The evolution of mobile reporting
Quality production made with iPhone 4
Jul 2nd
I was just totally blown away by the great quality of this clip made entirely with the new iPhone 4 by Michael Koerbel and others. To watch it in full quality – I suggest you head over to Vimeo for full HD. The clips has included behind the scene stuff, so you can watch how it was made. They use a lot of different grip equipment to get stable pictures. I guess it would be possible to get the same kind of quality with other HD phones, but this movies was edited on the iPhone also.
“Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 movie / film – UPDATE: Behind the scenes footage included from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.
The HD shift is coming – are you ready?
Mar 14th
More and more mobile phones offers HD recording and playback. Sony Ericsson Vivaz is one of the latest. The Vivaz offers video recording in 1280 * 720 – 24 fps. And yes, it’s really 24fps – not a dynamic recording rate. From what I have seen – it’s a step up from Samsung Omnia HD.
When I visited San Francisco last year, major players like Qik and Seesmic told me to watch out for new phones from Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson. And it seems like they where right.
Another major shift is that the stream cast companies are offering better and better quality on HD streaming. With a phone supporting 3.5G network – the quality is starting to get acceptable. Qik has even launched a premium feature, making it easier to download HD clips and burning them to DVDs. From Bambuser I’ve seen really impressive HD quality streams.
The shift towards higher quality streams has a least two major impacts on news outlets and journalist. The first one is that they will find more and more shareable quality video made by audience on the web. The second one is that stream casts will be a more viable way of sending high quality recordings home to office. If you have a large social media network – it will even be a great platform for stand alone publishing.
But in order to make the most out of this shift in technology, a shift in mindset among journalist have to happen. Most of the journalist I know are uncomfortable with showing people their stuff if it isn’t finished. They don’t like stream casting if the stream could be considered raw material. Well her is a newsflash. If you look at pages from Qik, Bambuser, Ustream, Flixwagon and others – you will quickly realize that most people don’t give a damn. They are used to stream cast to preserve and share a moment, even if it might be a little rough in the edges. If you put it in the right context, the audience will understand. What they won’t understand in the future is why you don’t offer stream casts if you are present at an happening.
To the skeptics – yes you are right – your streams can’t all be low quality and shitty. In the right settings, you’ve got to be able to make a good storyline, frame a good picture – and produce good sound. But you have to start somewhere. In the age of social media – I believe most people will forgive you for not being a pro in the beginning, but they will appreciate that you are trying. So pick up your phone, hit the button and STREAM! If you aren’t happy with the result, try again. Don’t give up. It will only get better.
Coolest unboxing video ever
Jan 21st
Usually I think all those unboxing videos on the tube is pretty stupid. I can’t see what’s so interesting about unpacking a cell phone or any other technical equipment. But this video about the Google Nexus One is pretty cool. It’s a smart and entertaining way of marketing the phone.
Apple finally allows live streaming from iPhone
Dec 15th
A couple of days ago, Apple allowed Ustream to launch an app that streams live from your iPhone. The Ustream app also gives you the choice to link your account to Facebook and YouTube. I’m still testing the app but I think both Bambuser and Qik provides better video and audio. You still have to jailbreak your phone to download the apps for Bambuser and Qik on Cydia. You can also find an app from Flixwagon on Cydia, but I haven’t had a chance to test it since my phone goes black every time I try.
If you want higher quality from Ustream, they also have an app for recording in higher quality. It is not live stream, but will connect to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Fun clip on social media from Onion
Dec 3rd
Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause Of Dorm Fire
Thanks a lot to Dr. David Nordfors from Stanford University for showing me this during a meet up about innovation journalism. Have to digest what he told me, but I will post something about it later. But you can check out his blog on Innovation Journalism.
Qik getting a grip on broadcasters
Dec 2nd
Bhaskar Roy – co-founder of Qik. (Foto: Frank Barth-Nilsen)
Qik is one of my all time favorite mobile applications. Today I met co-founder Bhaskar Roy in their headquarters in Redwood City outside San Francisco.
Qik offers live streaming from different cell phones. About 80 percent of their user base is regular people, streaming live from weddings and other sort of events affecting their lives. The other 20 percent are various sorts of broadcasters or journalists, making up for about 80 percent of the traffic. According to Bhaskar Roy, more and more broadcasters are getting their eyes up for this way of communicating with raw authentic content. But many of them also find ways to use Qik streams on ordinary TV. Using solutions like SDI cards for moving the web streaming to main stream TV. Some of the larger companies using Qik is CBS and BBC.
Qik welcomes major broadcasters and will try to help them integrating it into the content flow.
Transparency
But you will also see that other organizations find this type of direct streaming on the mobile platform useful. Congressman John Culberson use Qik to stream from various meetings and events to promote transparency in Congress.
The biggest suprise for Bhaskar Roy was when the Vatican started using Qik. It wasn’t the pope, but people working in the Vatican. The World Economic Forum has also started using Qik for press conferences, to let people outside of the forum asking questions.
HD is growing
Mobile phones is getting better and better. Screens have higher resolution, CPUs are faster and more and more phones have high definition cameras. Qik will support this. Some of the best phones for making high quality streams today is Nokia N-series, Samsung Omnia HD and the new Motorola Droid. But Bhaskar thinks new phones from Sony Ericcson will provide some of the best quality. Just monitor my blog and I will try to give you some insight when they arrive. I may also add that Loic Le Meur from Seesmic mentioned that he has high hopes from new phones from both SE and Nokia. Maybe the two major manufactures haven’t gone in hibernation when it comes to development after all?
Going freemium?
Qik is a young company, but has some long term investors. They still really haven’t come up with a way to make money, but some sort of freemium model seems to be imminent. I’m hoping this will ad some new functions to the service, and not only limit existing users if they don’t pay.
Not live on the iPhone
As you may have read – the iPhone app released in the Apple App Store will not let you stream live from Qik. For some reason, the guys at Apple don’t think that’s a good idea and will not allow it. Feel free to let Apple know what you think about this in the comment field. If anyone from Apple would care to elaborate on this, it would be nice.
Like Bambuser, Qik has also got a client on Cydia which is capable of streaming live. But then you have to jailbreak your phone. If you are not at technical user, don’t try to do it. If you are, search for “blackrain”.
The next thing for Qik is opening up for streaming from gaming platforms. Several of the gaming consoles have support for web cams and Qik expand their service to these platforms.
A big thanks to Bhaskar Roy and Qik for welcoming and meeting up with our group of Norwegian journalist on a study trip to San Francisco.
- I read what my friends read
Dec 1st
I met up with Loic Le Meur today, founder of both Seesmic and LeWeb. He talked about the new Seesmic Desktop for Windows and the gathering in Paris next week. Loic is passionate about the social web. As journalists we could probably learn a lot about what people expect from us today and in the future.
Loic Le Meur doesn’t read news on paper. He uses Kindel to read traditional news. For the most part thou, he gets his news from links on Twitter and Facebook.
- I read what my friends read. That’s the most interesting for me. We can exchange interesting links and stories. I don’t think an editor is fit to understand what I want to read. But I do follow some smart journalists. I think it’s much more important that journalists can tell me what they are doing on Twitter or Facebook. I rather be following a smart journalist, than a big news outlet. Journalists have to adapt their work to the new ways communicating, says Le Meur.
He could also tell us that within two weeks, Seesmic will release an Twitter app for iPhone, with the possibility to read list.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to meet us Loic 
Studying social media in San Francisco
Nov 27th
I’m organizing a trip with Norwegian journalist, editors and developers to San Francisco. Next week we are visiting excellent companies like Wikimedia, YouTube, Qik and Seesmic. The head of Bambuser will even join us on Skype from Sweden. A lot of interesting people will visit us to talk about trends and development in social media and journalism. I will update my blog all week. If you are a Norwegian reader, check out the new blog where all the participants will produce content – stup.mojoevolution.com . The entire group uses the hashtag #stupsf during the next week on Twitter. Feel free to give us some input.
Secure your iPhone from hackers
Nov 11th
(Photo: Ed Shipul – Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0 )
If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you could be in big trouble. A vulnerability in whats called the SSH gives hackers free access to your phone. Open SSH is supposed to encrypt your traffic on Internet, but the version installed in the jailbroken version has the same password for root users. A Dutch hacker recently hijacked several iPhones, forcing the owners to pay him to open up their phones again. If this SSH-talk is all jibberish to you, just follow this link to Redmond Pie to secure your phone. It’s pretty easy, even for low tech users.
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