With the football EURO 2008 entering it‘s final stage I’d like to share some experiences on a quite thrilling visual multimedia service we did for MSN in Germany. For the first time our Flash animation team used Microsoft Silverlight for an interactive infographic application.
The daily EURO video magazine combines 3-D-animations of all goals with picture slideshows, a full audio moderation and infographics envisioning match data and statistics. Besides the video magazine our Silverlight player allows MSN users to select the different content formats directly (e.g. only the goal animations or only the slideshow). The format illustrates the potential of innovative visual concepts on the web. The magazine is fascinating web video without any tv camera image involved.
The daily production is a real challenge. The partners involved are opta/Unlimited in Berlin (3 D goal animations), dpa-infocom (player, infographics, picture slideshow) and dpa audio&video services in Berlin (audio moderation and final video production). After the final whistle – in case of a penalty shootout close to midnight – the team starts to produce.
At 08.00 a.m. when MSN earlybird users start their office PCs the fresh magazine is already online. The audio anchorman and the unlimited folks had to accept three weeks of permanent night shifts. But the service and the overwhelming feedback made the lack of sleep worth it. We are really proud of the result and we have already started to discuss the next ideas for video without video.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Monday, 3 March 2008
The „v-word“ – German broadcasters and publishers in heated dispute
Whenever German media managers meet these days the „v-word“ is one of the hottest topics. The two day magazine publisher congress „Powering digital success“ that started today in Berlin is no exception.
Since Video has started to become a standard on average news sites the publishers of newspapers, print magazines and the tv broadcasters realise that the web is becoming the central battlefield for media competition in the coming years. Let’s assume that in five years from now young users browsing the web won’t be able to distinguish information portals operated by print brands, broadcasters or web only providers. They will basically all provide news in text, pictures and video. And I’m sure that the visual formats, mainly video, will be crucial for success in the mass market and for attracting ad revenues.
The consequences are quite irritating. Suddenly for instance German public tv, financed by monthly fees of German taxpayers, and the regional newspapers find themselves competing for the same audience on the same platform. Conflicts are inevitable.
The publishers accuse the broadcasters to pump up their portals with tons of premium content produced with public money. They fear that users won't click on privately financed news sites any more if they can find it all at the broadcasters' portals (and completely free of annoying ads).
The broadcasters and the regional broadcasting licensing authorities meanwhile try to prevent newspapers from publishing online video. The tv channels are afraid that every click on a web video clip will contribute to a decline of tv usage. Thus they argue, that every video clip on a newspaper site is a tiny piece of tv coverage and requires a broadcasting licence.
In the latest move public TV now offered the publishers to team up and use their branded news video. While German publisher legend Hubert Burda rejected the offer as some sort of poison pill, the WAZ newspaper group announced to co-operate with WDR television, the largest regional member of the public ARD group.
Be sure there is more news to come...
Since Video has started to become a standard on average news sites the publishers of newspapers, print magazines and the tv broadcasters realise that the web is becoming the central battlefield for media competition in the coming years. Let’s assume that in five years from now young users browsing the web won’t be able to distinguish information portals operated by print brands, broadcasters or web only providers. They will basically all provide news in text, pictures and video. And I’m sure that the visual formats, mainly video, will be crucial for success in the mass market and for attracting ad revenues.
The consequences are quite irritating. Suddenly for instance German public tv, financed by monthly fees of German taxpayers, and the regional newspapers find themselves competing for the same audience on the same platform. Conflicts are inevitable.
The publishers accuse the broadcasters to pump up their portals with tons of premium content produced with public money. They fear that users won't click on privately financed news sites any more if they can find it all at the broadcasters' portals (and completely free of annoying ads).
The broadcasters and the regional broadcasting licensing authorities meanwhile try to prevent newspapers from publishing online video. The tv channels are afraid that every click on a web video clip will contribute to a decline of tv usage. Thus they argue, that every video clip on a newspaper site is a tiny piece of tv coverage and requires a broadcasting licence.
In the latest move public TV now offered the publishers to team up and use their branded news video. While German publisher legend Hubert Burda rejected the offer as some sort of poison pill, the WAZ newspaper group announced to co-operate with WDR television, the largest regional member of the public ARD group.
Be sure there is more news to come...
Short review on the latest german website relaunches
Maybe you remember the large blogosphere among media blogs about the latest website relaunches, such as Holtzbrincks' youngster news site Zoomer.de, News-TV N24.de or the yellow press website Bild.de.
Despite we note that there is much difference between these sites, one attribute is common: the shift to a visual presentation of news.
N24 focuses on video which seems very logic for a news tv channel (but which has been a novum anyway). Bild and Zoomer use appealing flash effects to present their slide shows and video news, or newsmaps to enhance the selection of regional news.
But both Bild and Zoomer not only use visual features. They establish also a 'visual layout': The top news section on the first screen is dominated by large photos, teaser texts are skipped. Scrolling down, we find a more conventional design, nevertheless focused on big images and photo slide shows.
Compared to this visual oriented website design, relauches such as netzeitung or FAZ.net seem rather conventional. We are looking forward to further relaunch projects to find out if there is a news site design concept which is different from the spiegel-sueddeutsche-focus-faz-netzeitung-scheme.
Despite we note that there is much difference between these sites, one attribute is common: the shift to a visual presentation of news.
N24 focuses on video which seems very logic for a news tv channel (but which has been a novum anyway). Bild and Zoomer use appealing flash effects to present their slide shows and video news, or newsmaps to enhance the selection of regional news.
But both Bild and Zoomer not only use visual features. They establish also a 'visual layout': The top news section on the first screen is dominated by large photos, teaser texts are skipped. Scrolling down, we find a more conventional design, nevertheless focused on big images and photo slide shows.
Compared to this visual oriented website design, relauches such as netzeitung or FAZ.net seem rather conventional. We are looking forward to further relaunch projects to find out if there is a news site design concept which is different from the spiegel-sueddeutsche-focus-faz-netzeitung-scheme.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
The mojo men - watch out for the visual reporters
The standards of visual journalism have to be defined yet. But the tools are already available. At the World economic summit in Davos Nokia provided a couple of VIPs with it's N82 mojo phone and - in co operation with Reuters - asked them to provide photos and videos - real time news coverage by high class citizen journalists.
One of the test candidates was Jeff Jarvis, who now via blog shares his remarkable experiences. The people he interviewed didn't take the Nokia serious as they would have taken a video camera plus a complete TV team. So they behaved less nervous and were more open in their statements. Neverteheless the quality of footage (including audio) was quite good. Jeff's conlusion: Tools like the N82 "may change the job of the journalist in ways more radical than I could have imagined until I started reporting with one".
One of the test candidates was Jeff Jarvis, who now via blog shares his remarkable experiences. The people he interviewed didn't take the Nokia serious as they would have taken a video camera plus a complete TV team. So they behaved less nervous and were more open in their statements. Neverteheless the quality of footage (including audio) was quite good. Jeff's conlusion: Tools like the N82 "may change the job of the journalist in ways more radical than I could have imagined until I started reporting with one".
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