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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (86820)	11/17/2004 7:41:44 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793755

Video killed the TV star Web video takes off• November 17, 2004 \| 2:59 PM ET Glenn Reynolds I mentioned a while back that Web video was playing a big role in the elections. It looks like it's going to play an even bigger post-election role. Here at MSNBC.com, of course, we've been showing online video for a while. But it's spreading. The Wall Street Journal is beginning to deliver video online now -- so far, it's CNBC content, but I suspect that they'll start producing independent material before long. Meanwhile, Amazon.com is showing short films on its Web site (here's the latest, a colorful film called "Agent Orange"). When they first started with this, I thought it was just a stunt to draw traffic to their page. I'm sure it's that, but now I think it's more, because Amazon is advertising for filmmakers to get involved. I wonder if they see the Web as a way to deliver films-- at least short ones -- and want a leg-up. (My wife is a filmmaker, and has had good luck via the Internet -- tens of thousands of people have watched the trailer for her film, and lots have ordered it. She's not delivering the full-length film online, though.) But what these big guys are doing -- though interesting -- isn't the most important part. It's what the rest of us can do that excites me. There are blog sites specializing in video, and it's gotten much, much easier to take your own video footage and put it on the Web. (Here's a sort of how-to post that I wrote a while ago. There's really not much to learn, for anyone who's even halfway computer-literate. Here's some more advice from someone who tried videoblogging for the first time and found it pretty easy.) Ed Driscoll thinks that the Internet is well on the way to becoming the most important source of news for most Americans. I think he's right -- but I also think that many, many more Americans are going to be involved in the reporting of news. Journalism isn't a profession, but an activity. And it's an activity that technology is putting within the reach of many more Americans. That's bad news if you're Dan Rather, but it's good news for the rest of us.