Hulu.com

I'm sure you've all by now heard of Hulu.com, the joint venture between NBC and News Corp. that brings TV and movie content to the web for free. I finally checked it out this weekend and was pretty impressed. After being sucked in to watching clips from old episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", I came upon a collection of clips from the very first Today Show (I love the "Today in Two Minutes" feature):


The site can give away the content by including advertising in the clips, which is a small price to pay for being able to access such a library of content, in my opinion (where else can you find "The Three Amigos" AND "Requiem for a Dream"?).

The video player offers many features, including the ability to rewind and fast-forward with ease, to email, share or embed links and to watch full-screen. My personal favorite, though, is being able to watch video in a pop-up screen. This allows you to keep watching a show while simultaneously browsing other sites. The player runs independently and does not lose its spot even if you navigate away from the page. I have two monitors at home, so I can work on one side of the screen and watch a video on the other. Nice!

"The last Jews of Baghdad"

Aaron Brown showed this video in his class the other day and I was lucky enough to be told about it (thanks, Samuel!). Aaron said this is the first video CNN aired that depended in huge part on still photographs, making much of this very similar to a Soundslide. I'm posting it here because it's such a moving example of a story well told in both visual and spoken narrative.

Butterfly Effect

Here is the link to the film company I was talking about in class. I haven't had a chance to look at any of their other films, but "Spin" is awesome. The soundtrack alone is worth the download time, if you like hip hop techno kind of stuff. If you go to the website you can actually download the score for free. After I was done watching it I wanted to replay it over and over again. I like the whole idea that you can never make anything perfect. Enjoy!

Cue the scary music

I was just about to Googlemap "hairdresser" and my ZIP when I decided to take a look at this video first. So maybe my hair will stay shaggy a bit longer...

Video and newsprint: the multimedia journalist

This links to a really nice blog post (in Media Nation) about the editor of a newspaper, Cathryn Keefe O'Hare of the Danvers Herald, who first captured video on Memorial Day and now uses it as a routine part of her job. The post includes links to a slide show, an audio interview and several videos, including one she shot. The text is well hyperlinked and chock full (I've never used that phrase before; where did that come from?) of information about the equipment and software the paper uses. And here are some words to live by from O'Hare:

"The thing that remains true, whether it's in print journalism or the Internet or video, you have to tell a story," says O'Hare. "And you have to tell it as true as you can make it. And you have to try to speak for those people who can't tell their story."

Gawker in flap over Scientology video

I can't embed the video from YouTube because it's been pulled, as it has been from other sites. Scientology officials protested its airing with a copyright infringement notice. Gawker, a staffed media blog (managing editor Nick Denton oversees two media reporters and four bloggers), decided to keep a copy of the video available on its site as something newsworthy. One thing to note on Gawker: there are links to previous posts as well as to information on other sites. Some of the traffic to Gawker (there were 1,597,036 viewings as of this morning when I pulled up the page)has been sent there by another blog, the Videologist. Its story is here. And some traffic was channeled to Videologist by AOL News's promo on the AOL welcome page. There are many other links and traffic patterns, but that's the one I followed.

Grey Blackwell, Web cartoonist

Blackwell, who is with the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., and one of the groundbreaking online cartoonists, writes: "Are you a fan of the Saturday Night Live 'More Cowbell' sketch with Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken? Then you'll appreciate my 'tribute' entitled 'Butch Davis Needs More Victory Bell.' ... For those of you unfamiliar with the story of the Victory Bell, it's a brass bell that goes to the winner of the UNC-Duke football game each year. Since Duke hardly ever wins, UNC has made it a part of their games, ringing it after each victory. If you'd like to see the original SNL skit, you can find it here."

Meow....

Bad Kittycat

Add to My Profile | More Videos
One of the benefits of knowing a little html is that you can go into the code and change the title, which was a bit more provocative than I wanted to post here. The contents are perfectly G-rated. Can't vouch for the videos that are promoted when it finishes, though. :-)

Video promo for newspaper/online series

Guys: We’re launching a series called Unequal Justice this weekend – in print and online – but to capture the Web audience we launched our Web-exclusive case files Thursday. And heck we couldn’t resist doing a video trailer. Check out the You Tube link down below. Makes me wanna plunk down $9 to go to the cinema, not just $1.50 for the Sunday paper.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmxzQrRzOFA

Also the series “case files” are at www.dallasnews.com/unequaljustice until Saturday night when we redirect that link to the series splash page.

Interested in what everyone thinks of the package and the trailer.

Anthony Moor | Deputy Managing Editor/Interactive | Dallas Morning News |

Grad student's video ruffles Edwards campaign feathers

UNC masters student Carla Babb produced a video for a campus TV broadcast as well as for an MTV contest, for which she uploaded it to YouTube. In the video, she interviewed Edwards campaign workers and others about Edwards' choice of HQ location -- in a lovely, upscale, area of Chapel Hill. Did it conflict with his goal of representing the poor and disenfranchised? she asked. After the video was seen on YouTube, a campaign rep called her and asked her to take it down. Babb referred the spokeswoman to Charlie Tuggle, the UNC prof who oversees the newscast and who is her adviser. Tuggle refused. He reported that the campaign threatened to cut off student access to Edwards news. A campaign spokeswoman says this has gotten silly but had no comment on Tuggle's allegations. Since then, the story has bloomed in distribution and the video is approaching 100,000 views at this writing. The NYTimes, Washpost, AP, News&Observer and a host of other sites have done stories on it. What do you think?

Our YouTube Debate Vids -- So Far

I found these three so far by searching on "debate question." Did anyone file with different tags or title? Let me know so I can add you!

UPDATE: One more... Sam's quick fill-in.


ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's Mike's:

4,091 hits and counting

This is one of the YouTube debate questions from Dr. Carpenter's class. Posted last week! UPDATE Oct. 12: 5,742 hits.

Video part of WP report on upcoming Iowa vote

Another example of the growing "norm" of multimedia reporting with multiple points of entry. The text story, "Iowa a key test for Democrats," is packaged with the video and reader comments and is well larded with hypertext links throughout. ADDED: And you can see the same story run on a CBS News Web page -- no video, though. Guess CBS welcomes the writing but keeps the video production to itself?

Flashing Tom Lehrer

Lehrer was perhaps most famous in the 1950s and '60s but he's been rediscovered. Here's one of his trademark recordings treated to a Flash/video presentation. I was going to save it for class but couldn't restrain myself from posting. Enjoy.

Links from class (video interviews)

From Mike: Hillary Clinton - Conversation interview
Time - Jerry Seinfeld
From Katie: Example from YouTube and Syria has right to retaliate from the BBC.
From Martha:
Why I live in Arizona
Interview with Steve Wozniak
Interview with Aaron Russo

And the "Internet People" video was posted to Cronkbyte on Monday.

Kotecki joins Politico: 'I haven't sold out; I bought in'

Check out the announcement and take note of Politico's political coverage. It's one of the hottest sites around and has great potential. Excerpt:

Kotecki has already begun producing a daily video version of Mike Allen’s "Playbook," and will soon be hitting the trail to offer Politico.com readers a different way to view the election.
The Economist hailed Kotecki as “probably the world's foremost expert on YouTube videos posted by presidential candidates."

Fun vid interview here if the embedded one doesn't work well.

Internet People

A tribute to Net personalities -- characters? events? -- of the online world. Animated by Dan Meth with music by Meth and Micah Frank. How many references do you know? Thanks to Susan Keith for pointing me to Doug Fisher's CommonsenseJournalism blog for a look.

Living to the end

The story of Lovelle Svart's death ran in the Oregonian today, the culmination of months chronicling, in multimedia, the last months of a woman who chose to end her life legally under Oregon's Death With Dignity provision -- and who suggested the series. The project incorporates videos -- the last one made about half an hour before Ms. Svart took her final medication -- as well as stories, photographs and document reproductions. Probably the best way into this moving work is through the introduction, although I read the "obit" first then had to know more. UPDATE: Considerations on running the project are in the Editor's Blog.

Video of Florida student, Taser, Kerry Forum

I read about this, I tsk-tsked, I moved on. A few minutes ago, though, I watched a video of the student and the Tasering (you don't actually see it, but you hear it and you're close to where it's happening) and I must say, it's very disturbing. Makes me very happy that we're reporting online and with more than words these days. This is both more and less than the buzz that's accompanied it. An article from Editor & Publisher is here. The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun uploaded the video, which was made by one of its freelancers, to YouTube. What's even more fascinating is looking at some of the other videos made at the same time, shot at different angles, and also uploaded. For example, this one. If you're allergic to bad spelling, be warned, though. The errors in the word-overs could put you into a coma. UPDATE: Here's a CBS report (text and video) on the ensuing debate.

Did this deserve to be censored? The Sally Field acceptance speech:

Or is "censored" too strong a word? The clip is from Canadian television via Huffington Post. Here's how CBS2 reported it:

An expletive uttered by Sally Field as she made an antiwar statement during her acceptance speech for outstanding actress in a drama was cut from the telecast, as was part of her statement.

Field, a two-time Oscar winner, Sunday night claimed the Emmy for best actress in a drama series for her role as Nora Walker on ABC's first-season series "Brothers & Sisters."

"But at the heart of Nora Walker, she is a mother, so surely this belongs to all the mothers of the world," said the 60-year-old Field. "May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised, and to especially the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait, wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm's way, and from war."

As the orchestra began playing music, Field continued, "I'm not finished. I have to finish talking. To war -- oh God, I forgot what I was going to say. And to war, I'm proud, I'm proud of to be one of those women -- and let's face it, if the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place."