by Randy Bennett

Video: JumpCam

Use: Easily combine video snippets from multiple locations into one seamless video

In an earlier blog post, I featured an app called Crowdflik that allows you to aggregate video clips from various shooters at the same event. JumpCam is a similar concept but allows videographers at different locations (and different times) to collaborate on a single video and edit it in real-time. Using the free app, a user can shoot up to a 10-second video and then invite others to add their clips to the same video (for up to 30 clips). Users can arrange the clips in any order, add music, etc.

Publishers can use JumpCam to create a single video from reporters covering different aspects of the same story. For example, reporters can be spread out over a town capturing perspectives on a new city ordinance and integrate them into one video. Or students covering simultaneous football games at different locations could provide quick game summaries that can be combined into one movie.

TechCrunch: JumpCam, Backed With $2.7M, Debuts Its Snappy Mobile App For Making Collaborative Videos

Time: JumpCam Is a Video Sharing Network That’s Collaborative as Well as Social

The Verge: JumpCam for iPhone wants you to crowdsource your video with friends

09.18.13

by Randy Bennett

Content Development: Free Design Tools

Use: Create compelling visuals to supplement editorial or advertising content

HubSpot has assembled a list of 10 Free Design Tools for Creating Stunning Visual Content. The list offers tools for creating infographics, full screenshots, image manipulation, finding interesting stock photos and drawing.

09.10.13

by Randy Bennett

Video: Crowdflik

Use: Find and integrate user-created videos from the same event

Crowdflik is a free app that allows users to shoot video of events and find and edit other videos shot with CrowdFlik from the same event. According to the developer, “CrowdFlik uses the naval atomic clock to accurately time stamp video with 1/10th of a second accuracy. Once video is captured and saved, it is stored in the cloud and recognized by the app in 10 second clips on the event timeline. When a user taps their favorite video clips from an event, CrowdFlik is then able to pull the different event footage from the cloud and synchronize it precisely.”

Although developed initially for use at concerts, weddings, parties, etc., you can imagine news organizations aggregating different video perspectives from the same news event and editing into one package. Of course, that requires that other witnesses are using the Crowdflik app as well.

TechCrunch: CrowdFlik’s Auto-Synced, Crowdsourced Footage Lets Anyone Become A Documentary Filmmaker

Yahoo Small Business Adviser: CrowdFlik: Crowdsource Your Visual Content Marketing

09.09.13

by Randy Bennett

Social Media: Facebook Conversations

Use: Supplement news coverage with related real-time conversations on Facebook; provide added value to advertisers with real-time brand discussions

Facebook has launched two new APIs to track and integrate conversations into news coverage. According to the AllFacebook blog, the two APIs include: “the public feed API, which displays a real-time feed of public posts for a specific word; and the keyword insights API, which tallies the total number of posts that mention a specific term during a specific time period, as well as enabling news organization to feature anonymous, aggregated results based on gender, age, and location.”

These new features are additional arsenal in Facebook’s competitive battle with Twitter. As described on Facebook’s Newsroom blog: “Over the past few months, we have rolled out a series of products aimed at surfacing the public conversations happening on Facebook including hashtags, embedded posts, and trending topics. We are committed to building features that improve the experience of discovering and participating in conversations about things happening in the world right now, including entertainment, sports, politics and news.”

The APIs currently are available to only a few media companies but Facebook says they are “beginning discussions with other media partners and preferred marketing developers (PMD’s) and will make it available to additional partners in the coming weeks.”

You can imagine that the new APIs will be mostly useful to national media organizations who are covering topics that impact a larger group of users. But a big local news item — disasters, college or professional sports teams, salacious trials — could also generate enough conversation that local publishers could meaningfully tap into.

Mashable: Facebook’s New APIs Help Media Outlets Highlight Real-Time Conversations

AllFacebook blog: Facebook Releases Two APIs That Allow News Organizations To Tap Into Its Real-Time Public Posts

PCMag: Facebook Goes After Twitter with Real-Time Conversation

09.07.13

by Randy Bennett

Content Distribution: Chrome Web Apps

Use: Efficiently develop desktop apps that will work seamlessly across operating systems/devices with or without an Internet connection

Google’s Chrome team has developed a Web-app technology that sits on top of, but is not dependent on the, Web browser and works across operating systems (currently Windows and Chromebooks, but reportedly coming for Mac, iOS, Linux and mobile platforms as well. The technology is built with HTML5, JavaScript and cascading style sheets.

According to ReadWrite: “Chrome Web Apps open in their own windows, not the browser. But these apps will work offline and can use hardware (memory cards, cameras, drives) connected to the device they’re running on—something that traditional Web apps can’t do. The browser itself doesn’t even have to be running, although the apps will tap into its native functionality.”

While many publishers are developing HTML5-based sites that provide app-like capabilities on any browser, the Chrome Web Apps — because they open outside of the browser and don’t require an Internet connection — feel more native-app like. Of course, users will have to install the Chrome browser on their desktops for the technology to work.

ReadWrite: A New Google Technology Aims To Make Apps Run Everywhere—Well, Almost

Information Week: Google Debuts Chrome Web Apps

The Verge: Google’s Trojan horse: how Chrome Apps will finally take on Windows