political issues. I remember being shocked when CNN started featuring a segment quoting bloggers on "The Situation Room" -- shocked and wondering how it all happened. When did blogs suddenly become...
more »Digging Deeper
News21 Improves Multimedia, Still Lacks Audience Involvement
The News21 initiative had grand designs to provide fellowships to 44 bright journalism and political science graduate students, and have them create innovative, cutting edge -- and sellable -- work. In the first year, the Northwestern University fellows broke ground with a Flash-based story on Digital Data Trails and the UC Berkeley fellows had their work featured on a...
more »Your Take Roundup
Internet Offers Unlimited Time for Presidential Debates
One of the complaints most people have about televised politics and debates is the prevalence of the sound bite. There's never enough time for candidates to discuss issues in-depth or argue their point for more than a minute. Instead, we are stuck with the tyranny of zingers and one-liners, perfectly fit for highlights on SportsCenter, uh, I mean the...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Online Video Sites Scratch Your Niche
In my post about online television a few weeks ago, I wrote about why I don't enjoy watching television on the Internet. One of the reasons is that a big video-sharing site such as YouTube has thousands of different kinds of content jumbled together in one place, making it hard to find the content I want. Why should I...
more »Online Video
The Tangled State of Archived News Footage Online
A couple of weeks ago a video of Vice President Dick Cheney from 1994 came up on YouTube, with Cheney saying that invading Baghdad would invite a quagmire. I investigated this on my own and discovered that, while I could find it today via the C-SPAN archives, it wasn't clear that someone in 2003 during the run-up to the...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Is the Future of Television Online? Not Yet
Late last month the BBC announced that it would be offering up a large part of its television content free of charge on its website. And back in May, ABC announced it would stream some of its primetime shows in HD online for free. As networks begin to put more of their content online -- either on their websites...
more »Your Take Roundup
YouTube Video Ads Should Be Relevant, Brief
Video-sharing phenomenon YouTube has built up its online business in classic dot-com fashion: Get the eyeballs first, then figure out how to make money. You can say "Web 2.0" all you want, but this is classic Web 1.0 thinking. So now that Google has sunk $1.65 billion into buying YouTube, those banner ads aren't going to pay the mushrooming...
more »Your Take
Would you stop using YouTube if they inserted ads in videos?
YouTube has been an Internet phenomenon because the site provides an easy, friction-less way to share your videos with the world. The site has also resisted the siren song of video advertising, a format that is poised to explode in revenues in the coming years. Many video ads are called "pre-roll" and play before you get to see the video...
more »Your Take Roundup
Mixed Feelings on NBC Showing Cho Video Online
The folks at NBC News debated for hours what to do with the video they had received from Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus. Eventually, they decided it was prudent to show some of the video on TV and post some snippets online. After an outcry against glorifying the killer, MSNBC decided to stop...
more »Digging Deeper
Your Guide to Presidential Campaign Videos Online
Candidates running for the U.S. presidency in 2008 have made use of online resources more than ever. With the rise of online video and YouTube, candidates have started to upload formal and informal videos online, and potential voters have tried to engage them in video dialogues.
more »Digging Deeper
Will Video Kill the Audio Podcasting Star? Not Exactly
All the media heat these days is around online video and the YouTube phenomenon. Presidential candidates are sparring through YouTube. Google pays a bundle to buy YouTube, and then Viacom sues for $1 billion. It all makes the online audio phenomenon of podcasting feel like yesterday's news. Audio fans, however, need not despair. Video may have stolen the media...
more »Online Video
The Quirks, Dunks and Crashes of Live Streaming Hoops on CBS Sportsline
The camera pans into the crowd lazily, catching the sight of the painted faces of college basketball fanatics. It then cuts jerkily to cheerleaders getting ready to do a routine. The audio is off, and then suddenly comes to life. The scene cuts to the tunnel below the stadium where the Virginia Tech Hokies are getting ready to take...
more »Legal Drama
Viacom, YouTube Legal Tiff Irrelevant in End
Judging by the sturm und drang roiling the blogosphere and media circles, you'd think that Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against Google's YouTube is the epic confrontation of old media vs. new, of suits vs. hipsters, of DRM vs. free love, of greed vs. good. It may well be all those things, but it will not change the basic fact...
more »Digging Deeper
Podcasts are audio or video shows that you can subscribe to via the Internet and listen to or watch on your own time on your computer, portable MP3 player or other web-connected device. The power of podcasts is that you can subscribe to the shows you want, and then they automatically appear in your podcast aggregator software such as Juice or Apple's iTunes. When you plug in your portable MP3 player -- which can be an iPod or any other player -- your podcasts can then be uploaded and experienced on the go.
more »TVShift
The heavyweights of the media world are lining up in opposition to YouTube, and supporting Viacom's recent removal of all its clips from the video-sharing service. That removal followed a back-and-forth last fall when Viacom initially asked for clips to be removed, and then went into negotiations with YouTube. Those negotiations turned chilly, and now comes the freeze-out for video clips from MTV and Comedy Central shows such as "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show."
more »Digging Deeper
Talent Agencies Evolve to Show Clients the Digital Money
Everything about the Ask a Ninja videoblog phenomenon smacks of a new form of entertainment. Two guys in Los Angeles produce a series of simple, low cost video clips where a ninja character answers profound and ridiculous questions. The comedic series gets popular as a video podcast through iTunes, with viewership of 300,000 to 500,000 per episode, and the show's web presence branches out to include an online store for merchandise.
more »Digging Deeper
Can Brightcove Solve Net Video for Pros, Big Media?
While YouTube has been the darling of video-sharing sites online -- letting anyone become a video star -- Cambridge, Mass.-based startup Brightcove has quietly been working in the background to become the go-to video services company for professional content owners and media companies such as Dow Jones, Newsweek and The New York Times. Rather than creating a big hub for the world's quirkiest video moments, Brightcove has focused on the technology that will let content owners show video on their own site; sell or rent video downloads; or place advertising on their videos.
more »PoliticalShift
2008 Candidates Jump Online with Early Blog Ads
There has been a delicate dance between political operatives and the Internet. While activists have been using blogs and new media to spread the word about politics or specific candidates for years, the politicians and their consultants have been wary of spending too much of their campaign chest on online marketing. They have largely stuck to the tried and true: TV ads.
more »Digging Deeper
YouTube Explains the Mystery of Home Page Picks
Mark Day, a friend of mine in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been trying to break into stand-up comedy for the past year. Recently, he got a big break by having one of his brief video comic bits -- The Smiley Intervention -- featured on the front page of YouTube. Not long after getting in the featured spot, his video shot up to 750,000 views, and he got hundreds of new subscribers to his YouTube channel, the home of his videos.
more »Futurama
Big Media's 'OurTube' to Dominate Online Video Realm
NEW YORK, November 31, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- The heads of the four major U.S. televion networks today announced the long-awaited unveiling of "OurTube," a new online video-sharing service where people will be able to legally upload and share any video approved by the media companies for sharing. The service has been in development for more than two years, and promises to take video-sharing to the next level.
more »MarketingShift
'YouTube,' 'Iraq Videos' Searches Lead to MediaShift
Back in January, not long after I launched the MediaShift blog, I wrote a blog post about soldiers in Iraq uploading their videos to YouTube. When I made that post, I included a screen shot from one of the videos, which I casually titled "YouTube soldier." Now, nearly 11 months later, that picture is bringing in the most referred traffic to my blog.
more »Online Video
Fake Anchor Colbert Gives Best Take on YouTube Takedowns
The last week has been a surreal one for fans of fake news. TV shows such as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" have had huge boosts in their popularity thanks to online communities, who share video clips and summaries from each show. But the corporate parent to Comedy Central, Viacom, was a bit blind to that fact when it asked video-sharing site YouTube to pull down video clips from those shows that had been posted by fans.
more »Online Video
Stephen Colbert: Don't Love and Leave YouTube
We in the Colbert Nation are sickened by the recent news that heavy-handed trial lawyers at Viacom, representing Comedy Central, have asked YouTube to force its users to remove video clips from "The Colbert Report," "The Daily Show," and "South Park." While those lawyers have legal standing to do this, it goes against the spirit of Internet sharing and viral promotion -- two phenomena that have helped make your show so popular in the first place. It just doesn't sound like you, Stephen, baby.
more »Online Video
Google Spends $1.65 Billion for YouTube
It's deja vu all over again as an unprofibable Internet startup, barely 19 months old, was bought for $1.65 billion yesterday. But the startup in question, video-sharing phenomenon YouTube, is not just any startup looking to cash in on hype. YouTube is the eyeball catcher of all eyeball catchers, racking up 100 million-plus videos watched per day, and has become a brand that has broken through to the mainstream, to the non-technical masses, to our grandparents and little kids.
more »Digging Deeper
Your Guide to Citizen Journalism
The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube.
more »Digging Deeper
Can Witness, Global Voices Make Human Rights Video Go Viral?
There is an impulse when we see quirky videos we like on YouTube to email them on to friends or co-workers. When those catchy videos start accumulating viewers, marketers say it's gone viral through word-of-mouth popularity. So what if you could take videos shot by citizens of human rights violations, such as police brutality or torture, and got them to go viral, bringing more attention to the crimes?
more »Digging Deeper
Associated Press, MSNBC Video to Support Macs, Firefox
There is nothing more frustrating for Macintosh users or those who use the Firefox browser than going to a video site and hitting a wall demanding Windows and the Internet Explorer browser. But when the Associated Press' Online Video Network first launched last spring in conjunction with Microsoft, the requirements for users were just that: Windows and Internet Explorer. The idea behind the OVN is that Microsoft provides the video hosting, technology and ad sales; AP provides the video content; and small and medium news site partners show the videos on their sites for a split of revenue with Microsoft and the AP.
more »Online Video
Matt Foremski's Sleuthing Leads to Jessica Rose
Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have a winner of the MediaShift Your Blog Here Contest. I was a bit flustered trying to figure out the mystery behind the Lonelygirl15 series of videos on YouTube, so I started a contest to see who could solve this mystery -- and to take my pain away.
more »Online Video
Help Solve the Lonelygirl15 Mystery
My head is spinning, hurting. I'm not sure which confounds me more -- figuring out who YouTube star-of-the-moment Lonelygirl15 really is or figuring out why so many major news organizations have taken the bait and played along. I'm hoping that you, dear MediaShift readers, will take my pain away and help solve the mystery once and for all.
more »Your Take Roundup
Watching Shows on Computers Supplements Your TV Viewing
Let's be clear about one thing. Watching TV shows and movies on computer screens -- as they exist today -- will not replace watching TV and movies on much bigger screens, in much more comfortable environs. Of course there are computers that can function as TV sets, and TV sets that can do some computer functions, but we haven't found nirvana yet, at least on a mass-quantity affordable basis.
more »Digging Deeper
Your Guide to Soldier Videos from Iraq
If the first Gulf War put cable news and CNN on the map, the second Gulf War in Iraq has put video shot by soldiers in the spotlight. I first wrote about these videos in January, focusing on the ones that proliferated at the video-sharing site YouTube. But now, the phenomenon has exploded into the mainstream, with an MTV documentary, Iraq Uploaded and a full-length film, The War Tapes ("the first war movie filmed by soldiers themselves").
more »Your Take Roundup
True Gritz Videoblog a Comic Fave Among Friends
So this is how you win elections in the South. I asked MediaShift readers to name their favorite sites for comic relief or work breaks, and the True Gritz video blog won in a landslide of 11 votes. But upon further review, two of the votes came from the True Gritz videoblog's stars, Jen Gordon and Grayson Hurst Daughters, with another vote coming from the show's lighting person, Danielle Ayan.
more »Your Take Roundup
Everyone Has an Opinion on Future of Rocketboom
So what's up with Rocketboom, the popular video blog that lost its longtime host, Amanda Congdon? When we last left the he said/she said soap opera, Rocketboom honcho Andrew Baron was readying a replacement for Congdon, while Congdon was upset about being "unboomed" from the show.
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Is Amanda Congdon Replaceable?
When I lived in New York City in the late '80s, I thought I was a hotshot DJ. I spun records (yes, vinyl) at a restaurant in Queens that had a special dance night catering to flight attendants. More people started showing up, the owner started charging for entry, but I was still being paid $125 per night as the DJ.
more »Your Take
Who should replace Amanda Congdon at Rocketboom (if that's possible)?
I tried hard not to watch the car crash that was Amanda Congdon splitting from the most popular video blog in history, Rocketboom. But rubbernecking is a tough habit to break. Congdon left the show or was fired by producer Andrew Baron, depending on who's telling the story. If you're just joining the soap opera that's been splashed all over the blogosphere, gossip site Valleywag has the blow-by-blow blog posts. I'll have my own thoughts on the high-profile split, along with quotes from various observers, on Monday, but now it's your turn to weigh in. Who should be the next face of Rocketboom? Who has the humor, the charisma, the smarts to follow in Congdon's footsteps? Or do you think no one can follow her and Rocketboom will flounder? Share your thoughts in the comments and I'll run the best ideas in the next Your Take Roundup.
more »TVShift
Sleeping With the Enemy::NBC, YouTube Cross-Promotion Off to Crass Start
When I talked to my sister yesterday, she said she had been thinking of me when she saw a report on "NBC Nightly News" about the video-sharing service, YouTube. "I thought that story might interest you, because of what you write about," she said. OK, true enough, and I had heard about the recent promotional deal between NBC Universal...
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Your Take Roundup::Sports Video on Cell Phones Works in Right Situations
It's easy to ridicule the idea of watching a World Cup soccer match or baseball game on a tiny mobile phone screen. Where's the ball, who's on first, how'd they score that goal? But for the rabid displaced fans of any sport, having the tiniest video highlights in town is better than nothing at all. I asked if you...
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Your Take Roundup::YouTube Just the Start for Video Sharing
It's easy to lose yourself in all the video at YouTube. You watch one music video, which leads to a spoof video, which leads to a stupid pet trick, which leads...who knows where. Before you know it, it's time to leave work. Free time just evaporates when you're immersed in a viral video site like YouTube or iFilm, where...
more »Digging Deeper
Digging Deeper::YouTube CEO Hails 'Birth of a New Clip Culture'
There is a simple truth about video-sharing site YouTube, and an enigma. The simple truth is that this web startup has bottled up the viral video idea and made it eminently drinkable by anyone -- you go to the site, find the video clip you want to watch, and, voila! you're watching it in seconds. And if you want...
more »Online Video
Fighting for Open Standards::Cox Newspapers Says No to AP Video
Since launching MediaShift in January, the one post I've written that has received the most vehement response so far was about the Associated Press' new online video service requiring Internet Explorer and Windows. And I even followed up on that with a blacklist and a whitelist of other online video services that either shut out alternative browsers or the...
more »TVShift
Dear CBS Sportsline::Close Down Live Streams of Tourney for Our Own Good
Open Letter to CBS Sportsline Dear Keepers of the March Madness Tournament Flame, We the college basketball-loving public appreciate all you've done for us. You offer satellite packages with all the games in the men's college basketball tournament. We can go to Las Vegas and watch and bet on all the games. And now, in your crowning moment, you've...
more »Open Source Reporting
Open Source Reporting::The Whitelist: Video Services That Play Nice
Since last week, I've spent a lot of time ferreting out online video sites that don't play nice with a huge number of web users. These sites don't let you view videos with the popular Firefox browser, or on Macintosh computers. First, I wondered why the new AP Online Video Network shut out Firefox and the Mac. Then I...
more »TVShift
Digging Deeper::TV Critics Eye Online Content Reviews
Anyone who has spent an afternoon at a site such as iFilm Viral Video or YouTube can attest to how addictive online video can be. Some of it's funny, some of it's stupid, some of it's classic. But the problem is finding the good stuff, as the most popular videos and the ones with the highest user ratings aren't...
more »Online Video
Open Source Reporting::Which Online Video Services Require IE?
Last Thursday, I wondered why the Associated Press was launching a new video network online that required the use of the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. The AP's Sue Cross says that the news cooperative is working on a solution to the compatibility problem, but many readers pointed out that the AP Online Video Network isn't the only video service...
more »Online Video
Millions Not Served::AP Video Requires Microsoft Browser
Most people don't realize just how important the Associated Press is. The news cooperative -- owned by its U.S. news organization members -- has been around since 1848, and now supplies 8,500 subscriber news outlets with text wire stories and photos, and 5,000 radio and TV outlets with audio and video content. And online, the service is ubiquitous, popping...
more »AdvertisingShift
Rocketboom Auctions Ad to the Highest Bidder
In the beginning, when the web first became popular, everyone talked about disintermediation, the idea that the Internet would help eliminate the middleman or intermediary. You could buy books without going to a bookstore, read newspapers without going to a newsstand, and communicate with like-minded folks without going to group therapy. And that was good. And yet, book stores...
more »Online Video
Soldier Videos Don't Violate Policy
Last week, I wrote about the video-sharing site YouTube and discussed some videos there that appeared to be shot by soldiers in Iraq. The videos are well produced, and show soldiers in the field of combat, with gunfights, explosions and the like all edited to heavy metal and rap music. I had contacted the military and was awaiting their...
more »Digging Deeper
YouTube Offers Soldier's Eye View of Iraq War
The American public's interest in the War in Iraq has waxed and waned over the years, from intense debate to complete disconnection. So too has the media's interest, as Iraq goes from the front page of the newspaper to someplace buried deep within. But there's one viewpoint of the war that has never diminished: that of the soldier. If...
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