Tag Archives: Video

YouTube partners Pullitzer Center for journalism contest

As Journalism.co.uk reported last month, YouTube has created a competition for ‘non-professional, aspiring journalists’ as part of its new journalism programme.

The Pullitzer Center has now come on board to support the Project:Report contest, which aims to ‘tell stories that might not otherwise be covered by traditional media’.

The winner will receive a scholarship at the center and a $10,000 grant to produce a video report from anywhere in the world.

The first assignment of the competition (there will be three rounds in total) asks YouTubers to profile someone in their community and produce a video report in English of no more than three minutes.

Submissions will be reviewed by a panel from the Pullitzer Center and 10 successful entrants will move onto the next stage. This phase will be judged by YouTube users, who will select five finalists.

The closing date for the first round is midnight (EST) on October 5.

Video is just start of online for Sport, says MD

A new video player – courtesy of Perform and Virgin Media – is just the start for Sport magazine’s ‘nascent’ website, Greg Miall, managing director, told Journalism.co.uk.

Traditionally television’s domain, online sports video from other media sites is a growing trend. By working with a third party, however, rights to the content are handled by Virgin, which supplies Premier League football highlights, and Perform, which handles video of cricket, tennis, golf and rugby fixtures.

“It’s a different way to supply a latent audience demand for this kind of content,” said Miall, adding that the BBC’s recent online coverage of the Beijing Olympics was a benchmark for online sports video.

“What it did [the BBC’s Olympics site] was provide another way of viewing all this content and a lot more people ended up looking at content, which they might not look at usually.”

Improvements are lined up for the player and embedding it across the site’s other channels is also in the pipeline.

In addition, an online channel manager is set to join the magazine in the next few weeks and will bring in a series of changes to the site, Miall added.

The key thinking behind the video offering, he said, is to appeal to a generation of readers and viewers who aren’t watching television for prolonged periods or through a set anymore.

So is short-form, online sports video the freesheet equivalent of television?

UK media sign up for new Virgin and Perform video player

e-Player, a new ‘multi-channel video player delivering sports highlights and video clips’, is to be used by a raft of UK media organisations, Sinead Scanlon writes for Journalism.co.uk.

ITV Sport, Telegraph Media Group, the Daily Mail, News International, Trinity Mirror, Evening Standard, Metro and Bauer are all set to deploy the player, which has been developed by Virgin Media and sports and entertainment company Perform, a press release on the launch said.

The player will be free for the media groups and will provide sports highlights and updates from UK football and European leagues, as well golf, tennis and rugby clips. Advertising revenue will be shared between Virgin and Perform and the media sites, based on the amount of traffic generated to the videos.

“We have secured distribution with many of the highest traffic, most respected online publishers in the UK, making e-Player the most exciting online video advertising proposition in the market,” said Oliver Slipper, joint-CEO of Perform.

Veoh copyright win could set precedent

The news that video-sharing site Veoh have won their copyright case could set a precedent for similar sites, according to a host of bloggers today.

In a legal analysis by the Electric Frontier Foundation, Fred von Lohmann writes: “the ruling should be required reading for the executives of every ‘Web 2.0’ business that relies on ‘user-generated content.”

On Wednesday a US District court judge ruled that the site qualified for protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and could not be sued for copyright infringement.

The adult video site Io Group were suing on grounds that Veoh violated its copyright in 2006 when the site showed user-uploaded clips from 10 of the company’s films. However, Veoh was found to have complied with DMCA guidelines.

ITV creates online channel for Notting Hill Carnival

ITV is to stream live video of this weekend’s Notting Hill Carnival to its London website.

A separate channel for the carnival has been set up on the ITV Local site, which will feature live footage of the carnival parade and interviews with performers.

Viewers are also able to upload their own clips of the event to the platform.

ITV has also created an interactive map, showing information of the parade route and facilities, as part of the channel.

YouTube success for Deadline Press & Picture Agency

Footage of a penguin at Edinburgh Zoo receiving a knighthood from the Norwegian army has helped push Deadline Press & Picture Agency‘s YouTube channel into the top 100 most viewed on the site.

The Deadline News TV channel was rated 97th most viewed in the UK this week thanks, in part, to the clip, which has at time of writing attracted 29,654 views.

The success of the agency’s video offering, which was launched in May, has been echoed by the growth of its recently established blog, which acts as a portfolio for the agency’s work.

The blog recently made it into WordPress’ top 100 fastest growing blogs, amassing 21,743 page impressions across 117 posts by August 6.

“We’ve been getting consistent hits to Deadline News TV since it was launched and what’s clear is that the audience keeps growing,” said Scott Douglas, Deadline founder, in a press release.

“We might be relatively new to the online arena, but it seems we are doing something right and we will continue to develop that further.”

Innovations in Journalism: vtap – driving the ‘video-anywhere revolution’

In our Innovations in Journalism series, Journalism.co.uk asks website and technology developers to pitch their projects to us. This time it’s Veveo with vtap, its personalised video service for mobiles.

1) Who are you and what’s it all about?
We’re Veveo – founded in 2004 by a team of executives with a history in multimedia, networking and mobile technologies.

Veveo’s mission is to be a driving force behind the ‘video-anywhere revolution’. The company’s flagship product, vtap is the first significant proof of concept. It offers consumers an easy way to browse, discover, keep and share videos from any source on any imaginable topic on the mobile device(s) of their choosing.

vtap indexes videos from all over the internet, including user-generated content (YouTube, DailyMotion) and professional sources (BBC, CNN), as well as blogs and corporate websites.

Basically, anywhere that video appears on the internet vtap indexes it and it is searchable for users.

To set up a personalised feed, users have to register (which is a simple process requiring only an email address and password).

They then enter search terms, which will bring up results or topics. These ‘topics’ can then be added to a feed, which allows users to log in and view relevant content at any time. This can also be viewed on their mobile phone.

By each video there is a ‘share’ button which enables users to send the video to another user, they just need to know the other person’s user name.

2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?
vtap is a great way to keep up-to-date with news and current events in an easy-to-view format. Because content is pushed to you on any device, you can keep up-to-date wherever you are.

3) Is this it, or is there more to come?
vtap is under constant development by our research and development team in Bangalore so there will be additional features in the near future.

We’re also working with mobile operators, mobile manufacturers, TV providers, consumer electronics manufacturers and content creators to deploy vtap solutions.

4) Why are you doing this?
Veveo believes that video content is the easiest way to get the content you want on a mobile, whether that’s news or entertainment.

To do this Veveo believes that users should be able to easily search videos from all over the web, and save and share what they find to create a personal TV channel.

This level of personalised service enables consumers to access the most relevant video content wherever they are, on any device.

5) What does it cost to use it?
vtap is a free service.

6) How will you make it pay?
vtap will be funded by an advertising model, details of which are yet to be announced.

ITN On in video deal with Daily Motion

ITN On, the multimedia arm of ITN, is to supply video-sharing site Dailymotion with a host of video content, a press release from the company said.

ITN On is the first UK news provider to partner Dailymotion and will provide five video channels for the site.

The ITN News channel on the site will feature breaking news videos and YouNews, a daily show compiling the most watched news stories and online video content.

A daily environmental news programme will also be produced by ITN for Dailymotion.

The T3 Gadget Show, produced in association with T3 magazine, and Gamerzine TV will be produced as part of a games and gadgets channel.

In addition, channels called OMG and This Is Genius featuring ‘quirky’ videos, clips from ITN’s video archive, music news and interviews, and a celebrity programme, will also be provided.