Yesterday was supposed to be the day that live Web video streaming took on TV broadcasting. CNN.com alone served a record 21.3 million streams, with a peak of 1.3 million simultaneous streams. And Akamai reported a peak of 5.4 million simultaneous visitors per minute to the various news sites for which it hosts video, and more than 7 million simultaneous streams.
With millions tuning in from their PCs to watch President Obama’s Inauguration speech, it was one of the biggest tests yet for live video streaming. But live streaming failed. CNN.com kept bumping viewers into virtual waiting rooms. This happened to me in the middle of Obama’s speech. I had to keep hitting refresh, but missed half the speech. The stream on Hulu was even worse, with the video frozen and the audio coming in and out. And forget about Ustream. I couldn’t even get any audio. This seemed to be the general experience out there, based on other reports. → Read More
There are plenty of places to watch the inauguration today online (see our guide). I’ve been clicking around, and many of the streams are jittery, as you would expect, but I find myself coming back to CNN’s live stream. The video keeps skipping on me, but at least the audio is consistent. Maybe that’s because CNN.com is serving a record number of live video streams (13.9 million live streams between 6 AM and 11:45 AM ET, versus 5.3 million on Election Day, the previous record). The big draw, however, is that CNN partnered with Facebook, and I can watch the proceedings along with comments from all my Facebook friends in the sidebar.
My friend Dimitry Leger noted that “Obama looks like a heavyweight boxer waiting to enter the ring for the big fight.” When Bush appeared Kevin Werbach, who is on the Obama transition team, commented, “crowd is singing the nanana goodbye song now.” (Scott Beale also noticed this). Loic Le Meur doesn’t like all the praying. Kevin Rose “is hoping this stream starts working…” → Read More
Whether you are headed to Washington for the Obama Inauguration or simply want to follow along online, there is no shortage of sites and applications dedicated to the national party on Tuesday, January 20. Of course, every major news site will have videos, photos, and reporting from the event. But the people lining the parade route will also be Twittering, uploading photos, and capturing video moments with their cell phones and video cameras. General information about the inauguration can be found at the sites for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Below is the TechCrunch Guide to the Inauguration, a collection of links and apps that will help you make the most out of the inauguration. → Read More
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml John Oliver learns about CNN’s touch wall the only way he knows how: by running around New York, making love to John King, and exposing CNN’s evil plan to take over the world. All in a days work for The Daily Show. via Giz → Read More
As Señor Arrington alluded to, CNN rolled out its 3D hologram-thing during its election coverage last night. Thirty-five HD cameras are filming the reporter, Jessica Yellin, which then send the images back to producers in New York. The technology was developed by these guys. (CNN’s “Magic Wall,” if you’re interested, was developed by a company called Perceptive Pixel, which was founded by Jeff Han, the same Jeff Han from that famous YouTube video. Reminds you of the movie Minority Report, right?) Does it look neat? Sure, why not? But as for as disseminating information to the viewers, I don’t see how this is any more useful than speaking to someone on the telephone or via satellite link. I also can’t imagine how much money the gimmick cost CNN. But hats off to CNN for making those dull fly-over state results a little more interesting.* (That’s a joke, people!) via Wonkette → Read More
CNN is cool. In addition to the huge touchscreen “Magic Wall” (which was originally military technology), CNN’s Wolf Blitzer gets to play with Holograms today during their coverage of the presidential elections. CNN’s Jessica Yellin is the guinea pig, appearing virtually with Blitzer. Read more… → Read More
CNN is cool. In addition to the huge touchscreen “Magic Wall” (which was originally military technology), CNN’s Wolf Blitzer gets to play with Holograms today during their coverage of the presidential elections.
CNN’s Jessica Yellin is the guinea pig, appearing virtually with Blitzer.
I have no idea why Yellin doesn’t just go to the studio instead of being wherever she is, or why they don’t just point a camera at her and bring her into the story in the normal way, and I don’t care. They have a hologram, and if I wasn’t getting on a plane in twenty minutes I’d be watching CNN the rest of the evening. → Read More
In addition to listening to Ron and Fez tonight, you may want to check out CNN even if Fox News is your preferred network. Why is that? Oh, just the fact that they’ll be using 3D holograms to talk to people “in-studio.” It’s just like Star Wars, the movie series that passed its sell-by date some time ago. Says USA Today, the mouthpiece of America’s third grade education: …the Obama spokesperson will be projected as a three-dimensional hologram, making it appear as if he or she is in the Manhattan studio with Blitzer. The network plans to conduct similar holographic interviews with representatives from the McCain campaign in Phoenix That, and CNN (and Fox News) broadcasts in splendid high-definition, unlike MSNBC, if you need another reason to take a peek this evening. via Boing Boing Gadgets → Read More
Apple’s stock took a temporary 10-point hit this morning after a false report surfaced on CNN’s iReport that Steve Jobs had a heart attack. The report has been removed, but only after Silicon Alley Insider and others confirmed with Apple that Jobs did not have a heart attack. And the stock jumped right back up to its opening levels.
Was this just a short seller trying to make a quick buck, or someone trying to see how fast and far they could spread a false rumor? And what does it say about the value of citizen journalists? → Read More
The University of Michigan’s quarterly customer satisfaction index came out today, and in the Website category Google came out on top with a score of 86 out of 100 (up 10 percent from last year). Yahoo slipped 3 percent to a score of 77. MSN’s score was flat at 75, and tied with NYTimes.com and ABCNews.com. AOL came in at 69, and that is 3 percent better than last year. Here are some select scores, with the comparable 2007 numbers in parentheses: American Customer Satisfaction Index Scores (2nd Quarter, 2008) Google: 86 (78) Yahoo: 77 (79) MSNBC.com: 76 (74) ABCNews.com: 75 (74) MSN: 75 (75) NYTimes.com: 75 (73) Ask: 74 (75 CNN.com: 73 (73) USAToday.com: 73 (72) AOL: 69 (67) The only surprise here is Google’s massive jump. Is it really doing that much of a better job than last year, or is it just that its halo effect keeps growing? (Photo by Bing Ramos). → Read More
Digg competitor Mixx landed another big distribution deal. CNN.com will be adding a “Mixx It” button after every article on the site. This will be right next to the “e-mail” and “share” buttons. Last March, the Mixx bookmark button was adopted by the New York Times, but only as one of many options. Similarly, when CNN.com readers click on the “share” button, they have the option to send the story to Digg, Facebook, del.icio.us, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. But Mixx will be highlighted as a separate button, apart from the regular share options. The deal with CNN could give a huge boost to Mixx’s small-but-growing membership base of 500,000 registered users (and between 70,000 and 180,000 monthly unique visitors, depending on which measurement service you look at). CNN.com has 22 million monthly uniques in the U.S., according to comScore (and 30 million worldwide). CNN.com readers who decide to Mixx their stories will be able to bypass Mixx’s registration process when they get taken to the site so that they can browse immediately. They will still have to register, however, to save a story or set up a personal Mixx page. For CNN, the appeal of Mixx might have something to do with the fact that Mixx really lets readers get extremely granular in their interests. Categories are based on tags, with already 300,000 different tags on Mixx. So if you are interested in Alzheimer’s, for instance, you can add that tag to your personalized Mixx page or search for stories explicitly categorized with that tag. On Digg and other social news sites, you can search for stories about Alzheimer’s also, but there is no Alzheimer’s category. Notes Mixx CEO Chris McGill: When you are looking at Yahoo Buzz or Redditt or Digg, they are really playing a one-size fits all game. All the stories are just shooting for the popular board. Mixx, he thinks, can do a better job to help you find and share stories around your particular interests, no matter how obscure they may be. Of course, to gain all the benefits of such a system, you have to be willing to do a little more work in setting up your preferences. And, ultimately, the quality of the stories you find on Mixx will depend on the quality (and number) of submissions. With 13.3 million monthly visitors adding and voting stories on Digg, that is going to be a → Read More
This is a great little fun hack. CNN is now selling T-shirts of your favorite headlines. We’re not sure why, they just are. The fun part is you can change the URL to say anything you want, making for many hilarious possibilities. Take, for example, this headline I made up: “John Biggs Eats Twigs; Pope Condemns.” It’s totally fake! I made that up! The Pope has never condemned John that I know of. So much fun! Make up your own, link it in the comments. → Read More
CNN launched iReport.com yesterday, a “citizen journalism” site dedicated to user news submissions. Andy Warhol said in 1968 that “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” and iReport.com is offering users at least part of their 15 minutes as submissions may be used on CNN itself. But unfortunately that’s where it ends, because there is no payment for submissions. CNN claims this is a site is “where the community — not CNN — became the most trusted name in news,” but trust doesn’t equal money at a time where more and more sites and startups explore ways of compensating users for their time and effort. There is some good content on the site, and CNN has selected star reporters in a social networking style popularity contest that encourages decent content, that and users can vote on stories as well. The weakness in the idea is that submissions are not pre-vetted or pre-read (or seemingly post-read), and you get stories like this one that is currently sitting as the fourth most viewed story on the site. I’m sure the weather in New York might be disgusting, but does a story that consists of one line and a picture of snow really make for great reporting? Then there’s stories like this one; Testing testing…… I can see people having proper fun with this in the coming days, until CNN ultimately decides that not moderating the site is a dumb idea. Bored TechCrunch readers should feel free to add their own stories to CNN iReport and post the links. There’s no prize for the best one, other than your 0.25 seconds of Warhol fame in the TechCrunch comment thread → Read More
The problem with automated advertising on news sites has always been the placing of inappropriate ads next to serious news issues. Take today’s report on steroid use in baseball. For at least a brief period, the story on CNN.com was matched with these “Ads by Google” shown at right trying to sell you the very steroids that the baseball commission is so upset about What’s next? Ads for plutonium next to stories about nuclear proliferation? I don’t see the steroid ads popping up anymore on that CNN page, so maybe someone at CNN (or Google) got wise to the inappropriate mismatch. (Although, if you were in the market for steroids, you would probably be reading such stories). But the same types of ads come up when you do a search for “steroids” on CNN.com: This is not limited to CNN. Here are sponsored results for a similar search on the LATimes.com, which also shows Google ads: → Read More
Someone over at BoingBoing is on a rant again (go figure). This time, it’s about America’s lack of farmers. Did you know that there are 4 million active World of Warcraft players though? That’s more than the 3 million farmers we have in this country. BoingBoing recreates Anderson Cooper from CNN interviewing someone about Warcraft: ANDERSON: We stopped by the gates of Ogrimmar in Durotar, on the east coast of Kalimdor, where one local told us Hollywood just can’t relate to the level-grinding life. UNIDENTIFIED ORC: They’ve never been back here, questing Razormane or Drygulch Ravine, y’know … or farming for Peacebloom and Silverleaf. They’re out of touch. Don’t get it? Have some coffee then read again. More US Warcraft players than farmers [BoingBoing] → Read More
CNN.com and Google have announced an agreement that will see Google’s AdSense become the exclusive text link advertising provider on CNN.com. The deal will also open up the extensive inventory on CNN.com to Adwords’ advertisers. Senior VP and GM of CNN.com David Payne said the deal would help deliver relevant ads to CNN users, “enhancing their overall experience on CNN.com.” Although the deal might not initially sound all that exciting, CNN.com is a top 100 site online according to Alexa, making it one of the most popular media destinations online. That’s a lot of pages and ad inventory for Google to sell ads on, inventory that should pay handsomely for all involved. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, including the length of the agreement, which was described only as “multi-year.” → Read More
Sometimes you gotta face the music, Billy boy. You know damn well you copied a lot of features from OS X when designing Vista and now CNN is calling you out. Watch this video to see Gates get called out on his own game and go “no no no” as a rebuttal. But according to Gates, Vista has revolutionary features like support for tablet PCs and parental controls. Parental controls? Wow! I totally have to run out and buy Vista now if not for the parental controls, then perhaps for the networking utilities. You got called out Gates. Man up and deal with it. Bill Gates lists Vista ‘innovations’ Apple’s had for years [Youtube] → Read More
Two Time Warner sites are making serious moves into online video. CNN is expected to formally launch today a system for collecting user generated content, with video at the center of its strategy. The basics are already up at CNN Exchange. The system will be powered by Blip.tv – quite a deal to land for them. A CNet story this weekend said that war footage from Lebanon found on YouTube was a big part of the inspiration for Exchange, but you have to assume this has been in the works for some time. CNN Exchange will of course be about submission more than upload or sharing; I’ll be curious to see what percentage of submitted videos appear on the site. CNN will retain non-exclusive ownership of the submitted content and does not appear to plan compensation for content providers. In related news the New York Times reported this morning that AOL, where many services will become free on Wednesday, will launch a video service this week. Commercial free downloads-to-own will start at $1.99 and various free offerings will join AOL’s video search for content across the web. Since CNN and AOL are Time Warner companies one question seems to be whether any cross pollination in video strategy will go on. Another question worth asking though is: does this mean certain death for the countless video sharing and downloading startups coming online? Probably not. Each will have its own unique feel, likely all with far less editorial control than these two big players. In the end the dichotomy remains the same: try to get past the corporate editors and into big media in exchange for massive exposure or on the other hand try to create something compelling that will go viral across countless other channels. CNN is likely to never allow unmediated upload of content on to its site because it’s such an uncomfortable position to be in from a branding perspective for companies born in the media-as-gatekeeper era. It’s hard to imagine CNN letting in enough video to offer site visitors the kind of endless clicking around that YouTube offers. Not to mention that talking dogs aren’t going to make it to CNN. YouTube minus talking dogs (and other copyrighted content) vs. sites like CNN plus user video would be a whole other equation. I imagine that the glut of video services online is a much bigger barrier to effective → Read More
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