SXSW Interactive: Zombie Journalism and Superhero Journalism - Page 4

Another innovation was the creation of a show within a show. When TV went to a commercial, The Times’ site brought up a live commentary by Times’ movie critic A. O. Scott, giving people a reason to stay on the site.

The Times also tied-in its site to its Facebook page, where it conducted Oscar voting. The entire effort brought people together in a huge Oscar party.
The next day, Bloom added, they broke all the various feeds and data into separate features, even an app that let you “play with the fashions”.

Do these Superhero Journalists have any weaknesses? According to Hamman and Bloom some they hit some speed bumps because of the newness of it all. Hammen said that here are no API’s for this. They have to crceate everything as they go along. They also said that users were not expecting the changes that were happening to their screens, so they learned to notify users that something was about to change.

From ESPN’s standpoint the big problem they see coming is more subtle. ESPNProfessional sports teams are becoming concerned that viewing an event live — with parking problems, drunken strangers, no wi-fi, and no second screen – may become less desirable than watching it on TV.

During the Q&A, questions came from attendees working for USA Today, Yahoo and Univision. These Superheroes have fans in the profession.

Most of the questions revolved around the future and our Superheroes had several ideas. “Ubiquiscreen” will allow a user to take one screen with him from device to device. “Synchronicity” will allow sounds broadcast over TV to launch data streams on your phone or tablet. And then there is ESPN’s “Project 2016”. Steigman said he couldn’t say too much about it, but that the project would be “a multi-screen experience interacting with fans across devices”.

I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds super.

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Article Author: LeoOfMars

Leo of Mars, living and writing in LA, brings the perspective of a strange, out of this world creature to film industry news and reviews: a conservative screenwriter.

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