Transcript Findings - Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

Enriching Rich Media
on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D.
[email protected]
School of Informatics
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
What’s at issue?
• This paper examined how media Web sites took
advantage of rich media in their content productions and
used them to maximize the potential of presenting news.
• It compared the rich media usage between newspaper
sites and TV sites and between the top media sites and
the overall population of media sites.
• A content analysis was conducted on four different
samples of media sites. The goal was to provide
technological guidelines to the media industry in their
rich media development.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Significance of the Study—two reasons
1. Rich media can enrich news writing and have the
potential to become tomorrow’s way of reporting news.
• That old journalism adage, ‘Show, don’t tell,’ is best told
in a broadband medium” (Lasica, 2000). Washington
Post reporter Lyndsey Layton believes that editors and
publishers have to learn “to compete in a world in which
faster computers and bigger ‘pipes’ will make online
news truly multimedia news” (Lanson, 2000). Daniel
Webster, West Coast vice president of The FeedRoom,
also believes “the second wave of the Internet
revolution will be a video and audio wave. Are we there
yet? Not at all” (Lasica, 2000).
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Significance of the Study
2. The broadband surge has brought up more
audience needs for rich media, especially
videos.
•
•
By June 2006, U.S. home broadband adoption had
reached 60%.
High-speed Internet-connected households are
expected to grow from 194 million in 2005 to 413
million by 2010.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Significance of the Study
• A 2005 study by AccuStream iMedia Research shows
that the consumption of streaming videos is positively
correlated to whether the consumer has a broadband
connection.
• Watching streaming videos these days, however, is not
as easy as watching TV because there are too many
incompatible standards.
• As a result, both media producers and consumers are
caught among the standards.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Media Convergence and Rich Media
• The extent to which a media Web site incorporates rich
media has to do with a recent trend in the media
industry—media convergence.
• To what extent has new technology transformed media
professionals’ mindsets for constructing media
messages on the Internet?
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Theoretical Framework
• This study is based on Everett M. Rogers’ diffusion of
innovation theory.
• After a critical mass is reached, the diffusion of
innovation likely becomes irreversible.
• Broadband technology adoption has long passed the
critical mass, but is the diffusion of rich media content
closely following the crest of the broadband surge?
• Is the diffusion of rich media trickling down from large
media companies to the smaller ones?
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Research Questions
• The general research questions of this study were:
 How has rich media technology influenced the way news is
presented online?
 To what extent are American media companies ready for a Web
presentation paradigm shift or even a revolution that will bring
viewers a truly converged media experience?
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Research Questions
•
Specific research questions:
1. How extensively are rich media used across media Web sites?
2. How many sites produce their own rich media? Do they use rich media
to show content or to promote content?
3. To what extent are rich media emphasized both quantitatively and
structurally?
4. How have the media Web sites made it convenient for viewers to use
rich media, such as providing large video sizes, a full-screen viewing
button, streaming and live webcast?
5. How serious is the issue of media player compatibility across PC and
Mac platforms?
6. How do newspaper sites and TV broadcast network sites differ in using
rich media content?
7. How do top media sites and the overall population of media sites differ
in using rich media?
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
1. How extensively are rich media used across media Web
sites?
• By the end of November 2005, rich media usage across
newspaper sites and TV station sites was loosely
chasing the broadband connection expansion in
American homes. That was especially true among top
newspaper sites (42%) and on TV station sites (47.9%),
where the use of video content had passed the point of
critical mass and was getting close to 50%.
• Among overall American newspaper sites (10.9%), rich
media usage was still gaining momentum.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
1. How extensively are rich media used across media
Web sites?
• Pure audio clips were very rarely used (1.3%) and they
were carried mostly on newspaper sites.
• Compared to the adoption rate of video, Flash
production usage was sporadic among the overall
samples of media sites (1.3% for newspapers and 7%
for TVs), and showed up mostly in top media sites
(27% for top newspapers, 17.1% for top TVs).
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
1. How extensively are rich media used across media
Web sites?
• Chi-square Tests show that, across the nation, TV
station sites significantly outperformed newspaper sites
in the use of all kinds of rich media.
• However, top newspaper sites and top TV station sites
were almost equally ambitious in using video, audio
and Flash production.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
2. How many sites produce their own rich media? Do they
use rich media to show content or to promote content?
• Compared to TV station sites, which can, and mostly
(roughly 93%) did, repurpose their videos for Web use,
newspaper sites that produced their own rich media
were still few (20.7% overall, 34% top), and most of
them (79.2% overall, 66.1% top) relied on Associated
Press for such content to combat the shortage of inhouse A/V materials.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
2. How many sites produce their own rich media?
Do they use rich media to show content or to
promote content?
• All newspaper sites and most TV station sites
(86.5% overall, 76.7% top) used rich media
solely for covering content while a few TV
station sites (9.6% overall, 18.3% top) did little
except for promoting their programs with
videos.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
3. To what extent are rich media emphasized both
quantitatively and structurally?
• Both top newspaper sites and top TV sites
outperformed their overall counterparts in adopting rich
media.
• To be more specific, more top newspaper sites (18.8%)
carried over 20 pieces of A/V than the overall sample of
newspaper sites (1%), and more top TV sites (37.9%)
carried over 20 pieces of A/V than the overall sample of
TV station sites (25.5%).
• Not surprisingly, both top TV sites and the overall
sample of TV station sites outperformed their
newspaper counterparts in the number of A/Vs
produced.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
4. How have the media Web sites made it convenient for
viewers to use rich media?
• Streaming had become a dominant method for
delivering A/Vs on media Web sites. At least three
quarters of media sites from all four samples took
advantage of at least one kind of streaming technology.
• Extremely few media sites provided live Webcast
programs, most of which were provided by TV station
sites.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
4. How have the media Web sites made it
convenient for viewers to use rich media?
• The media sites seemed to agree on the best
size for a video frame. The longer side of a
typical video frame was on average 3 inches.
Most sites kept their video frame size
consistent across stories.
• extremely few media sites added a full-screen
button/link (0%-9.8%) beside the videos.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
5. How serious is the issue of media player compatibility
across the PC and Mac platforms?
• Across all four samples, at least 82.5% of the media
sites produced video content for only one kind of media
player, and chances were it was Windows Media
Player.
• Very few sites (and those were mainly top media sites)
still bothered to produce the same content for two
players, let alone for three.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Findings
5. How serious is the issue of media player
compatibility across the PC and Mac
platforms?
•
Media player compatibility across platforms was an
issue, mostly for Mac computer users. From 7.6% to
10.7% of the media sites from different samples could
not show any of their videos, mostly on a Mac. Almost
all such cases had to do with Windows Media Player.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Discussions and Conclusions
•
•
Today, streaming technology and Flash
technology are gradually transforming the way
news is presented on media Web sites.
However, such a transformation has largely
occurred on the top media sites in top markets,
which enjoy the concentration of capital,
technology resources and mass consumption
power.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Discussions and Conclusions
• The transformation is most convincingly
witnessed on many top newspaper sites, which
team with local TV stations to disseminate news
across media platforms on the Internet or take
advantage of the availability of AP rich media;
some are willing to walk the extra mile to
produce their own rich media to enrich their print
news stories.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Discussions and Conclusions
• On the other hand, newspaper sites, especially the ones
in the larger national sample, have produced much less
rich media content, have tended not to feature them if
they use any, and are less likely to present them to their
full capacity compared to their TV station counterparts.
They tend to treat rich media as supplemental, trivial,
and non-integral. All these facts, added together, suggest
that the practices of presenting Web news on many
newspaper sites in the nation are still driven by their print
mindsets.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Discussions and Conclusions
• Comparisons between top media sites to their overall
national samples of media sites, on many counts,
indicate that the innovation of rich media technology has
trickled down from the top markets to the lower markets.
• The adoption of rich media on TV station sites and on
top newspaper sites has surpassed the critical mass, but
is still gaining momentum on most newspaper sites in
the nation.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Discussions and Conclusions
• The high rich media adoption rates across multiple
samples predict an irreversible trend of rich media
practices and more saturated rich media content on
media sites in the coming years. Yet, the practices of rich
media production are far from being mature.
• Based on the findings above, the author recommends
the following four guidelines for developing rich media
content:
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites
Edgar Huang, Ph.D., School of Informatics, IUPUI, [email protected]
Discussions and Conclusions
1. Best exploit rich media for online users.
2. Deliver a no-extra-burden rich media
experience.
3. Conspicuously feature rich media on the home
page.
4. Provide a consistent and user-friendly
interface.
Enrich Rich Media on Media Web Sites