WashPost ramps up the video content
Paul Kapustka, one of the writers at Om Malik’s NewTeeVee, has a great look at the Washington Post’s increasing use of video, which started with the great OnBeing feature (the brainchild of multimedia wizard Rob Curley) and has grown to include video reports from the field and all kinds of great content. As Kapustka says of the video report from Dana Milbank in Washington, who was at a congressional committee hearing:
“[It] shows how powerful off-the-cuff video can be, pairing the rich (looks like HD) visual images with the deep background and snark of a beat reporter.
You feel like you’re sitting in the back of the room with Milbank, listening to him rip apart the pomposity of official Washington in a way you just can’t do on the front page of the print edition.”
He’s right about that — and also about how much fun it is to see an impromptu debate between two sports writers, modelled on the show Pardon the Interruption, complete with a buzzer and a referee (the Washington Post’s sports editor). And he’s also right that the Washington post could do even more to explode the definition of a “newspaper” site if it allowed its video to be embedded somewhere else, the way the WSJ does.
Oh yes, and one other thing: There’s no way to comment, and no sharing and/or tagging, etc. I’d give it a B minus 
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(On Apr 2nd, 2007 at 9:40 am)
You’re being to hard on them giving them a B-
Knowing what I do about commenting I expect that commenting will come very shortly - just look at the comments on their ‘onBeing’ site. Tagging is also likely not far off.
Sharing may be a bigger issue as they require registration for any input - and long term their objective is to monetize that content - which means some how associating it with ads - which is easier to do when the content is on your site.
For a newspaper this is pretty impressive.
(On Apr 2nd, 2007 at 3:19 pm)
I agree, it is impressive Peter — I think the Post is way out in front on much of this stuff and they do an excellent job. And perhaps you’re right that I was a little too harsh with the B minus. But I hardly ever give out A’s, so B minus is actually pretty good in my books