February 20, 2008

NewsClipper Brings All The News Video from Around the Web to One Place

Erick Schonfeld

30 comments »

Why isn’t there a Google News for video? That is what Onar Vikingstad, a 27-year-old Norwegian Web developer with a day job at Apple, asked himself before he created NewsClipper. The site is a side project of his that brings together news video clips from the Websites of ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, ESPN, Fox News, NBC, and MSNBC. He explains:

What I wanted to create with NewsClipper was a site that consolidates all news clips from the major TV news networks in one location. No more having to run around to different carefully managed and controlled individual websites. Basically it lets you view the latest news clips from the major TV networks in one location, without having to go to their slow sites overloaded with ads.

The site is dead simple. There is a list of video clips in a pane on the left which can be sorted by “most recent” or “most viewed.” You can create a playlist and sort by network or category (such as Politics, International, Domestic, Business, Technology, Sports, Weather, etc.). There is no search, but that is coming soon, as are viewer ratings and commenting features. Click on a link and the video starts playing in the middle pane. NewsClipper uses the open-source Flowplayer. The player offers full-screen viewing and—here is the controversial part—the ability to embed any video on any other site.

If you go to CNN.com, for instance, it does not allow you to embed any of its videos. You can e-mail a link, but that is it. With NewsClipper, not only can you watch videos from CNN, but you can use the embed code from its player to put them on your blog or MySpace page as well. (See this Obama speech video from CNN, for instance below). I am not sure if this is a copyright violation or not, but it is similar to what Veoh does with its Veoh TV downloadable client software. Vikingstad argues:

Technically, the video content/stream itself is coming from the TV network. I am just embedding it. So in a way you could say I’m embedding videos that are not proclaimed to be embeddable.

Technically, he my be correct. he is not hosting the videos. It is streamed from CNN’s servers. But the fact that he is stripping out the ads will not endear him to the lawyers at the TV networks. It is a really nice site, though. Check it out before it gets taken down.

Sphere It

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles, Web 2.0 News & Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

ideal absolutes

February 20th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Tech Bytes at Use Bytes

February 27th, 2008 at 1:17 am

Pulver Launches An Online TV Guide In The Form of a Cube (PrimeTimeRewindTV)

March 20th, 2008 at 7:13 am

Pulver Launches An Online TV Guide In The Form of a Cube (PrimeTimeRewindTV) · ordaso.com

March 20th, 2008 at 10:18 am

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Christopher Finke

February 20th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Thanks for the auto-playing audio. I really appreciated that
Niraj

February 20th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

On a related note, Ask.com’s recently launched Big News lets you view videos just by mousing over thumbnails in a video bar so you don’t have to go to AP, ESPN, ABC News, etc. to see the video. And since it’s just a thumbnail it’s really quick loading and you still hear the headlines.

http://news.ask.com/news
D

February 20th, 2008 at 2:59 pm

I have to say I really like it.
I’d definitly use it if it stays up.
Erick Schonfeld

February 20th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

@1, yeah, I had to take that down. Another bug to work on—make sure the embeddable videos to start playing automatically.
Nelson Medina

February 20th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

Erick, have you checked out Yahoo News in video?

http://video.yahoo.com/network/100000054

To my taste, far better than NewsClipper.
Everett

February 20th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

#5 that is nice.
Lior

February 20th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

Erick, have you seen http://www.tv3o.com? it’s the same idea for the major tv networks shows like lost, heroes, 24, simpson etc. We also recently added some quality content from hulu, so there is no need for private beta invites to watch full episodes for free.
Posties

February 20th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

I’m seeing lots of videos appearing in the upcoming on Digg. Could you incorporate a most popular Digg vids or allow us to search a topic like Obama (insert favorite) videos.
Deleo

February 20th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

What about the News section on Truveo. It seems like they do a good job with this same idea.
Ethan

February 20th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

This site is killer. Totally clean. Totally functional. Great job. Figures, the guy works at apple :p
Tom Scrace

February 20th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

I really like this idea. It’s bare bones, and a little rough around the edges right now, but the functionality is impressive. Unfortunately I have a bad feeling that the copyright issues are going to get in the way. Despite what the founder says about embedding, I don’t think that the lawyers from CNN et al will see the situation in quite the same way.

Nonetheless, I really hope I’m proved wrong. I’ll be watching this one closely.
Robert

February 20th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

@Deleo, Newsclipper is much quicker with getting the video playing where Truveo is click, click, click -> sorry you have to go to CNN site to view video -> new window pops up -> more waiting.

Newsclipper rocks in that department.
Joe

February 20th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

Egads obviously created on a MacBook - I have a horizontal scroll bar on my Vista 1024 by 768 laptop.

Also Google News is starting to do this. The first story seen on Google has a Video button that seamlessly drops down an AP video of said story. Here the interface is still like a newspaper, but with hidden seamless video watching.
warren

February 20th, 2008 at 6:43 pm

i’m hooked on http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay everything from msnbc etc. etc. to dailyshow and colbert report clips….
MikeT

February 20th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

I sent this idea (of bringing all video news clips into one place on the net) to Google, to Marissa Mayer’s office, like a year and a half ago, but they said they are busy with something else and this is not what their interest is (I still keep that email - it came from bizdev@google.com).

But what I was saying they should do is not only bring them all together, but also allow people to download the clips onto their video iPods and let them playback those clips while they commute or while they have to kill some time. I’ve researched this at that time and the average commuting time in the US is 1 hour/day round trip - commuting was my primary focus - and even if a small percentage of commuters used it (iPods, Blackberries, smartphones are popular, aren’t they?) you could make a nice buck by embedding short commercials there (and share the ad revenues with content providers).
I wrote that people would gladly fill their commuting time (the ones who commute by trains and public transportation) with watching those videos.

When Google did not reply, I sent this idea to Yahoo and MSN, but with no reply (hey, Google at least answered, so I give them credit for that).
MikeT

February 20th, 2008 at 7:17 pm

Sorry, I meant “when Google did not want to pursue this” instead of “when Google did not reply” in my last paragraph.
They did reply.
rons dixon

February 20th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

I see this service being shutdown not long from now. Why would CNN want their video assets somewhere else? that doesnt make much sense to me. With the video’s being on this site it does nothing for a cnn.com.

can someone explain the benefit to the content author?
milos

February 21st, 2008 at 4:01 am

Why not? There is a CNN logo in right bottom corner, it is just like watching the CNN channel. CNN should allow embedding, later they can ad short ad at the beginning of the clip or some transparent add at the bottom if the video is not accessed through CNN web site, and they will get whole new revenue stream thanks to the embedding and sharing on other sites.
warren

February 21st, 2008 at 4:06 am

I forgot about breitbart.tv which is all about news….
linebloo

February 21st, 2008 at 6:01 am

http://www. i - guide .ro
our new articles are posted
bizbuzz

February 21st, 2008 at 6:19 am

This is a nice site, but the real deal is http://www.Redlasso.com - straight from TV and Radio, closed caption, keyword search and full sharing capabilities… The clips are more awesome than the live streams since other users create them…
rubu

February 21st, 2008 at 7:26 am

I wrote that people would gladly fill their commuting time (the ones who commute by trains and public transportation) with watching those videos.
HerrLuBo72

February 21st, 2008 at 8:43 am

I just tried it on my new blog, but think I have to adjust it a bit.

Hope he will include Tageschau.de and heute.de soon.
Germany’s worth looking News Channels. (except you have a problem with the nearly only one).
I know a lot of folks not reading Techcrunch because of that readon. Have you someone translating Techcrunch to German?
In my opinion nearly the only barrier in the world, language.
MikeT

February 21st, 2008 at 8:55 am

rubu, it’s the second time when you quote part of my comment without giving the reasons or without a reply.

Are you a machine?
Ethan Park

February 21st, 2008 at 10:21 am

I saw a demo of a company that does this for PR companies, Confluence Media…however their approach is to create a workspace, have they been on techcrunch?
Patnet

February 21st, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Ah but can you stream this stuff live on your phone? I’m working at indexing some of the Windows Mobile-compatible news streams out there at http://www.thenextscreen.com. Please feel free to add streams to the list.