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How Al Jazeera wants to bring Twitter to the world

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:47:14 +0000

Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera launched an educational campaign this month that aims to teach viewers in Turkey, Bosnia and elsewhere in the world how to use Twitter and Facebook. The videos are being distributed on a new, dedicated YouTube channel called Al Jazeera Unplugged but may eventually also show up on Al Jazeera’s TV stations. The network’s ambitious goal is to raise a new generation of citizen journalists.

Al Jazeera’s head of social media Riyaad Minty told me via email that the first batch of videos is tackling some very basic issues. “As we move forward they will be getting more advanced and will focus on how to effectively produce and share content,” he said, continuing:

The focus is mostly on how these tools can be used to create greater awareness around issues within your society. That’s where the name unplugged comes from – it’s more about a need to disconnect, go out and create content – not just consuming media.

Some of the subjects coming up in the future include how to use mobile devices effectively in a time of crisis, and how newsrooms can vet contributions from citizen journalists. Videos are currently being produced in English, Turkish and Bosnian, with translations into Arabic and Kiswahili coming soon. The network will also work with volunteer translators to make them available in additional languages, and will release the clips under a Creative Commons license to allow reuse and remix.

This is an interesting project for Al Jazeera, in particular because the network has been increasingly depending on citizen journalists to report from Syria and other conflict hotspots that aren’t accessible to their own journalists. And Al Jazeera has traditionally been more Internet-savvy than many other news networks, simply because it has been depending on the Internet as a means of distribution in a way that’s not true for CNN and others. Al Jazeera’s English-language network has been unable to secure carriage from most of the major cable networks in the U.S., so it has been aggressively courting viewers both on YouTube and on its own live stream.

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When video gets democratized, who wins and who loses?

Ryan Lawler — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:01:38 +0000

TV viewership is still on the rise, with the typical American watching five hours a day now, according to research by Nielsen. That hasn’t slowed the growth of online video: In fact, the amount of content streamed is accelerating, too. While it hasn’t yet made a dent in traditional TV ratings, the overall trend in online viewership suggests that at some point in the future new streaming players will begin to steal share and audience from existing TV networks. But who is likely to win or lose when that happens?

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Arab Spring helps Livestation to grow audience tenfold

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:04:29 +0000

U.K.-based live video news platform Livestation has seen its number of unique visitors grow close to tenfold, thanks in part to the popularity of Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab Spring. That’s great news for the video startup and the networks it’s carrying, but it also makes one wonder how much other news networks are missing out by not making their programming freely available online.

Livestation CEO Lippe Oosterhof wrote in a blog post today that 53 million unique users have visited Livestation.com in 2011. That’s already close to 10 times as much as all of 2010, and the year isn’t even over yet. Oosterhof didn’t want to break out numbers by channel when asked via email how much of this was due to Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab Spring, but he told me, “it has driven a lot of awareness and attention and traffic wise it is one of the biggest channels.”

He added that many viewers come for one of the more popular channels like BBC or Al-Jazeera, but then discover other news channels on the site. “We try to foster an experience that allows viewers to have access to all points of view,” Oosterhof said.

Livestation has also seen increased traffic for its desktop client and mobile site, and its new iOS app is now clocking more than one million streams per month. The company is working on an Android app as well as an app for Samsung’s connected TV platform, and Oosterhof told me that it will provide apps for other platforms as soon as standards in this space emerge.

The company is providing most of its content in a free, ad-supported format, and Oosterhof told me that Livestation has seen great success with pre-roll advertising in Europe and the U.S., and is hoping to extend that to the Middle East and Southeast Asia as well. It is also offering premium subscriptions for some of its content.

Subscribers can, for example, get access to Al-Jazerra English in HD, and also stream CNN International in some markets. Subscriptions currently represent only a fifth of the company’s revenue, but Oosterhof said Livestation wants to grow the premium service substantially with the launch of new premium packages later this year.

Livestation’s success story is somewhat reflective of news consumption in the age of social media. During the uprising in Egypt, countless folks all over the world turned to Al-Jazeera in part because people on Twitter and Facebook linked to the network. Following the Japanese earthquake, local broadcaster NHK became known worldwide for providing firsthand information. This type of immediacy helps Livestation, which provides news sources from all around the world.

But what about traditional cable news networks? Take CNN for example. It recently unveiled its new CNN Everywhere service, which offers impressive features, including live HD video. However, it’s restricted to U.S. residents that happen to be customers of one of the participating pay TV providers. Even some people who should have access might not make it their first choice.

After all, what are you going to do when news breaks while you’re in the office and away from the TV: try to figure out your pay TV credentials to authenticate on CNN — or turn to a less restricted offering like Livestation?

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