LiveNewsCameras Blog

Just a quick update regarding moderators.

Everything is fine - we’re all here - however for a few reasons, you’re going to see a decrease in the amount of time moderators spend on-camera.

We’ll still be here to manage the site, register and administer live chat, and add new streams - so don’t worry about that.

And by no means is this site closing down or going away - in fact, part of the reason for reducing the amount of time moderators are on-camera is to allow us to work on some new features for the site that we’re hoping to roll out soon.

We are also about to begin renovations of our newsroom in Chicago which will require relocating the LiveNewsCameras on-camera position so that complicates things a bit.

One reason we’re able to make this change is because of the great job chatters are doing monitoring news as it happens around the world - so if you’re one of the 3-thousand people registered for live chat, thanks for your help!

Bottom line - you’ll see less of Kat, Jeff, Julia, Christine and the other moderators, but rest assured LiveNewsCameras will be here, and we should have some great new features to make the site even better in the coming days/weeks/months.

It’s been about a week since we made the big switch to our new format, and we’ve gotten some great feedback from users.  Rest assured we’re not done with the site by any means - there are more big changes coming, along with widgets, more RSS feeds, email alerts, and a few other things.

Here’s what a few of our friends are saying:

Be your own TV news editor

Checking in on LiveNewsCameras 

Common Sense Journalism 

We’re happy to say that we’re now able to give streams a new way of being featured on LiveNewsCameras – with the addition of a moderator-powered, “scroll bar” area at the top of the site.

This is a feature we have been working on for quite a while, and it schowcases breaking news in a way we have not been able to do before – and it puts content right in front of you!

 We’d like to thank our tech master, Ali, for working so hard on developing this brand new feature.  If you have any comments or suggestions on our latest additions to the site, please email us at info@livenewscameras.com

Here at LNC we’re very excited with the latest international additions to our site.   
We’ve recently added two 24-hour-live-streaming news stations in French:   
BFM TV, from France and LCN, from Quebec.  

BFM TV features continuous national, international and business news.  
 
And LCN provides non-stop regional, national and international news. 
 
And those of you who wanted even more international stations… 
We now have stations in German and Spanish! 
The two Taggesschau.de channels feature news from Germany.  

The first, EinsExtra, streams live news  Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Central European Time.  

Whereas the second, livestream highlights the following news reports: 
Tagesschau, Tagesthemen, and Nachtmagazin at different times. 

 The Taggesschau news report airs at 8 p.m. CET and is one the most popular in Germany.   
And by the way, taggesschau means “a look at the day.”   
 A3 Noticias 24 is a live streaming news station from Spain that belongs to Antena 3 

 — the second-ranking tv station in market share.  

As their name says, they’re also a 24-hour news channel.   
 
Be sure and check back next week!
 
We’ll be adding more exciting stations to LiveNewsCameras!



Rebecca Sanchez
 

Here’s some advice that may make our site work better on your PC:

Why Is a Video Feed “Black” Or Not Working?

The individual locations making up this site control their video feeds locally – and provide news updates to the moderator when significant events happen.

Not all sites stream 24/7, and sometimes equipment failure, connectivity issues, or other problems mean a stream won’t be working at any one time.

Do I Need Special Software To Use LiveNewsCameras.com?

You don’t need “special” software, but you do need to have some specific software installed on your computer to make this site work best.

• The moderator video window and Twitter feed are powered by Flash – you can get the free Flash plug-in here:  Download Flash plug-in

• The main media player window is powered by Windows Media Player.

• You can download the latest Windows Media Player here: Download Windows Media Player

• If you are using FireFox, you’ll want to get the newest FireFox Windows Media plug-in: Download FireFox Windows Media plug-in

• If you are on a Mac - chances are you’ll need a free program called Flip4Mac: Download Flip4Mac

Our friends over at G4 (get a live stream, guys!) did a great feature story on LiveNewsCameras which aired on Thursday night, 5/1/2008.

Click the link below to go to G4TV.com and see it:

http://www.g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/videos/21561/Web_Tools_Live_News_Camerascom.html 

On a personal note - I’ve got to tell you how cool it is to have this end up on AOTS -  its a great show - I mostly catch segments on Hulu - but there’s another good one where our friend-of-LNC Doug Delony ended up on it - check it out here.

Steve

It’s a very cool thing when you open up one of your favorite websites, and find a post about a project you’re working on - it’s only happened to me a few times - including a few moments ago!

You can read the post here:

http://mashable.com/2008/04/24/livenewscameras/

Mashable is a great blog - one that I have a healthy admiration for - I get ideas and insipiration from many of the topics and sites posted there every day.

The Mashable blog post hints at something you’ll be hearing more about over the coming days - and that is a revamp of our current site that will make it easier and faster to find the biggest news happening in the world at any one moment - we think you’ll like it!

So thanks to Mashable for the kind words, and we’ll have more on the coming changes, soon.

Steve Baron
LiveNewsCameras.com

This is very cool - we’ve just started working with a company called “Severe Studios” - you can find their live stream (or streams, depending on the day) by clicking the “weather” tab at the top of the page, and looking for the tornado icon.

Severe Studios is a site that helps storm chasers stream live video back while they’re out on the road tracking severe weather.

Yesterday one of the storm chasers using their service was in the Abilene, TX area, following a storm that had the potential to spawn a tornado.

Right now, there’s live video streaming from a storm chaser in Arkansas who is tracking severe weather as well.

So now, on that weather page - you can get a look at live radar from all over the nation, and also live streaming video from storm chasers in the middle of the action - in our view - that’s an incredible combination.

We’re looking forward to a great partnership with Severe Studios - they really understand the business of mobile, high quality, live streaming video - if it’s something you’re interested in, definitely take a look at what they’re doing!

Moderator Kat Bockli and I just finished up doing an interview with Jon Gordon, producer and host of FutureTense by American Public Media.

It’s a radio show heard in the USA and Canada and a podcast available for download - Jon put together a really nice story - you can listen to it or download it here:

Real Audio
MP3
iTunes

While we’re at it - here’s a link to Jon’s blog - some good stuff there to check out if you’re into technology.

Apologies for the delay in posting - we’ve just completed a migration of the entire LiveNewsCameras site to a new host, which should resolve a few of the issues we were having with our previous one! 

We’re hard at work on some major refinements to the site - the biggest one being the ability for the host/moderator to highlight and feature currently active streams in a new and very cool way.  We’re also working on a “search” function, and a whole suite of new tools for users of the site.

There are currently 146 148 live streams on the site, and we are adding more every day.  In fact we’re final talks with another big international broadcaster that may be joining in soon.

One of the big questions we get asked is about the thumbnails - and why some show a station logo, and others show a clip of what is being broadcast on the stream.

Essentially, most of the streams that operate 24/7 have the thumbnails updating - and most of the stations with logos only use their live streams when there is breaking news or a scheduled newscast going on.  We’re also working on a program guide showing what streams have scheduled programs (newscasts, etc) on at any given time.

We’ve only been at this about 8 weeks now - and the site is very much in beta - changing and evolving every day.

Feel free to send us an email, or leave a comment here, and we’ll update the blog with answers and more information as development continues.

Regards,

Steve & the LiveNewsCameras.com team