What Are You Doing Tomorrow Night? – Natali Del Conte

What Are You Doing Tomorrow Night?

I am still thinking macro. Still working on the CBSNews.com newscast I mentioned in my last post. Still feeling slightly overwhelmed. But it is an optimistic overwhelmed and the optimism comes from you!

I received SO many emails, blog comments, Tweets, and Facebook messages about my last post. I am encouraged that the news delivery model is changing and that viewers/readers/listeners want to be a part of it. Your comments were insightful, well thought-out, and helpful. If I haven’t thanked you personally, I really meant to. So thank you!

For the next few weeks, I am going to be testing a news pilot on CBSNews.com. We ran one a few weeks ago but I have been traveling like a crazy person lately so I have not been able to do many more. We are going to do it tomorrow and hopefully again a few times next week. Last time I asked viewers to join me on Google Video Chat. I will do the same tomorrow, Friday, June 26 at 5:30 p.m. EST. I will Twitter a link to the pilot and I hope you can join in.

The basic principle of the show will be as follows: I will read and discuss the day’s news. The show will include reports and opinions from CBS News reporters and correspondents from all over the world. They will not only discuss their reporting, they will also interact live with viewers over Google Video Chat. We will also incorporate a live chat room, a live UStream feed, and Twitter conversations. Remember this is a test pilot. It will be choppy and rough. Think of it as pre-alpha.

The challenge is aggregating social media in a meaningful way. I want viewers’ voices to be heard without boring other viewers. I want the topics to be relevant, without being redundant. I don’t want to be limited by commercial breaks and other broadcast constraints that keep great reporting off the air because of the parameters of time. I want viewers to feel engaged, without feeling captured and here is why: People don’t pick one news medium and give it their undivided attention anymore. We read an article, watch a bit of TV, click a video, read a Tweet, and all of that contributes to our general knowledge of the world. Meanwhile, we are emailing, text messaging, checking our Facebook pages, chatting over instant message, and perhaps even talking to someone in person. That is a-ok with me. I want to figure out how to be a meaningful part of all of that. Not a disruption. A suppliment. I don’t want my viewer’s undivided attention. I want a fraction of the attention that you already spread around the Web and I want YOU to decide how much you engage and when. I want you to watch CBSNews.com, leave it running, and then go off and do all 543 things that you are doing simultaneously online, the way you are right now.

Of course this means that a broadcast at a pre-determined time will be a challenge. It would be better if you had a 24/7 live stream of this format of news but that is not possible due to resources. YET!

Stay with me on this! This is a fluid broadcast and you can help decide how it shapes up. Keep emailing/commenting/Twittering. I am listening. Even if I don’t respond personally, I have read your comments and given them serious reflection. I think about this all the time. Obsessively so!

This entry was written by Natali, posted on June 25, 2009 at 8:28 am, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
  • is the New Webcast pilot out yet ?
  • John Chandler
    is the New Webcast pilot out yet ?
  • John Chandler
    is the New Webcast pilot on yet ?
  • bg
    Frankly the 'news' is too much about reporter's opinions. I want the news - and just the news. When a reporter adds their 2 cents, they add bias. If I wanted bias (especially liberal), I would watch MSNBC & CNN.
  • I commented on your last post about the incredible potential that this concept holds. I'm excited to see how this works out and will make every effort to join the conversation tomorrow. I watch Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann and am constantly disappointed in their unwillingness to engage their audience.

    I don't always have something intelligent to add to the conversation, but when I do, it's nice to know that there's at least a chance that I'll be permitted to contribute.

    Best of luck to you and I hope to see you tomorrow.
  • techpops
    "This is a fluid broadcast and you can help decide how it shapes up."

    On the surface this sounds great, schmucks like me get to have a say in how a show is made and grown over time. My only real concern here is that this just won't work like you'd want it to. I don't think polling a large number of people for anything works unless you're asking a really specific question, because you can't really make sense of all that data if its general information coming in.

    Now if the whole point is just to give the illusion that we are all having a say, that's great. People can feel like they are involved but really everthing that really matters has already been decided and is being decided off camera with experts that know how to make something like this work.

    I do think you can adapt the idea of people interacting with the news and Natali as the presenter by simply having them vote up and down on different topics. It is itself an old idea but you only ever see it applied to the news through a single poll that appears later in the show once enough people have called in.

    IF you pushed the idea of the single question format you could have viewers control the list of what news is coming up. Lets say I'm on the Natali's web show website. There's a list of topics that are going to be covered. I like the fourth one down. I can just "digg" that and help it rise to the top. Natali is seeing this change as it happens and the show then becomes user driven in real-time as far as the topics go. Push that even further. As each topic begins, have the title of it shown clearly on the side / in the video and very clear and large bars people can vote up and down depending on certain criteria.

    Apple launches iPhone 3GS. One bar for how you feel about that product. Others for how you feel about competing products. As Natali talks, people are adding in real-time to the show extra information. I'm learning that something called the pre is really well liked. I see a story later in the show about it, maybe ill vote that up . I'm interacting, but in a way that is simple for me, simple for you but meaningful for the show.

    Viewer question/answer just doesn't work on a big scale, it always feel small. There might as well just be one guy off camera on twitter, one guy on facebook and one guy on webcam. When that's all I hear from, to me, it was just 3 people that interacted, probably all I got out of it was waiting to see something I'd tried to add didn't get noticed.

    Still what do I know, I look forward to seeing what this new pilot will be like and without a doubt I know Natali is very good at her job so could bring something special to the table here that might become a must watch experience. I've got an open mind, bring it on :)
  • coaster1robert
    Good luck.
  • Roberto Chiuz
    Wow ! Sounds like a really cool experiment. Will try to join n tomorrow
  • Joe
    Sounds like an interesting idea. I won't be able to join in as I'll still be at work (mountain time). Any idea how long you plan to have the show run?
  • I love the concept, I think it's a realistic model for what we're going to be seeing in the next decade or so. HOWEVER, I would be hesitant to rely heavily on user content. While there are many in your audience who would be clear and articulate, there would be many using poor grammar or poor quality web-cams. The reason we pay journalists is to spend the time gathering the information (most people can do this), and then to present it in a coherent, conscience, meaningful, and (attempting to be) unbiased way (many people CAN'T do this). That's the main difference I see between say... CBSnews.com and some news blog on wordpress or blogspot.com. While it's likely that many bloggers can gather news and information, it's that coherent, conscience, meaningful, unbiased report of that information that many of them lack. The web page is either inadequate, or the story is poorly constructed, or the quality of the equipment used to record A/V was low, etc.

    I know it's a dilemma, because you're trying to bring in user interactivity, but I think there's a different approach. I think that the way it's currently incorporated on shows such as Buzz Out Loud or occasionally on loaded is the right way to go. Find the most coherent arguments, or most interesting connections and integrate it off-air. The live aspect of it should be a chat room below the broadcast, not in the broadcast itself. You could read one of the comments in the chat if it was particularly insightful on the air, but it kind of defeats the point of the news. If i cared about some random citizen's opinion, I'd go read their twitter. I watch the news to gain information, and possibly the opinion of someone a little more in-the-know. It would be like getting surgery from some user who posted an insightful comment on the procedure on WebMD. It would be stupid, you go to the DOCTORS to get the surgery, not the insightful citizen. We go to the journalists to get the scoop/angle on a story, not the insightful citizen.
  • They do sometimes read chat room comments during the recording of BOL, usually when it helps to clarify a point that the hosts aren't sure about themselves. I think this is a good way to integrate the social aspects of the web within a traditional news broadcast.

    Some news shows already do this, but the responses are delayed by hours/days and are featured as a 60-second "segment" rather than a regular part of the show. Natali has an opportunity to use those comments in real time throughout the broadcast, and that could produce a much more interesting result.
  • Sooo Looking forward to this Natali. I think its going to be amazing to see this come to life, Imm very excited.
  • This sounds great. I'll definitely try to be a part of it. I really enjoy the format of the Strategy Room on FoxNews.com, and it sounds like you're going above and beyond that. Congrats on the new venture, and hope it does superbly well!
  • So this newscast wont be all about tech and gadgets?
  • Can't really say much. Seems like you have everything joted down, I'm glad that your project is still alive and kicking; this time I will try to be available when it airs :)

    Thanks for keeping us posted on this, we viewers really appreciate when you do that.

    Good Luck.
  • that looks cool!
  • The Disqus login isn't working with my Twitter account (jkwong111).
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