Multimedia journalism

The future of interactive videos

In this week’s edition of II’s summer guest blogger series Matt Ford, multimedia producer at AP, discusses the future of interactive videos, both on the Web and on your television.

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When video first made its way to the Internet, most of the video content on the web fell into two major categories: Television content that was simply migrated to the web, and raw video uploaded from users around the world. The two were drastically different in quality and experience, but what they did have in common was a passive viewing experience. Hit play, sit back and watch: essentially the same viewing experience that exists when you turn on your TV, select your channel, and nestle into that well-formed indentation in your couch.

Today video has become a major part of the online experience, and that role continues to grow every year. As a response, video web offerings have become more sophisticated, and the common thread is the emergence of user choice. Popular shows like the office offer behind the scenes video and award-winning webisodes to encourage user engagement between regularly broadcast episodes, and movie studios offer a variety of trailers and exclusive web content in advance of a film’s release.

A lot of these same techniques can be applied to journalism. For the 20009 presidential inauguration, the AP was planning to stream live video from multiple locations in Washington D.C. and we wanted our clients to be able to launch the interactive weeks ahead of the event. This required producing additional inauguration content. In the end we produced a five-part documentary on the history of the presidential inauguration and released each installment over time. We also provided video and text from past inauguration speeches. This established familiarity with the interactive for both our clients and their users. In the end, the inauguration interactive helped the AP break its previous records for live streaming.

Some of the most intriguing developments in video on the web have been in the integration of video content with other formats. FLYPmedia has taken a unique approach to what a web magazine might look like. In their web-only publication, video is used the same way a sidebar might be used in a print edition. In “Buddy can you spare a billion?,” the video offers a deeper understanding of the larger story and the user can choose whether to watch a video about being “too big to fail” or assessing the current state of the financial crisis. Or both.

Other videos offer choice through chronology. Say you are watching a documentary about Ted Kennedy on the history channel, but the only parts you care about are his days in the U.S. Senate. Unless you have a DVR, you are stuck watching the first half hour about his younger years, and even with the DVR, you might not know when the good stuff begins. Boston.com provides a nice interactive documentary on Ted Kennedy and you can jump to the period in his life that interests you the most. The Las Vegas Sun has taken a similar approach on chronicling the cities unprecedented growth.

Some places have played around with a direct action and response behavior with online video. This interactive is about as close as most of us will come to having a one-on-one conversation with Ian McKellan on Shakespeare.

These interactive approaches to video will eventually start showing up on your home television. In early 2006, I was doing course work in Paris as part of a global journalism program. One afternoon I was taking photographs of Parisians rioting over youth employment legislation (a level of civic engagement that was beyond me as an American). After a run in with some tear gas and a narrow escape from a water cannon, I made my way back to a friends place and turned on Sky News. They were talking business, but a crawl at the bottom of the screen encouraged the viewer to click on the red button on the remote if I wanted to view photos from the riots. A simple click and we were viewing the content WE wanted to see. On television. And that was three years ago.

With the advance of IPTV, this level of interactivity will soon exist on Television and a multitude of other devices. The NY Times recently gave a sneak preview to Neiman labs of what this interactive viewing experience might look like in your living room. Don’t worry, you should still be able to interact with your set from that comfy indentation in your couch.

New York Times R&D Group: Moving the news into your living room from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

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Matt Ford is a multimedia producer with the Associated Press and a former lighting technician in the L.A. film industry. You can follow his multimedia blog at WireAndLights.com or view his work at MattFordMedia.com.

Other posts that might interest you:

• AP political interactive displays great data visualization and video help feature
• Guantanamo Bay interactive presents data effectively
• Dallas Cowboys Stadium: Two multimedia approaches, one story

© 8 July 2009 Innovative Interactivity (II).