The New York Times is hurting financially these days, and its online business doesn’t seem to be helping much, but at least it keeps pushing forward. One area where the NYTimes.com has put a lot of effort is in video, and it has just redesigned its video page around the new Brightcove 3 player.
Previously, the NYTimes was using the FeedRoom as its main video platform. (This swap doesn’t come out of the blue. The New York Times is an investor in Brightcove). I know of at least one more large video site that is going to announce it is switching to BrightCove 3 next week (more on that later). In the case of the NYTimes.com, one of the things Briightcove 3 will allow it to do is eventually stream HD-quality video and distribute that video elsewhere. As of now, the video is closer to DVD-quality at 1.5 megabits per second, but the site has standardized around the 16:9 landscape aspect ratio most HD video is shot in. (Brightcove 3 dynamically adjusts the resolution of the video stream to whatever the viewer can handle based on player size and bandwidth).
One thing the NYTimes needs to fix is video search. On the video page there is a box that says “Search Video,” but it brings up general results. Another flaw is that The NYTimes does not allow its videos to be embedded elsewhere, only shared via links. Lame.
I’ve embedded an interview with the NYT’s video and television director Ann Derry below from Beet.TV explaining the changes.
The Feedroom link isn’t working.
The NY Times is losing money not because of better technology [although the move to Brightcove is good] it is because of their disconnect with their readers, meaning disdain, elitism, extreme liberalism, one-sided reporting and their brand of “journalism” or “opinionated socialism.”
As several other major newspapers, they truly believe they can “shape” our democracy by continuously promoting their leftist philosophy. I sincerely hope that they go under…
Well, assuming a presidential election is as good an indicator of whether an entity is ‘connected’ or ‘disconnected’, we’ll soon get clarification on the matter..
Have you actually read the NY Times or are you just regurgitating nonsense that you heard on the O’Reilly Factor? I think that most, if not all, sources of media have at least somewhat of a bias; and it is usually people who understand and agree with these biases on positions that read that certain media. I read the NY Times regularly, and I don’t think that they are any more biased or out of line than your typical Fox News report. All-in-all, I seriously doubt that their “liberal agenda” is what is causing them to lose profit; especially when we are seeing an economic downturn, like we are now.
The NY Times, The Washington Post, LA Times have all been losing money for a while. It is not simply related to an “economic downturn” –They have been losing advertising also… Why? because they ignore their readership, while pushing ahead with their leftist reporting, while believing that they provide a “service to the community.” –Yeah, right!
I agree with Tom.
Sorry. A AGREE WITH PETER!!!!
Agreed. They are past the point of safe return.
I was agreeing with Peter. On this, O’Reilly is right. You may hate him or demonize him. But he is actually right on this. I guess if you dismiss Fox News as Faux News, then they couldn’t possibily be right on anything simply because you don’t like them. Way to think things out for yourself.
So was the move to Brightcove made on merit, or simply because they are an investor?
why just now they are getting hd?
Sorry dear newspapers…. blogging is where it’s at these days!!!!
Momma
feature blogger at Engineer a Debt Free Life
Bloggers are taking over the universe. No doubt about it.
Sure. Their own tiny universe… Millions of Americans, young and old are still reading newspepers, magazines, etc.
BrightCove is based on ADOBE FMS. There *IS NO BRIGHTCOVE HD PRODUCT*. Simple creating a control mechanism for a bunch of FMS servers is something that, many, many companies will do.
Man, I helped FR back in 2000 or so these guys to get into MSNBC and now they are not doing so well. Too bad, they are a good company
Leaving politics aside, leaving video aside. I actually think that the NYT has one of the best news sites on the web. Especially the mobile site is good.
Agreed. I just hate logging in for my news!
Sure, “the NYT has one of the best news sites on the web” you probably believe that they are not biased also. Yeah! right…
Wondering how using a vendor like BC is supposed to help their bottom line? Is the value/dollar ratio really that good with BC?
CG
It probably won’t — Do not believe for a second that they are going to change their philosophy. It will be the same liberal/socialist content… but in HD!!!!!
Sad for Feedroom. This was a big loss for them. NYT will probably not realize a return on the Brightcove investment for some time. The only way Brightcove will be able to pay back their 91 mil. VC money is through an IPO. That isn’t going to happen any time soon considering the market.
I was a NYT subscriber for 35 years. I grew incensed over their coverage of the Iraq war. I know it had little effect on them but I had to drop my subscription in protest. Apparently I wasn’t the only one as they are in dire financial straits.
I miss reading the paper but there are other places to keep up with comparable information.
The NYT is way ahead of any of the other newspapers in online. Even though the company isn’t doing very well, I think their website is amazing. Did anyone notice the new social features they just added to the site? I don’t think it got a whole lot of coverage, but it actually quite compelling. They are really the model for newspaper websites going forward. Even the WSJ’s site has copied a lot of the ideas that NYT added a long time ago.
“The NYT is way ahead of any of the other newspapers in online. Even though the company isn’t doing very well”
You mean they are way ahead going downhill? Yes, you are correct. So are all other major US newspapers.
Now that they are desperately trying for Barack Hussein to be the next president. He is going to lose, bite the dust monumentally. The NY Times has been bleeding badly for quite a while…
btw this is not the forum for spouting off your opinions about the New York Times. Can’t you even look at a tech blog without viewing it through your partisan lens?
Well, this is not “my forum” and, yes, I do not like other people to say anything about their opinions, partisan or not. Yes, I am an a**hole!!! Proud of it!
i’m thinking that the financial condition and/or political position of the NY Times isn’t why this post was written.
i just checked out the nytimes video page, and the video quality on the brightcove player is awesome(and coming from me, that’s something, because we’re technically kinda-sorta in competition w/ BC). It also did a pretty decent job of adapting to my bandwidth, although i think Move Networks does a near-perfect job of this…so unlikely that Brightcove’s going to be able to catch up with Move on that front.
As for search, shouldn’t the Brightcove Flash app. come with a search box that’ll search through all videos published by a specific publisher, in this case, NY Times? That seems to make sense.
But then again, from the looks of it, the NY Times is running their own CMS to publish all those videos, and in that case, Erick’s right….the search box needs to be fixed so it only searches for video.
@ CG and MikeM: brilliant comments. Way more brilliant than you probably realize. Or maybe you already do. =)
OK. I comment on the technology, because as a foreigner I do not understand the NY Times content as liberal vs conservative vs socialist. Maybe the move to Brightcove will work out for them. The content will not probably change.
Ummmmmm, hey Erick(Schonfeld), how do you deal with mis-attribution on this blog? For example, I didn’t write this comment at all.
It is not right. You may try, but how do you separate technology from content?
Back to the matter at hand. Anyone have any information on the fees Brightcove is asking for Brightcove 3?
launching new products by the time its just way of promoting their business because NY is having a lose at the stages of their business.
Brightcove better run this thru QA again. Error message below
Error #2044: Unhandled AsyncErrorEvent:. text=Error #2095: flash.net.NetStream was unable to invoke callback onXMPData. error=ReferenceError: Error #1069: Property onXMPData not found on com.brightcove.fl.ui.media.controllers.FLVController and there is no default value.
at com.brightcove.fl.ui.media.controllers::FLVController/createStream()
at com.brightcove.fl.ui.media.controllers::FLVController/loadMedia()
at com.brightcove.fl.ui.media.players::SimpleMediaPlayer/loadMedia()
at com.brightcove.fl.ui.advertising::AdPlayer/playAd()
at com.brightcove.fl.ui.advertising::AdPlayer/playVideoAd()
at com.brightcove.fl.ui.advertising::AdPlayer/renderAd()
at com.brightcove.fl.ui.advertising::AdPlayer/onAdReady()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at com.brightcove.fl.advertising::AdManager/onAdReady()
at com.brightcove.fl.advertising::AdManager/onExternalAd()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
at com.brightcove.fl.federated.api.modules::AdvertisingAPI/showAd()
at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
at com.brightcove.fl.federated.api::APIManager/handleJavascript()
at com.brightcove.fl.javascript::CallbackListener/receiveCallback()
at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
at ()
at flash.external::ExternalInterface$/_callIn()
at ()
Lots of that in there. Not a good idea to use the bc console with a debug version of flash (or through a proxy like charles either).
CG
“hurting financially” –>
http://www.reut...353585920081023
Scott Kurnit who founded About.com, is on the board of Brightcove. NY TImes owns About.
Agree! –They don’t get it. They will continue to provide garbage… in HD.
They should hire someone more sexy indeed, like Beyonce or J-Lo ;-P
J-Lo? Great! But I doubt they would put in a picture her best “view”…