Article by Jefferson Graham
This article had a lot to it as far as pros and cons. The first thing I was taken back by was the video feature with the article! Wow, I thought, an actual technological component to be added to the Tech online media section of USA Today. I was very excited at first because I thought it was such a great thing to add video to an article in the Tech section. Then I was let down.... really let down.
The video seems pointless. It's two guys walking around talking about the phone with some awkward scenery just because it's a video? The audio is pretty poor for the majority of the video and it is not very visually stimulating. The transitions are extremely choppy. The video barely moves away from the boring image of watching to men talk. There is a cut to part of the commercial for the phone (not necessary) and a cheap looking graphic of a GPS. It seems like this video was made by someone who had never done video in the past and once the final production was done someone should have prevented this from being posted online. Most of my criticisms I try to stay away from completely going off on something I personally didn't like and others may enjoy, but this time something must be said.
I liked the scene setting lead for this story. Having the reader imagine traveling by a GPS and making a phone call was a good way to lead into the new Nuvifone. I think Graham does a good job of making a few critical points about the phone and offering his opinion.
Overall, the article is rather short but it gets a few points across and is just enough that people can get informed and those who are interested in the Nuvifone can look into further through the phone's retailer, AT&T.
Really, I just can't get over the video. Embarrassing to say the least.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2009-10-28-garmin-nuvifone-g60-cellphone_N.htm
That's all for now folks
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What I like about shorter articles is that if a person is busy mid-day but have a few seconds to look around online, they can digest a shorter article faster. However, I agree with you that the use of video should only be okay, when the video is caliber and quality worth showing. What websites or kinds of articles do you think would benefit from more technological use, such as adding videos?
ReplyDeleteJessiey--
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion that many people look for shorter articles when browsing online news. That is precisely why I think videos are important for online media.
Most people looking at news online are fairly savvy with interactive media. They are there looking for the pictures, audio, and video. I think stories that can give a basic summary in a video of about two minutes is exactly what people with fast paced lives are looking for--save them the time of reading and SHOW them the news.
I think any breaking news story should have video to accompany it (as most do) and then interesting feature stories that really grab human interest.
Personally, I found the article quite diffiuclt to read. Very choppy and not written in a fluid style. I would also tie this back to an earlier post by Bernard where he says the cell phone/PDA will be the gaming, email, scheduling platform of the future. The GPS can only be the GPS platform of the future..it cannot sustain an attack on the cell phone industry. Plus, they tried an iPhone copycat maneuver by signing an exclusive 2 year deal with AT&T. My prediction: Early death. I am with you 100% on the video. It's useless, two guys wandering around making some generalizations. Badly edited, poor perfomance on the web, utterly useless content.By the way, not allowing the manufacturer to express their argument sort of flies in the face of balanced journalism..but I am not in the profession, so I don't know.
ReplyDeleteYou go! No video for video's sake, or text for text's sake. Let's get the best story-telling technique for the story!
ReplyDelete