One third of large newspaper web sites now let readers comment on stories, while three out of ten require registration or payment to access their online material, according to a recent survey of how the top 100 U.S. newspapers are adapting web technology.
The survey, conducted by the Washington, D.C. public relations firm The Bivings Group, looked at a range of potential new media tools or techniques and charted their use by the rapidly-reforming dead-tree media. (See above).
I highlighted comments and registration because both are pet issues — I love comments and fear registration.
I am also astonished to see web videos rocket past podcasts. A colleagues with extensive multimedia experience told me it takes two hours on average to produce one minute of highly edited video. That’s an enormous investment of time – toward what end?
Let me hasten to add that I believe in cross-platform storytelling and think video coverage can occasionally augment written reporting.
For instance, while writing an article about copper pilferage I visited a scrap yard and was blown away by sound and fury of metals being crushed and bundled like cardboard. At my request, a colleague, image guy Frederic Larson, shot and edited a 71-second video clip that very nicely captured the industrial grittiness of the place. As an experiment I am rather proud of this coupling of print and moving pictures.
But as a business reporter for the last 15 years, I have to ask: how many people viewed the video as opposed to read the news article; what did it cost to produce each; how much did each presentation recoup in advertising revenue or brand equity; when does video make sense on a news website?
That last point is worth another few words. Video is about motion and emotion. It is about events in which seeing is believing, such as the Rodney King video that sparked riots in Los Angeles.
Given this I think news web sites should focus on eliciting user-generated video. As video phones become more common it is inevitable that ordinary folks will capture newsworthy footage. The trick will be getting and filtering it.
So while I will continue to look for ways to tell stories in multiple media, I think the most useful and cost-effective video will come from cititizen paparazzi.
“A colleagues with extensive multimedia experience told me it takes two hours on average to produce one minute of highly edited video.”
Your friend is smoking beans.
It all depends on the video and the goal of video.
We’ve produced some worthwhile video with less than an hour production time, including shooting.
There are all kinds of useful video that journalists can use to supplement story coverage, or replace written coverage that need not take two hours.
Also, video is where the revenue growth is. Whatever it takes, it’s well worth the effort.
Howard
Thanks for the response, and I’ll check the air around this source’s desk for a whiff of bean-smoke.
I’m ready to admit that as a print guy I take a rather snooty view toward video, perhaps in part because of my ineptitude at framing stories in moving pictures. And with practice the time-to-edit will improve. And yes me and the other print dinosaurs must learn to use the talking picture medium because the audience demands it.
That being said, I gotta tell you about this press release that I recall reading back in the roughly ‘97 time frame. I *think* it was from Toshiba but I more clearly remember that it talked about some storage technology that could handle 15 minutes of full motion video or 10 copies of the complete works of Shakespeare.
And that was the thought that has long stuck with me and why I look down my nose at this bandwidth-hogging medium that caters to the discriminating tastes of the lips-that-move-when-they-read cohort.
Video is like the freeloader who arrives at the party with an entire posse of lowbrow buddies who elbow their way to the head of the line and load their plate with network resources that lay there, unappreciated, to attract flies and make it so much harder for all the serious people who staged the party and must clean up the mess.
Not that I’m bitter, Howard, but let me ask: were you cast adrift on a desert island with the choice between 15 minutes of the best video you could imagine or 10 copies of Shakespeare (or better yet, one copy of Bill’s opus plus some other selected books, like say the historical series of Will and Ariel Durant, etc.) which would you choose?
[...] That remark zinged through the cloud where it must have annoyed news guy and media blogger Howard Owens, who fired back this comment to that original post: [...]
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[...] Comments, registration rise at paper websites: “One third of large newspaper web sites now let readers comment on stories, while three out of ten require registration or payment to access their online material, according to a recent survey of how the top 100 U.S. newspapers are adapting web technology.” [...]
[...] Comments, registration rise at paper websites [...]