Behind every major news story, there are a hundred tiny but interesting bits of trivia — and here to bring those to life is Yahoo’s branded entertainment collaboration with Reveille, Who Knew?
Using an animated infographic style that has a history of performing well online, Who Knew? takes the most-clicked story on Yahoo! News from the day before and comes up with an assortment of facts to expand your knowledge on the topic.
The gimmick means that the in-house production team at Reveille, which includes VH1 Pop Up Video creator Woody Thompson on the development side, has one day to create each video. But despite that time frame, each short features sharp animation, strong production values and a great, albeit occasionally unfocused, hodgepodge of knowledge.
Because of the way in which Who Knew? stories are selected, the topics explored are incredibly diverse: Over the last week, Who Knew? has covered Cinco de Mayo, poisonous jellyfish attacks, and the life and times of the now-50-year-old Bono. In each case, the original story is detailed, then multiple tangents are explored — all in under two minutes if you don’t count the word from the show’s sponsor, Toyota.
It’s impossible to avoid Toyota’s branding on Who Knew?, though in fairness each video’s ad for Toyota Avalon is a post-roll that’s animated to mesh stylistically with the rest of the clip, which makes it much more tolerable. (Pro tip: Once the “And Now the Encore Presentation…” card comes up, you stop watching.)
Because I am a nerd and I enjoy the accumulation of random knowledge, I enjoy the show, but I have to admit that I don’t love the presentation online. The main Who Knew? page on Yahoo consists of a bare-bones listing of the last five episodes: There’s no production information or access to episode archives beyond the past week — even though the show has been running since April 12.
And most disappointingly, there’s no link between an episode and the news story it was inspired by — which seems like the biggest oversight. It’s great to learn the facts behind the news, but their impact is diminished without access to the news itself.
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