Video, photos and sound are the new vernacular. Combine populations raised on television and movies with the spread of broadband in Asia, the U.S. and parts of Europe, and the web becomes primarily a visual medium. In fact, as of Sunday, 12 million people had viewed an amateur video posted on YouTube that shows buffalo battling lions at a South African game park.
For media companies that have video, it becomes an important draw for their websites, hence the strength of CNN.com among news websites. But even for those that don't, it's important to consider allowing community members to post video the way they can on YouTube, to reach a local audience that may be interested.
Video is pointless without broadband, of course, and scarce or expensive broadband also puts a crimp in other kinds of multimedia. Still, this is such a fundamental part of online journalism now that it's important to be doing it, or at least building expertise.
The website for US News & World Report photographer Jim Lo Scalzo's new memoir is a gripping example of the power of multimedia storytelling.
A terrific online presentation of the different multimedia tools and techniques available was put together by USA TODAY design staff; it would be easy to spend a couple of hours going over it. These include
- Photo galleries
- Audio galleries
- Sights & Sounds
- Timelines
- Maps
- Data-driven graphics
- Q&As, quizzes & games
- Audio
- Video
Of these, "Day in Pictures" galleries are perennial popular. In terms of impact for effort, "sights and sounds" presentations, which combine still images (sometimes with moving effects) and audio, are powerful storytelling tools without the intense labor of produced video. Ideally, it takes a still photographer and a colleague with a microphone to capture the material.
"Multimedia for Dummies" tools -- no technology skills required
- Photo galleries with sound and motion: www.soundslides.com
- Data-driven charts and graphs: www.swivel.com
- Easy Google Maps mashups: www.geocommons.com
- Timelines: www.circavie.com
PowerPoint slides with images: Download multimedia.ppt
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