The documentary film industry just got a big shot in the arm from SnagFilms, the online company founded two years ago by Ted Leonsis, best known for his role in boosting AOL's phenomenal growth.
Its online library of about 1,500 full-length documentaries can be viewed for free -- on about 90,000 Websites that stream them, ranging from the Miami Herald to Hulu -- thanks to ad revenue support (and an initial $10-million in investments from AOL founder Steve Case, and the Knight Foundation).
Now SnagFilms is branching into the paid video-on-demand arena, and forging partnerships with distributors such as Comcast, Apple and Netflix. Leonsis is looking to build an online library of 100,000 accessible non-fiction films.
And that's just part of his master plan to bring more documentaries into the mainstream with wider distribution, marketing and promotion -- especially those that espouse worthwhile social and political causes.
This seventh edition of the annual report on the health and status of American journalism, courtesy of Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, will keep you busy all weekend. Trends, attitudes, behaviors, analyses. It's comprehensive, and massive. Think 180,000 words.
Our goals are to take stock of the revolution occurring in how Americans get information and provide a resource for citizens, journalists and researchers to make their own assessments. To do so we gather in one place as much data as possible about all the major sectors of journalism, identify trends across media, mark key findings, delve deep into each sector and note areas for further inquiry.
This year’s report is the most interactive it’s ever been, and contains a number of new features...
Facebook has overtaken Google to become the most popular website in the United States for the first time, according to new data from Hitwise, which measures Internet traffic. For the week ending March 13, the social networking juggernaut registered 7.07% market share, beating the search giant's 7.03% market share.
The market share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185% last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google.com increased 9% during the same time frame. Facebook briefly topped Google last Christmas and New Year's, but this is the first time the website's weekly numbers have beaten Google.
The new data is sure to unnerve Google, which has been trying to crack into the social networking market -- with controversial results. For Facebook, the data will add further fuel to its push to go public sometime in the next year or two, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has suggested. Analysts predict that when Facebook does go public, it could see an immediate valuation of $35 billion -- a figure which could rise to $100 billion by 2015.
The USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism has teamed up with the Center for Investigative Reporting to launch a multimedia series titled “Hunger in the Golden State.”
The series, to debut March 19, will run in newspapers, on radio stations and online news outlets statewide over the next three weeks.
Over the course of six months, USC Annenberg journalism graduate students interviewed dozens of state and local-level food bank officials as well as the Californians who struggle with food shortages every day. The reporting unearthed new numbers that show hunger is rising at an unprecedented rate nationwide, affecting millions - including those in affluent areas - but is invisible to many.
The stories explore food waste, nutrition in schools and ways to help Californians fighting to ward off hunger. The project reveals that nearly one in eight people in California has asked for food assistance in the last year. Food banks and social services are overwhelmed, reporters found.
The Los Angeles Times teamed a staff reporter with a student to produce a story explaining how California leaves millions of federal dollars on the table because of problems in the way the state runs its end of the food stamp program.
The New York Times. Video. Three years ago, that seemed like an oxymoron, save the Times’ occasional forays into TV experiments. Now, Times TV pops up in front of us on airplane TVs and news video has become an emerging feature of Times sites. As Apple and NYT staffers plot behind closed doors in the Times building, we can expect that Times video will be a key element of the iPad NYT launch.
Behind what we see, though, are some critical developments in processing of digital video, the behind-the-scenes heavy lifting that often determines time-to-market, and business failure or success.
For the Times, it’s not a matter of harvesting decades of archived film; it’s about making the most of its last three years of a video push. The Newsonomics are these:
Make more licensing income off the video. ...
Better usage of companies’ own produced video (and partnered video) on their own websites, apps, and tablets. ...
Put your content into new marketplaces. ....
Lastly, the outsourcing here is essential. News companies are in learning mode — what is it they do best?; what do they leave to others. In this case, the Times and others are applying my Newsonomics Law #9: Apply the 10 Percent Rule, the heavy lifting of journalism can be aided and abetted by smart use of technology.
Video is in the air — C-SPAN’s release of its volumimous archives reenforces that notion — but as usual, it’s the less-glamorous, behind-the-scenes work that will separate the winners from the companies stuck in text mode.
Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes.
The move is an effort by Google and Intel to extend their dominance of computing to television, an arena where they have little sway. For Sony, which has struggled to retain a pricing and technological advantage in the competitive TV hardware market, the partnership is an effort to get a leg up on competitors.
The partners envision technology that will make it as easy for TV users to navigate Web applications, like the Twitter social network and the Picasa photo site, as it is to change the channel.
Some existing televisions and set-top boxes offer access to Web content, but the choice of sites is limited. Google intends to open its TV platform, which is based on its Android operating system for smartphones, to software developers. The company hopes the move will spur the same outpouring of creativity that consumers have seen in applications for cellphones.
Google is expected to deliver a toolkit to outside programmers within the next couple of months, and products based on the software could appear as soon as this summer.
Danish police had been searching for Rumenian murder suspect Marian Clita for a good 24 hours when Norwegian journalist Andreas Lunde Googled him, found his phone number and got him on the line.
In a scoop that almost beggars belief, ABC Nyheter’s Andreas Lunde, tracked down the man wanted for the brutal murder of Norwegian Scandinavian Airline stewardess Vera Vildmyren in Copehnhagen, a man sought by both the police and the press, with a simple Google Search.
“I found a blog post he had commented on, using his name and phone number when doing so, put the Rumenian land code in front of the number and called,” Lunde told Danish TV2 News.
Clita picked up the phone, confirmed he was indeed Marian Clita, professed to be unaware the police was searching for him, but, when asked if he had any knowledge of the murder, said he would get a taxi to the police station in ten minutes – and kept his word.
Will print magazine readers, who can currently access most if not all of an issue's content for free on the Web, pay for a portable touchscreen multimedia version of each issue on Apple's soon-to-arrive iPad tablet?
Conde Nast has already experimented with GQ on the iPhone (pictured), where it sold 7,000 Dec. '09 issues and 15,000 Jan. '10 issues. These are not numbers likely to wow the beancounters, but it's a start.
Now the publisher is set to announce that it's planning to publish iPad versions of five of its top titles: GQ, Wired, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Glamour.
According to the New York Times, "GQ will have a tablet version of its April issue ready. Vanity Fair and Wired will follow with their June issues, and The New Yorker and Glamour will have issues in the summer."
That's a good diversity of upscale material with which to test the waters -- a men's magazine, a women's magazine, a general interest magazine, and a techie magazine. Plus one that is weekly and notoriously text-heavy.
We salute the staffs for their pioneering spirit... and can't wait to see what they will do with multimedia and video.
Mark your calendars. The Web is rife with rumors that Jan. 26, 2010 is the big day that Apple will at long last unveil its Tablet, which we wrote about yesterday.
Tablet Tuesday, they're calling it.
No sooner had the New York Times' Bits blog expressed cynicism that real-world technology could ever match that seemingly pie-in-the-sky Sports Illustrated demo video (or the one below from Sweden's Bonnier Group), than somebody let the cat out of the bag -- Apple had scheduled a big media event in San Francisco. On January 26. Just Google that date with the word Apple and you'll get a sense of the pent-up excitement among Mac fans, and techies in general.
All signs seem to point to an official announcement that an oversized iPod Touch device is on its way, for a Spring debut.
How big is it?
Again, it's all speculation -- with some saying a 7" screen, others saying a 10" screen, and others saying both.
Would a 7" provide sufficiently more viewing pleasure than an iPod Touch to warrant upgrading? Would a 10" be too big to shlep around? Each size is notably a trifle larger than Amazon's corresponding 6" and 9.7" Kindle e-book reader.
Somebody who did better at high school geometry than we did performed some calculations and concluded that a 7-inch screen will provide a viewing area roughly four times the iPhone's; a 10-inch screen will provide a viewing area about eight times the iPhone's.
In conjunction with its Tablet announcement, Apple is expected to reveal plans to partner with major TV networks to launch a subscription service for TV shows distributed via iTunes for a recurring monthly fee (a la cable TV subscriptions). CBS and Disney are said to be aboard, though Turner Broadcasting System and Viacom are reportedly standoffish. (Prediction, based on Apple's track record with the music industry: they'll come around. Ditto for book publishers.)
But it's obviously the implications for the newspaper and magazine world that fascinate us, especially considering that Time Inc. and Conde Nast have already developed prototypes of digital magazine issues. And then there's this slick new one from Sweden's Bonnier Group:
How much will the Apple Tablet cost? Good question. Estimates range from $600 to $1000 or more. So start saving your pennies. You know you want one. We do -- not to watch TV shows, but to see the revolutionary improvement it's going to bring to online videojournalism.
The journalism world eagerly awaits the now mythic Spring arrival of Apple's game-changing Tablet, or whatever they're going to call it. It's been a big hush-hush secret for so long, that sometimes it seems like maybe the whole notion was just a dream.
That hasn't stopped graphic artists -- with no inside knowledge of the tight-lipped Apple kingdom -- from imagining what this unwrapped dream toy might look like.
Ron Callari gathered no less than 20 possible designs on Inventor Spot, and frankly they all look pretty cool. We'll be happy to play with any of them -- just hurry up and get one on the market already!
Will it look like an oversized iPhone? A souped-up Kindle? A touchscreen MacBook? A Mac Pro with app-like navigation buttons? A lidless laptop? A big docked PDA with keyboard?
And what will it be called? iPad? iTab? iTablet? MacTab? MacPad? MacTablet? TouchPad? TouchTab? TouchTablet? TouchBook?
Bets, anyone?
To see what this mystery Mac might do to transform print journalism into a total multimedia experience, check out this video of a hypothetical issue of Sports Illustrated. It's like the magazine literally comes to life. Tell us you wouldn't spend a couple bucks for an app that sings and dances like this:
The smarter print publications (e.g. Conde Nast's Wired) are prepping for this day, since they know that a customer who won't spend a nickel for a print issue, or for Web content, will happily fork over a few bucks for iPhone apps -- and this will seem like an extension of that.
Steve Jobs is conditioning us the same way he got all the music freeloaders to pony up a buck a song via iTunes -- thus revolutionizing the music industry. True, the record companies and record stores still took a lethal hit, but he proved that there's a viable market for music; it was just a matter of upending the financial model by altering attitudes and behaviors. We suspect he'll do the same for journalism.
So news organizations would be wise to to learn from the mistakes of the entrenched music industry that bemoaned its fate (and hastened its demise) by cursing its customers. It fell into extinction while a savvy outsider came along and drank its milkshake. What can you do today to prepare yourself or your company for a multimedia future, so that there will be no more blood?
Here's our recommendation. Invest heavily in the best videojournalism talent, training and equipment. Make sure you and your staff recognize the value of video that is professionally produced, and represents excellent journalism standards and storytelling qualities. Newspaper- and magazine-produced online video is coming of age, in fits and starts. Because publishers didn't experience an immediate return on their (minimal) financial investment, and those pre-roll ads didn't materialize as quickly as they had hoped, a lot of them got nervous and withdrew from that arena. Or, worse, they stayed in the game with orphaned third-rate product, which nobody watched, and so they buried it deep on their Websites so nobody could even find it, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that "nobody watches serious video."
But with the new Mac whatchamathing on the horizon, now is the time to re-think video strategies. Apple will succeed where nearly every journalism Website has failed. Why? Because it will successfully integrate words and moving images, in a new and exciting way that has mysteriously eluded print publishers and broadcasters. The device's portability and touch-screen capability will help catapult the online visual experience to the next level.
But ultimately, it's just a platform -- a fancy bucket waiting to be filled. iTunes is pure genius, but it would be worthless without talented composers, instrumentalists, singers, arrangers, producers. Similarly, for multimedia journalism to succeed, we'll need talented reporters, writers, shooters, editors and producers.
Trust us, video is where the future lies. At KobreGuide, we're betting the farm on it.
You can already get iPhone apps that deliver the New York Times, USA Today and NPR. Now CNN has joined the mobile news fraternity, with a $1.99 app that delivers not just text but also live streaming video and video on demand.
Most signficantly, the CNN app makes potential "citizen videojournalists" out of the 50 million users of Apple's iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touch, which are already equipped with vidcams.
Now all that amateur video can be instantly uploaded with a touch of a button to CNN's iReport site, which has already received a half-million photos and video in its first two years of operation. (Only clips used on TV are verified by CNN staffers.)
Right now the site is awash in footage of the American Samoa tsunami.
The San Francisco Chronicle's "Tech Chronicles" is impressed. Mashable loves it. Grab the app here.
We've already told you about topnotch online training in multimedia software at Lynda.com.
Now you can sample their entire set of tutorials for the new Final Cut Studio suite for free. Offer is good for members and non-members.
Full production studios and one-man shops alike need to learn the features of Apple's professional suite of video and audio production applications. In Final Cut Studio Overview, author and Apple Certified Instructor Damian Allen gives a crash-course in this all-in-one solution for any video studio or freelance editor.
Damian gives a quick look into each application in the studio, highlighting selected new features for experienced users. From video editors, color graders, motion graphic artists, and movie scorers, there is something for everyone in Final Cut Studio Overview.
Truthfully, most of it will be overkill for typical one-man-band backpack vidjos. But, as we always say, there's no such thing as too much education. And the price is right!
Should you decide to sign up for other classes (at a reasonable $25/month for all you can eat), check out Lynda.com's latest in its "Creative Inspiration" series.
It's about PowerPoint.
PowerPoint?!?!? Those horrid presentations that every Dilbert in the world is forced to sit through?
Well, this isn't your father's PowerPoint. It's taught by Nancy and Mark Duarte, the wife-and-husband team behind Al Gore’s famous slide show about global warming. They have built a thriving business out of creating high-impact PowerPoint presentations for prominent high-tech companies: Duarte Design.
This installment of Creative Inspirations tells the story of how this power duo elevated PowerPoint presentations to arguably the most compelling form of modern media. Nancy will be the first to tell you that it’s not the technology that matters most, but the story.
And that's a lesson we at KobreGuide can stand behind.
Could the Tablet be the cure-all for the journalism biz?
More specifically, will a thin magazine-sized iPhone-like device give online videojournalism the boost it needs?
Bill Gates and Microsoft gave it their all, but failed. Maybe it was the timing.
Amazon's Kindle has caught on with text readers, but lacks visual spark -- not to mention all those cool 99-cent apps.
According to PC World, TechCrunch just released conceptual drawings of the prototype for its Web tablet project, called the CrunchPad (above). The simplified device is a touch-screen tablet designed specifically for Web surfing, video chat, and light e-mail use. Here's a demo:
Alas, TechCrunch is no Apple ... and now the 800-pound gorilla itself is confirming what has long been rumored. According to the Financial Times, "Apple is racing to offer a portable tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season, in what the entertainment industry hopes will be a new revolution."
The device (right) is expected to be launched alongside new content deals, including some aimed at stimulating sales of CD-length music, according to people briefed on the project. The touch-sensitive computer will have a screen that may be up to 10 inches diagonally.
It will connect to the internet like the iPod Touch – probably without phone capability but with access to the web, and to Apple’s online stores for software and entertainment.
The entertainment industry is hoping that Apple, which revolutionised the markets for music players and for phones, can do it again. “It’s a portable entertainment device,” said one entertainment executive. “It’s going to be fabulous for watching movies.”
Book publishers have been in talks with Apple and are optimistic about being included in the computer, which could provide an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and a forthcoming device from Plastic Logic, recently allied with Barnes & Noble.
“It would be a colour, flat-panel TV to the old-fashioned, black and white TV of the Kindle,” one publishing executive said.
Apple does not appear to have briefed film studios, but Hollywood executives said they would be willing to contribute more content than is now available over iTunes.
The machine would reportedly cost around $800.
Surely you can see the implications for newspapers and other media outlets here.
Spokesman-Review multimedia guru Colin Mulvany could, and ruminated at length on his Mastering Multimedia blog:
These touch enabled tablets could seal the deal by forcing print journalism to go mostly digital. [It] makes me wonder if this will be the disruptive technology that sends print newspapers down the black hole for good.
A touch enabled tablet... would allow me to view text, multimedia and video in ways the smart phone struggles with today. I think of the applications of a tablet for photojournalists. Being able to download photos from their cameras to a tablet, then quickly tone, caption and send them back to the newspaper would be great. Having to lug a laptop in the field is true pain. This is a market segment that is only getting started. It has the strong potential to disrupt not only newspapers, but magazines as well.
Consumers, if they embrace these new touch-tablets, will have their news pushed to them at lightning speed. They will be connected to everyone and everything. They will choose how to shape their digital lives by deciding what news feeds and publications to subscribe to.
Where mainstream media outlets have shed their most talented people, those same workers are going to be the ones that will build the new journalism of the future. My guess is that it will be built around these new web tablets and handset devices. Monetizing the content will be foremost on the minds of these new digital publishers. Freed from the cost of presses, ink and newsprint, a new publishing model will develop.
News content is going to change, too. Web tablets are not just text readers, but will be multimedia hubs. Music, video, photos, animation, interactive graphics are going to be what consumers will gravitate to. It will change how journalists tell their stories. For many of today’s journalists, this new paradigm will be the deal breaker. For others, these new opportunities will present unique challenges that will drive the future of digital journalism to new and exciting heights.
Final Cut Express is the affordable video editing tool of choice for most videojournalists, but many folks get their start on iMovie (right), which comes with every Mac computer.
Our favorite tech columnist, David Pogue, ranted in 2007 when Apple took a giant step backward with its iMovie '08 video editing software:
It's nothing like its predecessor and contains none of the same code or design. It's incapable of the more sophisticated editing that the old iMovie made so enjoyable.
But now he says that the new iMovie '09 is "far more usable."
If you're scoring at home, here are the features that have been restored: themes, extracting audio, chapter markers, direct export to iDVD, visual effects (including slo-mo, reverse motion, black-and-white and more).
Here's what's still missing: plug-ins, audio effects, manual audio adjustments, bookmarks, importing old iMovie projects without losing all your enhancements.
That tally isn't exactly fair, however, because it doesn't consider all the things the new iMovie does that the old one couldn't.
The killer app ... is image stabilization, making jerky footage smooth, even if you were filming while hiccuping on a camel ride during an earthquake...
Our verdict: Play with iMovie, since the price is right, but eventually you're going to want to spring $200 and graduate to Final Cut.
Imagine downloading software that will make jerky videos smooth, stabilize shaky videos, brighten dark videos, and remove noise and pixilation from videos to reveal crisper details -- for only $40.
Originally developed for high-end forensics use (think CIA), MotionDSP's "vReveal" desktop software was unveiled at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and should be available next month.
Apple announced at the recent Macworld Expo that its iMovie '09 version of its ubiquitous movie-editing software will have some form of automatic video stabilization to clear up shakes. Additionally, Adobe and Sony offer editing software that includes video-enhancing features for under $100.
All this should help make YouTube become more watchable, at least in terms of viewing quality if not content quality. But it should also be a boon for videojournalists who can't afford to invest in expensive video-editing software, as even vReveal comes with conventional tools that enable you to edit and stitch clips together, and it works with the Windows XP and Vista operating systems.
What’s in Your Bag with John Lehmann
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John Lehmann is award winning photojournalist with the Globe and Mail in
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Videographer job at University of Texas System
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Matt Flores, a former colleague at the San Antonio Express-News, called me
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