Multimedia and more

This video from a professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University really put into perspective how the Web has changed writing, text, authorship and whole entire list of issues which coincide with journalism.

Most journalists I encounter ostensibly think this “whole social networking thing” is a little too far fetched to have anything to do with actual journalism. However, when you really dig deeper into the anthropological aspects, you start to realize what’s happening is that the whole paradigm of publishing is being flipped upside down. No longer is it a one way route from journalist to reader. It’s become interactive, dynamic and now semantic.

Journalists can no longer ignore the Web. The problem journalism faces now is how it can carve its niche in this world and apply all of the ethical standards and integrity they it has established over the last 100 years, and help shape this new world.

The folks over at Vuvox (pronounced View-vox) will be coming to UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism on Wedensday, November 7 at 1:00 p.m. for a demonstration of their new product.

So what is Vuvox? Well, it’s a very creative slide show editor. At least that’s the best way I can describe it. It’s smooth, flashy and young. It looks like something for teenagers wanting to pimp out their myspace page, but only until you delve deeper can you truly appreciate the capabilities of the interface. The best parts are that it’s completely Web based (flash) so there is no program to download, and it’s free for the most part.

I caught a demonstration last weekend during the NPPA conference and was pretty impressed. I remain skeptical however about its applications for journalists. I see some potential, but I just can’t visualize a news organization making much of an effort to adopt such a unique flashy interface.

It was first launched in August, and they will coming out with a new collage feature in the coming months which I must say is very impressive. You can connect a series of photos in a montage, and as the viewer scans through them, there are various “hit points” that are clickable and will bring up additional information about those elements.

Again, impressive, but… once a newspaper does one, I just can’t see it becoming a regular occurrence. Jim Lenahan, the founder and CEO, told me that there are some customization abilities with this product, but they are only available to media companies whom Vuvox has licenses with. I inquired what types of terms or pricing that could be hat for newspapers and journalism outlets, and… well in so many words he basically told me that Vuvox wasn’t interested in contracting with the small folks; only large media conglomerates.

Nevertheless, we have to assess each product as it comes along, regardless of its intention. I’m sure no journalist saw YouTube as a legitimate venue for videos when it first came out. And there are no “journalist” accounts under the YouTube registration.

Who knows… Vuvox could be the next big thing. It would be nice to know that journalists adopted it early on instead of the typical running after the train that left the building.

See a video demo from the DEMO.com conference if you can’t make it to the J-School next Wednesday.