TVNewser NAB blogger Scott Baker writes:
“I could dress up the actual outlook in convention speak, but it’s pretty simple. There is going to be more — and better — video available more and more places. Breaking and live, archived and indexed. It will be easier to find and search and watch.
Look for news video on all possible screens and maybe a few surfaces. Like the new Fox MyUterus.com for fetal viewers. Hey, don’t think they haven’t THOUGHT about it…”
I found the happiest people at the convention.
The quartet of online gurus in the On-Demand session
enthusiastically moderated by fellow blogger and Emmy conduit Shelly
Palmer.
The Citizen Journalism group had upbeat moments in the morning, but
they haven’t totally figured out how to get, you know, paid. Give ’em
time.
The online video crew, though, would seem to be the kings of the
convention.
All had similar stories — whether ABC, CBS, CNN or the New York
Times — about their bosses hanging around saying things like “Do you
need a bigger budget?” or “Would you like to hire a bunch of new
people?” or “Would you like a lime with that drink?” You get the
picture.
It’s good to be the kings.
Not that they don’t have troubles. They would jump on the offers for
more staff — but they already have trouble finding enough good
people to fill the ones they have.
The happy group showed whiz-bang demos of their hot stuff — like
CNN’s Pipeline. Full disclosure: I am a Pipeline subscriber. Though
as a Mac user, I don’t get the coolest version.
Full disclosure part two: Even though I PAY to get Pipeline, I have
used it maybe twice.
Sure they have the cool windows with live feeds of breaking, semi-
breaking, not-really-breaking but pretty much live stuff. But I work
in a TV station. We have scads of that all around.
The ABC and CBS demos had various killer hooks too. All three have
areas of advantage.
The woman from the New York Times, Vivian Schiller, admitted that
her demo would be more sedate video-wise because, A) she just got the
GM job at the website yesterday, and B) it turns out that the New
York Times is apparently a newspaper and not a television operation.
They do have video though. Vivian said it’s pretty popular though
not always easily located on the site. Until recently, it was so
hidden, she said, that you couldn’t find it with a Sherpa! That’s an
actual quote, by the way, and not a freaky analogy like the Giant
Frog I mentioned in an earlier post that perplexed a good number of
you. But the Sherpa thing is extra funny because most Sherpas have
GPS on their Blackberries. They talk about it all the time on their
MySpace sites.
I could dress up the actual outlook in convention speak, but it’s
pretty simple. There is going to be more — and better — video
available more and more places. Breaking and live, archived and
indexed. It will be easier to find and search and watch.
Look for news video on all possible screens and maybe a few
surfaces. Like the new Fox MyUterus.com for fetal viewers. Hey,
don’t think they haven’t THOUGHT about it.
My colleague Liz Stephans from ThePittsburghChannel.com asked a
question about how the network operations might improve referring
traffic to their local stations. ThePittsburghChannel gets a good
amount of traffic referred from CNN’s regional news system, for example.
I think the wise networks will get better and better at sharing
traffic with their locals. Sharing traffic continues to be a win-win.
I added a muddled question about making it easier to link to, and
search for, video from outside sites since that is often tricky. I
didn’t get real clear answers, but it wasn’t much of a drag on the
session because this group is so dang positive. They have it going on
and they know it.
I really intended to write more about the Citizen Journalism session
but it’s almost time for the CNN party. Priorities.
Also, I REALLY intended to go to the session with the Lost Remote
guys but I got deep into a presentation about mobile video in the
far, far SL part of the convention hall (it’s near Reno). Lost karma
hit me though because I lost my main notebook somewhere near the
Microsoft booth.
It’s a small black Moleskin with my name and number in it. Yes
there is a reward. And it’s not a Giant Frog.