The New Video News Network !

I have been writing a lot about the future of news and where it will take us.....will it be all video, streams of media, all mobile, or will the newspaper somehow survive.  Nobody knows for certain, but one could take a very calculated guess and point towards video / mobile.  I had also talked about a new type of news site that we were building to incorporate into OurTown.com as well as have it stand on its own......VNN ( Video News Network).  

VNN is going to be a video network (much like YouTube), but it is focused on local news and local happenings.  Regular people will be able to upload video in real time to the network as the actual news is happening.  Then our users can view and browse this content through many categories including down the the zip code.  VNN will eventually have "video editors" who can do 3 essential things.....curate the news, comment on the news and create social interaction with viewers as they respond to the news. . We will also have a strict admin control over the site so that it doesn't turn into a YouTube with many off topic videos and keep it limited to what is important to the site and its users.

VNN will become that place for local news stations to upload their daily broadcasts, amateur journalist to upload their findings and breaking stories via video, and also a perfect place for any vlogger !  Since we are incorporated into YouTube itself (meaning our VNN videos get the YouTube video SEO treatment) we become the best choice for these types of users.

We are in the beginning stages of VNN and will hopefully grow into our own over this coming year.  I invite you to check out the BETA site and let us know what you think in the comments.

BETA site - VNN

Your OurTown Superhero,
Chris

Video News ?!?

Reading and being able to read is one of the most important skills in life, yet many people will do anything not to read!  More and more people will view a video over reading an article......so why don't we give the people want they want?  Well we have to an extent.......

Pinterest, YouTube,  Flickr, and so on are becoming more and more popular with some of the highest ratings when it comes to "minutes spent on site per user"!  Almost every major news site on the web has it's own video section and more and more video sites pop up everyday. Online video, and mobile video (phone and tablet) are way up and it seems like they are posed to continue up on this trend.  Google is now indexing more video than text, and YouTube has become the second biggest search engine......so why has nobody created a completely visual news site yet?

I understand the stigma of someone saying they would rather watch than read, but this is online news......you want the information fast and quick!  People today don't have time to sit around and read article after article of news, but they do have time to watch short clips that gives them breaking news, from there they can dig further into the stories that interest them.  I am not saying that we should get rid of articles and stories all together, but I think online publishers should start to focus more and more on visual media (images and video).

I know that online video is still new to people, but nothing is more popular than online video (well besides from games).  This is the future of online news.....and I would rather see this sooner than later!

Your OurTown Superhero,

Chris