The Met’s new Greek and Roman galleries
Posted on June 25, 2007
The New York Times has published an interactive that puts you inside the Met’s new Greek and Roman galleries. This package is full of some interactive goodies, so plan to spend a little virtual time here.
Hear art critic Michael Kimmelman describe the history of these spaces and why they work while you view panoramic photos of the rooms.
But for the best part (I think), click on the “panoramas of the objects” tab and see the artwork in 3-D space by rotating it around 360 degrees. I’m not sure how they did this, though — all the tutorials I can find require the object sit on a turntable. I’m guessing that wasn’t the case in this situation.
Navigating the D.C. Mixing Bowl
Posted on June 25, 2007
I lived and worked in Washington, D.C., for 8 years and am all-too familiar with the nightmare traffic congestion that happens on the Beltway (I-495) — particularly where it meets I-395 (a major East Coast north-south artery that passes through the city). They call this tangle of roads the “Mixing Bowl.”
The Washington Post today wrote a story about the confusion and frustration drivers still experience, even though the reconstruction of the road pattern is complete:
“After eight years and $676 million, all of the swirling ramps and bridges are open at the Springfield interchange, and traffic is flowing freely through one of the busiest crossroads on the East Coast, where interstates 95 and 395 hit the Capital Beltway.
But there is growing concern that navigating the new Mixing Bowl’s 50 ramps and 24 lanes is confusing and could be creating different safety problems.”
Add-ons to this story include a 2-D graphic and a video that takes you on a ride through.
Both are a disappointment. Here’s why:
1.) The audio is horrible, and the video doesn’t work either — they’re putting me in the driver’s seat, but I can’t read most of the street signs.
2.) A 2-D graphic? Sigh. If you’re going to do this, at least give me a link back to the story.
3.) Why not combine the two? The video starts with a map, but it fails to fully illustrate where the narrator is while he’s describing the traffic. I have driven those roads, so I can visualize where he’s at as he describes the route, but I think someone who’s never been there might get confused. (And come on, this is made for those who haven’t driven the roads. The Mixing Bowl has been under construction for 8 years — Washingtonians know how crazy the maze is.)
Good reads for 06.20.2007
Posted on June 20, 2007
>> Huge growth in online video use — and it’s not all user-generated videos. And there’s good news here for newspaper Web sites: “News stories are reported by consumers as the most frequently viewed video they watch regularly on the Internet. Over a third of online Americans 12 to 64 watch online video news stories regularly.”
>> Katy Sai and Jay Olsen have launched StoryBridge.tv, a community video news site serving the small town of Madison, Wisconsin, after quitting their jobs as anchor and cameraman at the regional WISC-TV/Channel 3000 station, reports CyberJournalist.net.
>> Your ad department’s gonna love this one: Video search engine Blinkx will launch blinkx AdHoc Monday. “It will offer media companies and video sites a way to place targeted ads alongside (or even in) Web videos based on the specific words spoken in the videos, as well as their overall context.”
>> “When the iPhone ships next week, it will be able to play about 10,000 YouTube videos,” reports Lost Remote. “Going forward, YouTube will encode all of its videos in H.264, which is the iPhone video format.”
>> Paul Bradshaw is somewhat underwhelmed by CNN’s redesign, now in beta. He says: “In a year of relaunches, CNN’s effort lacks the ‘big canvas’ approach that seems to becoming the norm (larger images, larger text), and looks ’small’ as a result. The redesign reminds me of that old cliche: ‘more evolution than revolution’, i.e. ‘we bottled it’.”
>> If we set our media consumption habits at a young age, then the habit’s of today’s youth are interacting in social networks, says Mindy McAdams. Here comes the big footstomper from the professor, so listen up: “Their habit of staying connected digitally, checking for updates, making plans, sharing gossip, getting information — this will likely remain their habit, their means of keeping in touch with the world around them, for the rest of their lives.”
>> Looking for a new job? Log on to Second Life, and go on a virtual interview. Seriously. It’s happening.
Greatness = taking risks
Posted on June 20, 2007
Michael Rosenblum is working with New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger about architecture around the world for a new series for Discovery. (Wow. What a gig!)
In doing this project, he’s learning about what makes great architecture — and that to create it means designers have to take risks.
Which has led him to question why TV news broadcasts don’t.
“Here we have something that is far less difficult to assemble than a building. It is far more plastic. It is not cast in stone or steel or concrete. Yet when we design and ‘architect’ television news, we are fearful of being ‘too creative’. We assiduously repeat designs and patterns that have ‘worked’ for us for a generation now. The studio, the anchors, the throw, the weather and sports.
“It is boring.
“The risks in building a Bilbao are enormous. The risks in redesigning a television newscast, really radically redesigning it, are minimal. Yet we don’t go there. The most we are willing to risk is replacing Dan with Katie. Not much of a change, really. More like repainting the front door than anything else.”
Serving the reader
Posted on June 19, 2007
Full disclosure: This is sort-of-but-not-really tooting my own horn. I had nothing to do with this project, but it comes out of HeraldTribune.com.
Database power team Maurice Tamman and Charlie Szymanski (they created IbisEye.com) have put together a tax calculator to help residents figure out how proposed Florida property tax changes would mean to them.
Taxes are confusing to begin with, but this proposal by state lawmakers makes you choose between a new super homestead plan and the current Save our Homes plan.
Tamman and Szymanski turned this tool around in a day, too, to accompany ongoing print stories. So it’s timely, interactive, and a real service to readers.
Don’t forget we’re journalists
Posted on June 18, 2007
“The publishers have sighted gold in them thar video player hills. All the newspaper people have piled into the wagons and are heading west toward Video, in the hopes of striking it rich. Imagine! Those pre-roll ads get higher rates than banners! Let’s do video!!!! The rush is on!”
Sound familiar??
Chuck Fadely’s all riled up about the push for video, any kind of video, on newspaper Web sites. Get a cheap camera, throw it in the reporter’s hands, post it on the Internet, and sit back and watch the page views climb, right?
Not so fast, says Fadely:
“Here’s the bottom line: to get good narrative video, with clean audio, that is engaging to the viewer, requires a full time video person, who has spent a year learning all the technical stuff about audio, cameras, and video editing programs. It takes about $10,000 in video and audio gear and another $10k in computer and software.”
Yeah, I know, we’ve heard this debate before. I don’t think they necessarily need “expensive” gear, but his point, I think, is that if management wants video, they have to invest in it, too.
What struck me most, however, was this quote BEFORE he got to the bottom line:
“Video is an emotional medium that grabs the viewers by the throat and makes ‘em weep, laugh, and scream. … Does your reporter video fit into that “magic” category? Does your ‘random’ video make you weep? (It makes me weep, but not because of the story…)”
Sure, an expensive camera and editing software will help make your video polished, but it’s your skills at a journalist that will turn that video clip into a story. (And using the audio tips below that outline what makes a great story apply perfectly here.)
Filling up your sites with talking heads or VOSOTs can be done quickly and easily (and expensively, too!). But these videos become shovelware that readers will eat up voraciously during breaking news but only casually on a daily basis.
It’s the power of the STORIES (even short user-submitted ones like this) that can differentiate newspaper Web sites from YouTube clips of a Panda sneezing.
Tell the story so you can see it
Posted on June 18, 2007
In Al Tompkin’s latest Poynter Centerpiece, he interviews Valerie Geller about how to write visually — an essential component to good audio storytelling. Geller should know; she’s worked with more than 500 radio stations in 27 countries and teaches radio journalists about visual writing. Here’s what I see as some of the highlights that we can apply to audio podcasts, slideshows and online video:
Says Geller:
“Many people do not think of radio as a visual medium. But a talented storyteller who writes with dazzling detail can tap into all of the imagery and emotion stored in the listener’s brain and make him feel that he really is “seeing” the story. While telling a story in just a few words is key in writing powerful news copy, the visual element is important to keep listeners engaged.”
What makes a great “story”?
“WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, WHEN, HOW, but also:
>> HOW does this story affect my listener?
>> HOW can I describe things more visually?
>> HOW can I make someone care about this?
>> HOW, or in what way, do I care about this?
>> HOW come I am putting this story on the air?
>> If a problem is presented, HOW can it be solved; what are the solutions?
>> HOW did this happen; could it have been prevented?
>> HOW else can I tell this story?
>> HOW would I tell it to a friend?
>> HOW can I make it better?
>> HOW would I tell it if my very life depended on not losing a listener?
>> and HOW would I put this on a demo to get another job if I needed one?”
And men and women don’t hear the story the same way, she explains:
“Visual descriptions are especially important to men. Brain research shows that men are more stimulated by visual details, and language that describes events with accurate visual elements tends to make them pay closer attention to a story.
Women, on the other hand, are emotive. If a woman can “feel” an emotional connection to a story, she is more likely to listen closely and take in the information. For a story to appeal to both men and women, it should deliver information using both visual and emotional language.”
Question of the day
Posted on June 18, 2007
Q: What do copyeditors take photos of?
A: Editing books, New Yorker cartoons, and memories of the good ol’ days.
(Links found via Doug Fisher’s Common Sense Journalism)
New awards across the pond
Posted on June 18, 2007
The UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP) is adding four new categories to its annual award: use of video, best podcast, digital creativity and online community.
Good reads for 06.16.07
Posted on June 16, 2007
>> Angela Grant writes about the byline strike by the Baltimore Sun photographers this week. Deep sigh. Change is stressful and uncomfortable for everyone. But why can’t we just all get along?
Check out the comments about the strike on MultimediaShooter; some good discussion over there.
>> Are we too hung up on non-linear storytelling? asks Paul Bradshaw in response to Nora Paul and Laura Ruel’s navigating slide show study. First thought: GASP! Second thought: I want to see more research on this topic before agreeing.
>> Podcast wins first-ever Emmy. KING5.com and NWCN.com received an Advanced Media Emmy Award for a video podcast called “Drive,” according to LostRemote.
>> The iPhone: “It could very well mean that all of our best laid plans to build great newspaper.com sites get laid to waste, or at least we’ll need to realign our priorities,” says Howard Owens. I agree; this baby could be a first iteration of an e-paper.
>> You should be on Facebook, says Owens. Well, OK. I’ll give it a try.
>> Prosumer. “Mark this word in your mental diaries,” says Duncan Riley of TechCrunch. “The word is a combination of producer and consumer that perfectly describe the millions of participants in the Web 2.0 revolution.”
>> “The BBC is to release a series of behind-the-scenes videos detailing how it compiles its news packages,” reports Journalism.co.uk. “Future video updates, (BBC reporter Ben) Hammersley added, will cover how the corporation finds people to interview, gets to locations in foreign cities and pieces its TV and radio packages together.” Nice bonus for us online journalists looking for tips, but I’m still not convinced the public will care.
Currently reading
-
I am melissaworden on del.icio.us.
Add me to your network
