The evolution of mobile reporting
Streaming
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.
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.
Top ten iPhone apps for mobile journalists
Nov 10th
Got a new iPhone and wonder about what apps you need as a mobile journalist? Here is my top ten list.
Tweetie 2
The best app for Twitter I’ve found so far. Handles multiple accounts and is very intuitive to use. Features an offline mode with the possibility to save to Instapaper. Also offers possibility to post photos and videos. Will shorten URLs. It doesn’t support the list function in Twitter. Has a geo-function which shows you other Twitter users nearby.
A free alternative is Twitterific.
Facebook
This free app let’s you connect to Facebook and basically almost do everything you can do in a normal web browser.
Some support for video and plugins is missing. But that is mainly an iPhone problem, not a problem in the app.
Since I installed this app I’ve almost stopped login into Facebook on my computer.
Dropbox
This is a handy free utility for storing files in the cloud. For some months I’ve been using this to insure that I have access to important files anywhere. On my computer I can mount my Dropbox account as a virtual disk. On my iPhone I can only read the files or display photos or videos.
Google mobile app
A collection of the most used services from Google. This app gives me a quick access to things like search, Google Reader and Google Documents. It basically loads the different services from Google into your Safari browser, but I find this much more handy than storing the different URLs in favorites in the browser.
I tend read more and more news and blog via the Google Reader. If haven’t already tried it, please do – it will change your way of using the net forever.
IntelliScreen
One of the things I missed on iPhone was the ability to show my calendar and unread mails in the standby screen. I searched long and hard to find an app that could do this. And due to one of many limitations on what Apple allows program developers to make, you won’t find any apps with these possibilities in the app store. If you take the chance and jailbreak you iPhone you will find this app repository in the Rock Your Phone App Store.
Qik
As a journalist this is a must have application. (Edit after comment) Qik is probably the best provider of live streams for Symbian phones at the moment. But not on the iPhone. As you can see in the comment from the founder og Bambuser, Apple dont’ allow live streaming!!!!
The quality of live streams from an iPhone is not as good as streams from phones like Nokia N-series. The camera is simply not good enough. I simply prefer to use my N82.
Bambuser
One of the biggest competitors for Qik is Bambuser from Sweden. They have choosen to releas their client in the Cydia App Store, since Apple don’t allow live streaming. You will have to jailbreak your phone and download the client from Cydia repository. If you are not a technical person, don’t jailbreak. Be aware that Apple consider jailbreaking to be a violation of copyright. If anything happens with a jailbroken iPhone, Apple will not stand by their guarantee.
(Edit: As you can read in the comment from Måns Adler at Bambuser, they have launched Bambuser on Cydia because Apple don’t allow live streaming. Smart choice, but it makes it hard for low-tech users.)
Poddio
Poddio is the first serious attempt to make an app for recording and editing sound files. For simple recording and editing it works remarkably well. You can use soundblocks from different recordings to make one project.
This is one of the most expensive apps in the App Store, and I think it’s highly overprized. With a much lower prize, this could have been a must-have app for all journalists. With Vericorders current prize strategy I fear that this promising app will die because of low sale. Or at least, won’t be developed with the speed it deserves. So this is plea for Vericorder to rethink their pricing strategy. I think you will earn on it in the long run.
The biggest problem with Poddio is that you can’t really send your finished audio files back home from the field. You have to transfer it to your Mac or PC. And why fiddle with editing on a small screen if you can do it with brilliant software like Audacity on your PC? Well, I found a solution in the next app on my list. Vericorder also sells a microphone for iPhone. They won’t sell me one in Norway, so I really can’t say much about the quality. But I will soon be testing Mikey’s Blue Mic, and will post a review on this blog.
File2Mail
The iPhone is really in the dark ages when it comes to attachments. From the mail app you can’t attach anything. You have to start the correct app to send pictures and videos. But what if you want to send different media formats in the same mail? Or if you want to send your finished sound file from Poddio? Apple won’t let you do that.
This again is a solution which is only doable with a jailbroken phone. File2Mail lets you navigate the file structure of your phone and send whatever files your heart desires. Since the file structure is very complex, you will find it somewhat frustrating the first time you try to do this.
With some patience I found my sound projects from Poddio and was able to send them with my Gmail account. You can send multiple files and different file types in the same mail. I hope Apple soon comes to their senses and makes this possible from the mail app.
ReelDirector
My final app on the top ten list is ReelDirector. It features easy editing of video. Or more precise, it makes it possible to join several video clips into one large one. You can also trim the beginning and end of each clip.
The workflow isn’t optimal, but it’s better than nothing. If you plan your takes, it should be possible to make a reportage out in the field. ReelDirector also offers the the possibility to add opening credits and different sorts of transitions. Unlike Poddio, ReelDirector offers the service of mailing your final clip as an email attachment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t store the final clip along with the other iPhone clips.
You will find all the different apps in the Apple App Store, Cydia or Rock. If you are unfamiliar with jailbreaking, you can read more about it at Wikipedia.
Whats your favorite iPhone app? Feel free to help others by submitting a comment with suggestions 
Why live view is the future for many of us
Oct 8th
I found this 40 minutes clip from the Online News Association 2009 with Leo Laporte. I think his speech is well worth listening too. His thoughts are that live view on the internet is the way of the future. I think he got some good points. Working with today’s mobile phones, you also could have all the tools you need in your pocket.
Social media aids the protesters in Iran
Jun 17th
If you have checked out Twitter, YouTube or other social media sites today – you will discover that there is a lot of activity about Iran. For Twitter, simply search for the hastag #IranElection and you will be able to follow all sorts of opinions and information. The government has tried to stop media coverage of the protests, but that only seems to agitate the people questioning the results from the election.
It’s not surprising that a lot of people makes tweets. But a lot of video streams are also put out on the web. What sort of “aid” the producers have had, I’m not sure about. Neither who actually produces the videos, but you can watch a sample from LiveStream (former Mogulus) on Persianq. It’s a bit on and off with live streams and recorded streams. The quality from a lot of the streams seems to be from mobile phones. The new democrotatizers.
Get ready for mobile HD from Samsung Omnia
May 13th
Increased pictures sensors, higher resolution, faster Cpu’s and faster network. Mobile phones are getting more and more interesting as a tool for journalist. In the second half of 2009 you will find faster and better phones – making your mobile phone a good recording machine, even for breaking news on television.
One of the first really interesting phones are the Samsung Omnia HD. It delivers video in 1280×720 – 24 frames per second. Still images will be on 3264×2448 pixels. Combined with 7.2 mbps network capabilities. There are some confusion if the Omnia HD is delivered with a 600 Mhz or 800 Mhz processor. Anyhow, which that sort of processing capability – it’s basically a very small laptop. It will run on SymbianS60 v5, but it is theoreticly strong enough to run Linux. Since the screen is touch sensitive and there are no keyboard it’s not really an office phone, but others will come… The thing to notice is that mobile phone are increasing processing power rapidly. My guess is that within three to four years you will be able to edit recorded HD material on the phone. And if you can record HD quality out in the field, do an easy edit in the field or stream HD live, this will change the ballgame for television. Unfortunately the Samsung only comes with a single LED flash. I’m also uncertain if it will support external microphone. I guess not.
Qik is already experimenting with HD streaming from phones and I guess we will see Bambuser and Flixwagon do the same pretty soon.
I hope to test the new Omnia HD as soon as it arrives Norway, in the end of June.
So far I’ve found Nokia to be the best producer of phones for mobile journalist. With the specs from Samsung, I believe Nokia will find themselves in trouble. The mobile phone maker LG are also expected to deliver interesting phones the next year. The next big phone from Nokia is the Nokia N97. It delivers wide-screen format, but not HD. Basically Nokia has just taken an ordinary 4×3 sensor and chopped away some of picture. This produces wide-screen, but the picture quality will be reduced. I’m amazed that Nokia isn’t more innovative in this field. To be fair – they have announced new phones with bigger picture sensor. I agree that the megapixel count is stupid. Lens quality is far more important.
You can check out a brief review of the Samsung Omnia HD at A Bugged Life.
Pushing viral video
Mar 4th
In the third part of my social media tutorial, viral spreading of video is the name of the game. We’ll start by looking at how live mobile streaming from Qik can spread like a viral infection all through the net.
Try it – throw it away!
Feb 5th
- Mackenzie Warren from Gannett
Mackenzie Warren from Gannett, for many know as Mr. Mojo, was a keynote speaker at the conference in Fredrikstad, Norway today. He talked about the changes he made in Fort Meyers News. His basic philosophy is that the news never happens in the newsroom. To report about news, journalists have to be out in the field (pretty basic one should think…). So, all the journalist in FMN had to get out in the street. They produce and send their story from the field. They basicly split the work process in two:
Collector – journalist – MOJOs:
· Report
· Write
· Shoot (video, pictures, sound)
· Produce
Connector – editors:
· Edit
· Crunch
· Publish
Mackenzie also showed us a lot of the things he’s working on in Gannett. One of his core messages is that we have to experiment more to survive. He has three rules for experimentation:
- You have to give a try!
- Failure is a part of success
- You can’t really break anything
In Gannett they aim to have a low threshold for trying out new things. If it don’t work – they throw it away.
Gannett has bought a part of Mogulus. In the future you can expect more live video on sites from Gannett. They are experimenting with live video and combining it with CoveritLive.
Join my Worldcast!
Jan 30th
Exciting news! I’m recruiting journalist for a world wide experiment with Qik and Mogulus. I want to make a live streaming event with video from all the corners of the world. To participate you will need a mobile phone supported by Qik, speak English and be a journalist. I already have members from Norway, Denmark and Australia. I would love some members from Africa, Asia and America. For this first event, I have to keep the number of team members limited to eight.
On a given time and date, the plan is to produce a live streaming event, using only mobile phones to cover a topic about MOJOs. We will be jumping live from country to country, using only a team of two producers on Mogulus. The experiment will take up to one hour of your day.
If you don’t know how to use Mogulus, don’t worry, you don’t have to. If you can start your QIK-stream, that will be enough. I will send out all the instruction you need in advance, and we will make a test before we go live from all the world. All team members will get an in depth report of the setup and result of the experiment.
If you want to join our experiment, please leave a message in the comment field and I will contact you on mail. On the ABOUT page you can also contact me directly. Or you can join this group on Facebook.
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