Gotcha
Posted on June 5, 2007
And here’s what can happen when you truly do make something interactive:
“One of Britain’s most wanted men has been arrested after being featured on the Sky News website. Police had been hunting the 62-year-old man in connection with the murder of a woman in Cannock, Staffordshire. Detectives said that the arrest came from people looking at our interactive map, which forms part of our Crime Uncovered section.”
How about that?
Clicking around on the site, I found another nice interactive about keeping your home safe from these criminals. The video was a tad bit jumpy for me. Not sure if that’s how it is or if it’s my connection.
(The interactive map application was made by Puffbox; link found via Martin Stabe’s del.icio.us bookmarks)
Where’s the interactivity?
Posted on June 5, 2007
Oh, I’m so disappointed. The headline “Attention Google map surfers” on USATODAY.com’s Interactivity blog caught my attention. This’ll be good, I immediately thought.
The post explains how the interactive came about (it goes with a print story by Craig Wilson about how Google’s map service is picking up rooftop messages) and highlights that readers can submit their own images of rooftop announcements, ads, etc.
They urge us:
“So, go to Google Maps and start surfing! I did, and spent a happy hour skimming major cities and suburbs searching for messages.”
Sounds great.
>> Except there’s no link to the interactive on USATODAY.com.
>> There’s no link to Google Maps
>> When I go to the text story (this link IS provided) I only see two photos. This is a gallery?? That’s all that could be found during an hour of surfing?
>> And as for the interactivity — readers have to e-mail in their photo samples? Really?? C’mon. That’s so last year. This is supposed to be Web 2.0, no? Where reader interaction is most accessible and instantaneous?
NPPA Multimedia Immersion Summit
Posted on June 5, 2007
These videos will give you goosebumps — they’re well done (I love the style of the first one), and they’re so inspiring.
I didn’t get to go to this — I’m not a professional photographer, so that limits my participation, I suppose. But you bet I’m going to share these overviews and anything else I can find about the NPPA summit (that link has a lot of good stuff) with the photo staff at my paper.
Thank you to Multimedia Shooter for posting these videos, a podcast and a list of new, cool and old tools.
Speaking of video …
Posted on June 5, 2007
I just realized I hadn’t blogged about this before. Silly me.
I’ve been up to my eyebrows in work the past couple months. And one of my major projects was working with Dayport to create a new video player for heraldtribune.com.
Other New York Times Regional Media Group papers are using Brightcove, a smart application to be sure. But one advantage this company gives us is that it integrates nicely with our content management system Publicus. And we custom-built a player to our specifications.
A couple of features I love:
>> Embed code for bloggers
>> Videos sorted by content
>> Related stories box will bring in both video and text content
>> Click the “latest headlines” button in the screen on the right side and you’ll get a list text headlines (I don’t know how much this is used, but I think it’s nice as a reader to move between media.)
Herald-Tribune Media Group includes the print paper, heraldtribune.com, and SNN News 6 — a 24-hour cable news channel. So we’re quite lucky to have a lot of short video reports without much extra work (just the Web posting production time). This will give us time, hopefully, to start producing some online-only content.
Video skills are in demand
Posted on June 5, 2007
I think it’s interesting to see what job postings are out there to keep an eye on the direction the industry is moving, and a friend pointed me to this one at the Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Online Visuals Producer - The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is seeking a journalist to join our multimedia newsroom in this newly created position. Recognized nationally for our print visuals and online graphics, we’re looking for someone who can help bring that success to video and multimedia at Sun-Sentinel.com. The ideal candidate will be experienced in video newsgathering and storytelling, and be able to develop skills in photographers and reporters. He/she will be responsible for the execution and programming of video, photography and multimedia on our site, our relationship with our TV partners, and the oversight of our five-member multimedia staff. We’re looking for someone with at least five years of experience in visual production, including deadline experience. Experience in television news is highly valued. Previous management experience is preferred. Demonstrated experience with AVID, Final Cut Pro or equivalent system is required. Photoshop and Flash experience are a plus. Candidates should submit a letter of interest, resume and a demo reel of no more than five work samples of different content and styles of presentation. Samples should be emailed as zip files, easily found on web pages or mailed on CD/DVD. Please send to: Kathy Pellegrino, Recruitment Editor, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 200 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 or to kpellegrino@sun-sentinel.com. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Sun-Sentinel.com cover South Florida, a highly competitive media environment and a region with some of the country’s most exciting news events. Sun-Sentinel is part of Tribune Co., which has newspaper, online and television news operations in markets around the country including Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.
Again, it’s amazing how quickly these multimedia jobs are changing. It seems like video production at newspaper Web sites just started, although I guess it HAS been about 2 years or so already that it’s become more commonplace.
I don’t know anyone over at the Sun-Sentinel so I can’t really recommend this job, but it certainly does seem like a great opportunity for someone to move from a video producer to a management level position — while continuing to concentrate on the storytelling aspects of the project. And interesting, I think, that Flash (coding, etc.) and Photoshop experience are listed as “a plus.” Used to be a requirement for multimedia work. :)
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