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Qik could soon be live-streaming from iPhone

October 21st, 2008 | 2 Comments | Posted by Judith Townend in Mobile, Online Journalism

As reported over at Lost Remote, Qik, the video broadcasting site, are very close to launching a nifty application to allow users stream straight from their iPhones.

This video discusses how the application will also make use of GPS to further improve user interaction.

As Lost Remote says, ‘the challenge, of course, is how to organize all these streams into useful and entertaining experiences.’

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BBC tracks shipping container in multimedia news experiment

September 9th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Multimedia

The BBC’s business and economics unit has embarked on a new multimedia editorial project aimed at improving the storytelling of economic news.

The Box initiative is an attempt to ‘come up with a way of telling the real story of what’s happening in the global economy in a tangible, challenging and ambitious way’ across multiple BBC platforms, Jeremy Hillman, editor of the business and economics unit, writes on the BBC Editors Blog.

The box of the title refers to a BBC-branded shipping container equipped with a GPS transmitter, which will have its international journey tracked, updated and mapped on its own webpage.

“The journey this container follows over the next few months will be a real one, and whilst we will control some aspects of the process for logistical reasons, the story it tells will be a truly representative one, painting a picture of what globalisation really means,” writes Hillman.

The container began its journey in Southampton yesterday.

Hillman adds: “Whilst we have paid a little for the branding of the box and some technical costs, the fact this is a working container means it will be earning its own keep!”

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Grants for New Voices projects and UCLAN lecturer Andy Dickinson

May 19th, 2008 | 3 Comments | Posted by Laura Oliver in Citizen journalism

Hot on the heels of last week’s Knight News Challenge winners, two foundations have released details of journalism projects to receive funding.

New Voices - a project from the University of Maryland’s interactive journalism institute - has awarded funding of $17,000 each to 10 citizen media start-ups.

The recipients include: Cool State Online, a Californian project to set up micro bureaux covering news from the Asian and Latino communities; The Appalachian Independent, an online newspaper for the rural community in Maryland; and Family Life Behind Bars, a site where the families of prisoners can share information and experiences.

The progress of the winners (listed in full in a press release) can be viewed on the New Voices website.

Meanwhile, University of Central Lancashire journalism lecturer Andy Dickinson is to receive funding from journalism lab Sandbox for a project mapping the movements of local reporters in their communities.

Reporters from print, radio and TV would be equipped with GPS devices to monitor their movements on a normal working day, explains Dickinson in a blog post.

“The project would then attempt to develop a matrix that visually demonstrated when and where the news agendas of local communities and those of professional media organizations coincide, with a view to examining the range of elements that lead to this juxtaposition.

 

Conducted in this way the research can explore ‘randomness’, and ‘proximity’ to breaking news as a value that impacts news agendas (and says something about reseources too).”

Congratulations to Andy - we’re already looking forward to the results.

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Backpacker.com joins Web 2.0

April 29th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted by ruth morgan in Magazines, Multimedia

Backpacker magazine has relaunched its website, which now contains new multimedia and GPS supported content.

The site features an interactive map containing more than 1200 GPS-supported hikes, expert blogs and on-the-scene video.

Screenshot of the Backpacker website

“Our primary focus was to create the ultimate outdoor adventure renaissance experience on the web” said editor Anthony Cerretani in a press release.

“We wanted users not only to get the most up-to-date information from the site, but also to be able to participate in the site’s evolution, utilising Web 2.0 applications to post trips, gear reviews, comments and more.”

The American site was rebuilt from the ‘bottom up’ responding to readers’ ideas for the new look.

The site will now update its content daily and make use of social media tools including RSS feeds, del.icio.us and Facebook.

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Innovations in Journalism - live geo-tagged video broadcast from Seero

April 21st, 2008 | 2 Comments | Posted by Oliver Luft in Broadcasting, Mobile

We give developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are working on. Today, live video streamed over the web with extra geographical information mapped in real-time from Seero.

image of seero’s website

1) Who are you and what’s it all about?
Hello, I’m Justin Cutillo, co-founder of Seero. It’s a geo-broadcasting platform that fuses live and on-demand video with GPS mapping.

Our technology is a response to the convergence and proliferation of video and GPS features in the flourishing mobile device market.

2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?
Seero was built to reflect the core needs of video bloggers and online journalist. The platform incorporates tools for live mobile broadcasting with additional real-time GPS tracking and static location marking.

We also have a geo-information/advertising server. This system allows us to geo-tag specific information to enhance any broadcasts near that location.

For example, if an online journalist was covering a fire in London, we have the ability to upload facts specific to the building and geo-tag them to the exact location. The information is served based on its proximity to the location of the broadcast.

All you need for mobile broadcasting is a laptop and a mobile broadband card. You can add on an inexpensive GPS receiver for the real-time tracking feature or use an Ultra Mobile PC is you don’t want to carry around a full laptop.

3) Is this it, or is there more to come?
We are currently working on some major build items. We should be releasing an embeddable flash player that includes the live video player and the full map functionality within a month. We are also working on a module to add course tracking to previously recorded videos.

Our largest project is to build a mobile broadcasting application for Symbian mobile phones to enable journalist to broadcast live video and GPS right from their Nokia phones.

Beyond that we have a secretive project that could really redefine how people interact with live video on the internet.

4) Why are you doing this?
When it comes down to it we are technology buffs. We came up with the idea on a vacation to San Francisco more than two years ago while thinking of ways to virtually tour a city.

Combining live video and location info opens up new, exciting uses for online video.  Needless to say we are very enthusiastic about the prospects.

5) What does it cost to use it?
Besides the hardware cost, which may be very little if you already have a laptop, the service is completely free to all users.

6) How will you make it pay?
We currently envision three main channels of revenue. The first channel involves white label sites built on the Seero infrastructure for promotional as well as professional and government services.

The second channel is geo-advertising. We have a proprietary geo-advertising system that provides a simple and powerful solution for correlating advertising to site content.

Beyond those revenue streams we also see potential for our geo-advertising system as a stand-alone service.

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