Show Me The Video!

Images and videos online are extremely popular in this day and age. People all across America are turning to the web to search for homes for sale, used vehicles, collectible antiques, and possibly even a date for Saturday night...Now ask yourself, which one of those previously mentioned items would you commit to - that is without seeing some sort of visual first. None...I am sure.

So it's no secret that videos play a large role in drawing audiences to online news organizations. So the video must be fresh and relevant. It is most common to go to a news website and find video that accompanies a story.

So if the Atlantic Online is to take the advice of the Media Shift organization (a division of PBS) and "engage in a never-ending conversation with their community," to foster strong relationships with audiences, it must be remember to incorporate video. Since a conversation is not one-sided, the Atlantic Online cannot forget to incorporate video from professional writers as well as the community. There are a few ways to accomplish this goal.

Allowing audiences to post a commentary with video is one. Lets take the Atlantic's recent article entitled "Cheese Balls," an article about an old Italian cheese recipe that has become a hot (not literally) new menu item that is found in select major cities across the country. (So this may be the point that you are wondering why I choose cheese, but stick with me here). So, you get to the bottom of this article and click on the much needed comments section (if we are to encourage a community conversation). The incorporation of videos may convince Mary Morelli from a tiny little town in Upstate New York to create a five-minute video response about how those who don't live in a major city with a trendy cheese shop can make still make homemade cheese with the Morelli family recipe. Sure, of course, Mary could just plainly write the recipe and hope that viewers click on her commentary featuring her own cheese dish, but a visual to more likely to get your mouth watering...Right?

"Interaction gives us more than additional eyeballs," writes according to Media Shift writer Roland Legrand. "It teaches us new aspects of storytelling. For instance, a news website is sometimes more about telling a story in a way to bring the community together rather than about providing 'hard news.'"

So, if the Atlantic Online takes Legrand's advice into account and really drives home this idea of creating community dialogue then vlogging is essential. Allowing audiences to vlog, is basically letting them lead the conversation. They become the professors at the head of the class posing the questions and not just the students on the other end of those pressing topics.

For example let's take Andrew Sullivan's article entitled "Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters," in which Sullivan says that "we may in fact have finally found that bridge to the 21st century that Bill Clinton told us about. Its name is Obama." Okay so, encouraging conversations would allow readers of that article to supplement Sullivan's opinion with vlogs like this....