What’s more important, I think, is that among people who have broadband Internet access at home, 75 percent watch online videos (source). Moreover, when the Pew Internet researchers looked at all the people in their 2009 survey who do watch video online, they found that 89 percent have broadband.

Not a shock, you say? Fine. But what does it mean? Like the growth of radio, and then television, the growth of online video is fueled by access to technology. Television devices were not always as common as they are now; like television, broadband continues to expand.

Don’t ignore the history of home video viewing:

In the early days of the video business a number of tapes from non-mainstream producers became widely available, but these were largely pornography and low-grade slasher films. Even these disappeared as the Mom and Pop video stores were displaced by the clean corporate hegemony of Blockbuster Video and other chain distributors. (source)

People watch what is available to them, easy to get, and not overpriced.

People also tend to hop on the bandwagon of popular interest, the flavor of the week. CNN’s October 2009 interview with the family of the “balloon boy,” for example, “was viewed more than 2.5 million times that week” (source). These videos rise and fall rapidly — 91 percent of YouTube’s top videos don’t stay in the top ranks for more than one week. (See: Top 10 YouTube Videos of All Time.)

In analyzing the most viewed news-related videos on YouTube in 2009, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that the “news agenda on YouTube rarely coincided with that of the mainstream press”:

In only eight of the 49 weeks studied was the top video about the same subject that also led the traditional media. Of those eight occasions, three of them involved footage of discussing the health care reform bill (often with contentious opposition), and two of them were videos about the protests in Iran. (source)

That tells us that people are seeking out stories that the mainstream media are not providing. I think that’s encouraging — it means the public does want news video, and is not only looking for a good laugh.

PEJ concluded that the top videos usually had “a visual and dynamic quality that makes people want to share them with other people.”

Share. With other people. That’s something we in journalism ought to be thinking about. Not to pander, but to evaluate our storytelling. When I hear a good story, I do want to share it.

Are most journalism videos good enough to share?

The percentage of U.S. Internet users who said they watch news video online did increase from 2007 to 2009 (from 37 to 43 percent) — even though that was a smaller increase than for other types on online videos (source). Comedy and humorous videos saw the biggest leap, from 31 to 50 (percentage of Internet users who said they had watched that type).

But note, sports video online went from 14 to 21 percent — less than half the viewers for news!

How many online news operations are putting the lion’s share of their video effort into producing sports videos?

Among the 18–29 age group, humorous/comedy video viewing far outstrips news video viewing — but note, 56 percent in that age group said they have watched news video online. (Only 34 percent have watched sports video online.) Note too that only 19 percent in this age group have uploaded video (source) — squashing the widely held misconception that all young Americans are technical wizards.

I saw a lot of evidence in the PEJ report about YouTube that people are hungry for news video. For example:

• “In January 2009, the most viewed clip was Obama’s inaugural address while the second video was raw footage of the US Airlines plane that safely landed in the Hudson River without incurring any significant injuries.”
• “More than a quarter (26%) of the top five most watched news videos in a given week were about things that happened overseas. Many of them were in foreign languages and were about issues that received virtually no attention in the American press or elsewhere in English-language social media.”
• “After international events, the next largest subject on YouTube was government with 20%. More than half of those (11%) involved President Obama or his administration in some capacity … [e.g.] his first interview with the Arab television station Al-Arabiya.”
• “One of the unique aspects of YouTube is the ability of users to view raw footage that is not edited or posted by a news organization. Many of the most viewed news videos on YouTube are of this nature. For example, for two consecutive weeks in September, the most viewed video was a first-person clip from a demonstration in Pittsburgh surrounding the G20 summit where an unidentified protestor is forced into a car by three men dressed in camouflage.”

1. 21 examples of Flash journalism
2. A few words about digital audio recorders
3. Now printable! Reporter’s Guide to Multimedia Proficiency
4. Recording phone calls: For reporters
5. Why does anyone major in journalism?
6. What you should know about HTML5 today
7. How to shoot video interviews
8. Thoughts about video editing software

If you missed any of these, enjoy! (Evidence of the long tail: No. 4 and No. 7 were written and posted in 2008!)

If you feel like suggesting a topic for a new post, please do!

This is a big deal not only because Apple — in its full-out war against Adobe — has declared Flash video to be a non-starter and crowned H.264 the online-video heir apparent, but also because H.264 is no more open, really, than Flash (FLV and F4V) video.

I wrote about this video war in April: What you should know about HTML5 today. What’s at stake is the format for all video on the Web — because, as Lawrence Lessig wrote in 1999, “Code is law.”

When HTML5 is fully baked and comes out of the oven, we will be stuck with whatever video standard(s) has been baked in.

I don’t want us to be stuck with a proprietary standard controlled by Apple, Adobe, or Microsoft — or Google.

Google completed its acquisition of On2 Technologies, Inc., in February 2010. While most people have never heard of On2 (which has a pretty weird name, it must be said), its video codecs were part of Sorenson Squeeze back when I first started struggling with Web video several years ago, and they were often preferable to the other options available because they gave very good results — always a trade-off between file size and audio-visual quality in video.

Google, along with Mozilla and Opera, is part of the WebM Project, “dedicated to developing a high-quality, open video format for the web that is freely available to everyone.” Although they haven’t run around screaming about it, they are no more eager to accept the status quo of Flash video for the future Web than is Apple.

If Adobe were really smart, they would have open sourced (fully) not only their video formats but also the SWF format. Like, a month ago. I kept waiting for them to do it. But no — just more posturing, like Apple, like dictators of small, violent, self-absorbed countries.

In this game, it seems to me that Apple and Adobe are equally pigheaded and old school. Meanwhile, Google — while surely not a mild-mannered philanthropist in its corporate heart of hearts — has done what one of them should have done, instead of pouring gasoline on the fire.

Is this over yet? I’m sure it is not. But Google’s (apparent) commitment to open standards is better for all of us than a proprietary lock-out (or locked-down) approach.

Me too! So I’ve been out there scouring the blogs and the trade press for information.

I’ve concluded that HTML5 and the future of Web design must be considered by category, because each one of these will be affected differently:

• Video
• Mobile and handheld devices
• General Web design

But first, let’s consider the timeline for HTML5.

When will HTML5 be here?

According to Philippe Le Hégaret, of the Worldwide Web Consortium, “I don’t expect to see full implementation of HTML5 across all the major browsers until the end of 2011 at least.” (Reported at Webmonkey, Nov. 17, 2009.)

Dublin-based software developer Devon O. Wolfgang writes: “HTML5 is barely out the door in beta form and is already being implemented differently on different browsers. Eventually (2012, 2014, or maybe not even until 2022, according to various sources), HTML5 might just settle down and assume a lowest common denominator standardization across most, if not all, browsers. … HTML5 is still at least 2 years from being implemented in a widely usable fashion.” (Posted January 31, 2010.)

So if all you’re worried about right now is your syllabus for fall 2010 — relax. Change is slow, and when we teach Web design, we need to focus primarily on the browsers and platforms currently in use.

I’m going to wait until I see a whole lot more green boxes in the “Elements” table on this Wikipedia chart page before I start worrying about teaching HTML5 in depth.

For now, I think it’s important to show Web design students how the standard will change, and have a discussion about why. Here are two good, clear resources that will help you have that discussion:

• HTML 5 and CSS 3: The Techniques You’ll Soon Be Using
• W3schools.com: HTML 5 <video> Tag

Video and HTML5

This is at the heart of current screaming and backstabbing between Adobe and Apple. Most video seen on the Web today is served up via the Flash Player. Apple has declared that Flash is bad because it makes the Safari Web browser crash. The Safari Web browser is the only Web browser that can be used on the iPhone and on the iPad.

It is ironic that much of this argument is tied to HTML5 and open standards when what is preventing Flash from running on the iPhone and the iPad is Apple’s refusal to embrace an open standard for experiencing the Web on those two devices. I mean, the Firefox and Opera browsers can’t appear on the iPhone or the iPad. The Safari Web browser is made by Apple. On the iPhone and the iPad, the Safari browser blocks the Flash Player plugin. (Update: The free “Opera Mini” browser for iPhone made its debut in the App Store on April 13.)

Please note, I am not disputing Apple’s claims about Flash. I’m sure Flash does make the Safari browser crash. Sometimes it makes Firefox crash — on my MacBook Pro (which I love, I might mention). On occasion, Flash probably makes Firefox crash on my Windows XP computer at the office.

But I watch a heck of a lot of video online, on all kinds of Web sites (not only YouTube), and Firefox really does not crash very often. Maybe once a week or less. And, as you might imagine, I’m online pretty much every waking minute of the day. I probably spend at least five hours a day online on my MacBook Pro (like now, while I am writing this) in Firefox. And I also view and use a lot of Web-embedded Flash interactives. I’m just sayin’.

For an overview of the video issues surrounding HTML5 (apart from Apple and Adobe, the video issues involve Google and Microsoft as well), please see the 22-slide PowerPoint I posted yesterday.

Canvas, the other ‘Flash killer’ in HTML5

Video is really the big stake in all this shouting and posturing about HTML5 and its potential for “killing Flash.” A much smaller and quieter discussion is taking place about the myriad other capabilities of Flash — the authoring application, not merely the Player or plugin for Web browsers.

Last week I posted 7 examples of exceptional Flash packages. Those seven examples indicate a range of what authoring in the Flash application makes possible. Note that I said “range” — I’d like to emphasize that it’s a pretty broad range. Then, if you’re really interested, you could have a little browse through an earlier post here, 21 examples of Flash journalism.

There are people who argue that one day you will be able to make all those packages and interactives without Flash, using the <canvas> element in HTML5.

I have serious doubts about that.

I think HTML5 and the <canvas> element will make it possible to create some interactive graphics, photo galleries, and other simple visual packages — without Flash. There are already functional examples of things like this that are constructed primarily with JavaScript code and no Flash at all. (See Using the Canvas, published by Apple, for a clear and brief introduction to the way <canvas> works.) But note that <canvas> does (currently) require significant JavaScript to do anything at all. Someone might one day build an application to spawn the code underneath a drawing or animation interface, relieving authors from the need to write boatloads of code just to slide a freaking photo across the stage. But then, that would be … like Flash.

Jeremy Allaire, founder and CEO of Brightcove, wrote about this in a column published at TechCrunch:

There [is] … a class of Web Productivity Apps where Flash is the preferred runtime, especially those that involve working with and manipulating media such as images, audio and video. We, like many companies, are pragmatic and use both Flash and HTML as the technology needs require. Other examples of this include rich data visualization applications, where Flash has gained prominence …

Rich Media Apps … include largely consumer-facing, audience and media centric experiences. In particular, this includes online video, rich media advertising and marketing, and online games (casual games). … Here, Flash is dominant. … It seems unlikely that HTML5 would be at all positioned to replace Flash for these categories, though it is clearly worth watching how consistent rich media runtimes find their way into the HTML5+ standard. Right now, it is a non starter. (Posted Feb. 5, 2010. Boldface added.)

Note that Allaire is referring to exactly the kinds of in-depth packages we use in journalism — the kinds highlighted in my post 7 examples of exceptional Flash packages.

Update (6:38 p.m.): In a post about Adobe’s new CS5 line, ReadWriteWeb reported, “A tool in the new suite will allow for easy import of Flash animations into HTML5 Canvas code. Once IE9 launches, all major browsers will support Canvas.” Thanks to @dansinker for the tip!

Conclusion

I’m a huge fan of Flash, although I readily admit that it is not perfect — and Adobe has favored Windows in all its development efforts in recent years (not only for Flash, but for its industry standard products Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign too).

I’m also a huge fan of several Apple products, including the iPhone and the MacBook Pro.

On top of that, I strongly support open source efforts (including HTML5), open standards, and a steady movement away from the proprietary messes in which large corporations such as Microsoft have mired us, the users and producers.

But there is no open-source iPhone, and there is no open-source Flash. And the claim that H.264 video is open is plainly incorrect.

But I also had to prepare for a lecture and discussion with my students about the near future, and what they need to know — today — about HTML5. That led me to produce this PowerPoint, drawing on the research I had done for the blog post.

So I’ll return to the post (or maybe it’s more than one post) in a couple of days. For now, I think the PPT gives a pretty good summary of the current situation.

If you want the sources for the PPT, you can download a PDF here.

I chose these examples to show to journalism students who are near the end of their 10 weeks of instruction in designing and producing multimedia news packages.

Haiti earthquake: An expandable package that was updated with new photos, videos and audio throughout the 10 days following the earthquake. Note the added audio in the lower right corner — not every photo had this, so it was optional to include it. Videos appear seamlessly within the same interface (in the location of the still photo). Each photo has a headline, and that headline text appears at the top when you roll over the squares representing individual segments. A very classy package with a clear design and clean functionality. Exceptional: Highly adaptable to future breaking news or retrospectives. See an earlier version of the same interface: Decade in Review.

Local fashion videos: Outstanding interviews, still photos and editing make these short videos exceptional. The choice of more than a dozen well-known locations around Washington, D.C. (e.g., Eastern Market, Union Station) situates each story in a place that has a recognizable flavor and style. To bundle these first-rate stories in a clean, easy-to-use interface that encourages browsing — and includes a map — was brilliant. Bummer: No way to bookmark or e-mail link to an individual video. Bonus: Easy-to-use link list of all videos. (New ones are still being added.) Overkill: Too-elaborate Flash-based comments segment.

Black Saturday: Coverage of the worst bush fires in the history of Australia, in which 173 people died and more than 4,500 sq. km. of land burned — organized by both time and location in a manner that encourages browsing and also conveys the huge scope of the disaster. Exceptional: Use of embedded anchor points, which allow you to bookmark any segment, or e-mail a direct link to someone (see example). Exceptional: Integration of Google Earth mapping (see example). See also the amazing map locator that appears below the grid.

Economic crisis: A timeline starting with August 2007 and ending with September 2009 documents “The Year of Global Change” with text, photos and videos in an expandable interface that provides easy switching between detail view (individual items) and the overview grid. The detail you viewed last appears in the leftmost column when you return to the grid view. Bonus: Very easy to step forward and back from within the detail view. Bummer: There is no bookmarking (no embedded anchor points).

Piano Jazz: Highlighting 30 hand-picked examples of jazz musicians performing on the radio program Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, this 6 x 5 grid opens up 30 overlay segments that include an audio player, a photo of the artist, and a short text. Although this package might appear complex to the uninitiated, it is actually very straightforward. My students are fully capable of building this package right now, with a combination of XML and sound controls. Notable: Clean, appealing design, ease of use, restraint. I love it that the audio was edited down from the full-length program to feature one song performed by the guest.

Afghanistan map: This map has been updated, often daily, since February 2009. Look at the calendar selector on the left side; select any day to see all reported events on that day. Each event is located on the map with an icon that indicates its type, e.g., bomb, fighting, offensive, air attack. Roll over the icon to read a summary of the event. Exceptional: Use of external data to update (frequently!) a long-term continuing story. Bonus: Great icon design and a very clear legend box.

End of the Line: I’ve chosen this from the many great examples at The New York Times for two reasons. First, it demonstrates a versatile loaded overlay (see screen capture below): Some of the segments include video, most do not, and many include multiple still photos (some include only one photo). The navigation interface at the top of each segment (Previous and Next buttons, plus numbered buttons that indicate exactly how many photos the segment includes) is an exceptionally friendly way to present varied photo sets. Second, the two views of the intro (Map and Thumbnail) add immensely to the appeal of the package. As a former New Yorker, I am drawn in by the Map view, but I would guess that lovers of photography find the Thumbnail view more enticing.

Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight

Unfortunately it’s not yet available on Netflix (?!), even though it was released last May. I recommend that you file the title away so you remember to watch it later. It’s a very good example of documentary storytelling, for one thing. It also portrays Glaser as a lovely human being, sincere and compassionate, not spoiled by his great talent or his fame.

I think this video would be very inspirational for a lot of our journalism design and graphics students, because in it  you can see how Glaser produced commercial work, paid his bills, ran a design studio in New York — and yet did not compromise his principles, did not grow a raging ego, and (deservedly) won a lot of admirers.

Of course, you’ll also get to see a ton of examples of his wonderful graphics and drawings in the video — and maybe, like me, you’ll appreciate for the first time how very broad and deep his oeuvre is.

This is an extremely helpful review — it explains how to get the best sound quality for interviews and the best battery life, etc., from this under-$200 video camera. Derrick recommends a lavalier microphone and provides other good tips too.

In one of the comments, he explains why the Flip Mino is better for some applications.

Blogs and Journalism
This presentation surveys the ways in which professional journalists are using blogs to enhance their reporting, reach wider audiences, extend their influence, and encourage two-way communication with the public. The implications for teaching journalism students about blogging are clear; students need to gain experience with writing, researching, linking, and managing comments on blogs.

Resources for Adding Online Journalism to Your Curriculum
This presentation offers seven multimedia and online skill sets for journalists and recommends simple ways to add basic skills instruction into existing courses such as reporting, photojournalism, editing, and magazine journalism.

First, an outline of the programs that generally dominate the conversation in most j-schools:

1. iMovie (free)
2. Windows Movie Maker (free)
3. Final Cut Pro or Studio or Express (three different price tags)
4. Anything else

Second, let me note that those who teach students aiming at television news jobs have a different list (although you’ll find the Final Cut products on that list too). Here I’m looking at the broader population of all journalism students, who might end up anywhere at all (especially online) — not necessarily in TV.

iMovie or Windows Movie Maker (WMM)

These two free programs solve a lot of problems simply because they are free, stable, and very easy to use (and to teach). However, they can also create problems because in many j-schools, some percentage of your students will have “the other one.” I think it’s a waste of the instructor’s time (and class time) to teach both, so pick the one that fits the computers in your lab. Be prepared for frustration from the students who don’t want to come to the lab on campus to do their assigned work.

Is iMovie better than WMM? I don’t think so. (I use both.) The two are decidedly different, but both will get the job done. Both have very limited capacity but do allow you to trim clips, insert cutaways, layer a second track of audio, and adjust audio volume. You can add titles and end credits easily in both. Both offer a plethora of cheesy transitions (don’t be tempted). WMM has a more traditional timeline interface. iMovie hides the timeline tracks, but you can access them via the Precision Editor (via a menu option).

A huge problem with WMM is that more and more point-and-shoot cameras save video in the MOV format, and WMM will not open MOV files. These must be converted to AVI or WMV first. Some degradation may result.

iMovie supports lots more cameras and formats (read all about it), including MPEG-4, AVCHD and H.264.

Another problem with WMM is that it has slight, annoying differences on Vista (and presumably Windows 7) vs. the previous versions of Windows. Most students can figure these out, but some get stuck and need help.

Final Cut Pro or Studio or Express

These are Apple/Mac only (unless you use an emulator, which I would not recommend). Studio includes Pro, plus a lot of other stuff. Express is like an entry-level version of Pro, but Apple has made our lives hell by making it impossible to move projects back and forth between Pro and Express. That little detail is often blissfully ignored by people who say, “Let’s buy Pro for our lab, and the students can buy Express for their MacBooks.” A road to disaster! (You can open a FCE project in FCP, but after a project has been saved in FCP, it will not open in FCE.)

Check Final Cut higher education prices at the Apple Store (search for Final Cut there). We’re talking about roughly $900 vs. $200 — nothing to sneeze at!

Now, if I had six or 10 or 15 weeks to teach Final Cut to students, that would be great. But I’m teaching an omnibus multimedia journalism course, and we have four weeks — four — to learn to shoot and edit and get it online. Don’t underestimate the learning curve of a high-end piece of software. As a colleague of mine quipped recently, most people have a simple hammer around the house — not many people go out and buy a nail gun.

It would be wonderful if every journalism student graduated with proficiency in Final Cut Pro. But the teaching resources required are not trivial.

Anything else (other editing software)

There are free Web 2.0 (all online) options for video editing (see list), and there are many other commercial packages such as Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas and whatever little doodle-dabble came with your HP or Dell, or with your video camera. And there’s Avid and who knows what all at the high end.

What I would caution you against is allowing students to use just anything they choose. When you teach video editing, you want to get certain basics across — for the sake of storytelling — and novices find it easier to follow along if everyone in the room is clicking the same buttons. In other words, variation in software will get in the way of what you really need to teach, which is cutting together sequences, laying in the audio, lining things up neatly, adding titles and credits and lower-thirds, and exporting the file in a decent-quality format for uploading or whatever.

And for goodness’ sake — telling the story! Don’t forget, that’s what we really need to teach them.

For tutorials and other video editing links, see the Journalists’ Toolkit video section.