Call You? Dude, Stream This.
March 25th, 2008 | by Brad King |We’re still waiting to see what the breakout application is from the South by Southwest Interactive Conference (SXSWi), which probably means there isn’t one; however, streaming live video from a mobile to the Web sure seems like a good bet for next year.
I’ve been inundated with Qik requests on Twitter lately as people invite their friends to watch — and comment on — live streams from whichever location they happen to be. With newspapers investing so much money in (what I’ve always felt) was unnecessary gear, Qik and other mobile video applications are likely to render useless all the “training” journalists are going through.
It’s called backpack journalism.
Imagine having a reporter on the scene, gathering information for their story — then whipping out their phone and live streaming — then archiving — video footage right there. We know that breaking news — and the accompanying breaking news video — are some of the most successful videos on the Web. And we know this because we’ve read what Annenberg has to say about Web video success in the news.
Then you add some Trackstick functionality to geo-locate your information as you gather it. Now you’re cooking with fire.
I hear a lot about these reporters combing the city looking for stories (although in my 13 years or so in the media, I’ve never actually known reporters to spend their times roaming the city for stories); this type of set-up would be ideal for content creation.
When I get home, I’ll take a picture of my multimedia reporting tools. My entire hardware and software platform costs less than $1,200 — including my Dell Latititude and Palm Treo 745 (or some such number). That’s actually about $1,000 of my costs. Everything fits into my backpack (hence, backpack journalism).
