The idea of user-generated video showing up in news shows is hardly a new thing. CNN and its legion of iReporters have been in on the action for some time now, so seeing NBC News purchase Stringwire, and by so doing put a new emphasis on user-generated video, is a notable development to say the least. But while that by itself is a pretty big step in the field of journalism, it's Stringwire's connection to a growing new communication medium—Web-based real time communications (WebRTC)—that really should have people paying attention.
What really got NBC News' attention, meanwhile, was sort of a confluence of different trends coming together: the rise of WebRTC, the growing ubiquity of mobile devices, a contracting economy, and the rise of social media. The Stringwire software allows users to share, in real-time, smartphone video among the members of various networks using the WebRTC standard. The software itself is currently in private beta, and NBC is looking to take advantage of this to seemingly open up its own iReport division.
With the Stringwire software in hand, NBC News would basically get access to a huge array of citizen-reporters armed with smartphone cameras, who would be able to share the video taken on various scenes directly with NBC News with just a mere click of a link, which in turn would launch the Stringwire Web app and allow for easy sharing, and for NBC News to air said video live.
This is where things get exciting. Basically, NBC News would get access to an enormous amount of cameras on the ground, including those at particular locations where particularly newsworthy events are going on. NBC News, meanwhile, wouldn't need to have crews on the ground at those points as the Stringwire users would be doing the filming and the narration for NBC News. This potentially allows NBC News to cut back on paid reporters in favor of those who would send news in just for the sake of getting their name on air.
Of course, it's worth wondering at this point if the Stringwire users would be willing to fork over footage to NBC News at no charge simply because NBC News made it extremely easy to do so. In the early going, of course, that's likely to be the case, but how many users would then discover that there was no gain from said contribution and instead take the news to, say, YouTube or the like where there may be a potential cut of ad revenues. There's no word if NBC News intends to pay for the video uploaded, and though there's always the possibility of a particularly compelling report proving useful in a job hunt later on—being able to name-drop “NBC News” is usually a good point in an interview—it may be that the rewards of using Stringwire just won't be there for many users.
Still, this is largely conjecture. It's going to take a few months of Stringwire working in NBC News' larger operations to see just what the impact of Stringwire is on NBC News' hiring policies, reward structures and similar matters. But with every citizen with a camera or a computer able to become a journalist at a moment's notice, it's clear that once again the Web has changed things for everybody, and WebRTC was once again at the tip of the spear.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
