A place to talk about the changing news media landscape.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Opportunity lurks
We know from growing experience how popular local video can be on our sites, which just makes sense. People like to see things happen, and we're able to deliver more of that experience on the local scene than anybody else. (I counted nine video clips available from the home page of the Kansas City Star this morning; In Merced, where television comes from Modesto and Sacramento, all the Sun-Star reporters carry cameras, and their reports are the sole local video.)Video's popualrity presents another opportunity I hadn't recognized until recently: unlike most web content, viewers don't find most of what they watch through search engines. A survey of a thousand adults by Synovate yielded these results:
53% found videos through their own exploration
52% found through recommendations from others
40% searched for specific videos
Other forms of video findability - 18% following online recommendations from people they didn’t know; 10% via unsolicited email; and 9% via email or RSS feeds.
The most obvious opportunity: make it easy and painless for your viewers to recommend your video to their friends. There's a little more on this subject at trendsspotting, where I came across this info.
This is exactly why I've been advocating the use of YouTube (and others) for our video in addition to our mandated vMix.
vMix is fine for a hosting platform but it just doesn't have the reach of YouTube. It is to me patently stupid to not further our reach by putting our videos on every service we can find.
This also applies to photos (and text if you think about it). I strongly advocate putting staff photos on Flickr though I usually get looks of horror when I suggest this.
This site is being retired.
Much of my work will continue to be collected here, but you can find my commentary more reliably at edge & flow or my Sacramento Bee SacConnect site, Quantum Dice. Most of my digital datastream is linked from here. You should also follow me on Twitter here.
deliver more of that experience on the local scene than anybody else. (I counted nine video clips available from the home page of the Kansas City Star this morning; In Merced, where television comes from Modesto and Sacramento, all the Sun-Star reporters carry cameras, and their reports are the sole local video.) Video's popualrity presents another opportunity I hadn't recognized until recently: unlike most web content, viewers don't find most of what they watch through search engines. A survey of a thousand adults by Synovate yielded these results: 
This is exactly why I've been advocating the use of YouTube (and others) for our video in addition to our mandated vMix.
ReplyDeletevMix is fine for a hosting platform but it just doesn't have the reach of YouTube. It is to me patently stupid to not further our reach by putting our videos on every service we can find.
This also applies to photos (and text if you think about it). I strongly advocate putting staff photos on Flickr though I usually get looks of horror when I suggest this.