Customize your newscast on the Web

From...

by Tom Spring

(IDG) -- Don't like your evening newscast? Sick of your local television blab caster? If you've got a high-speed link to the Net, you may be able to get the news you want the way you like it.

Broadband content providers here at the industry trade show ETV World say they are ready to turn old-school broadcast news on its ear.

One such Web site, The FeedRoom, now in beta and open to all, is among several offering television-style news reports on the Internet. There, you can customize news by choosing small news segments, rearranging them in any order, and playing them back through your Web browser.

The FeedRoom has relationships with 32 television stations and ties to heavyweights such as the NBC stations group and Tribune Broadcasting. It offers a range of digestible news clips from hard-hitting news to pop-culture reports and footage from the Olympics.

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"Welcome to the age of the personal newscast," says Bill Carey, vice president of Zatso, another entry in the fray.

Zatso works with 42 network television affiliates around the country and a dozen video content providers. You visit Zatso's Web site and simply check the boxes in the list of news reports. Next, hit "Create Your Personal Newscast," and you're presented only the news segments you requested.

Electronic evolution

Similar text-based Internet news services have been around for some time, but panelists insist that until now Internet technology and a lack of high-speed Net connections has stunted growth.

Klein says U.S. broadband users number 36 million. He figures workers with high-speed Net connections account for 17 million, students make up 12 million, and 7 million individuals are home users. Most of the broadcast news services work over a 56-kbps modem connection, but video quality is admittedly substandard. In the future, Klein says, programmable newscasts will replace traditional news.

"Not all of us like the top story first," Carey says.

The FeedRoom and Zatso are not the only ones offering personalized video newscasts. The financial news-focused Jagfn.com Web venture has a similar service, as does Yahoo.

TV, meet the Web

Television networks typically get a hand reformatting broadcast content for the Web. ParkerVision is one of the companies that works with television stations' broadcast news departments to automated Web production. Broadband newscasts will help television stations market themselves, reach a larger audience, and generate additional ad dollars, says Richard Sisisky, president of ParkerVision.

But will profits offset investments? Internet content sites have been hit hard recently. Just this week, entertainment spoof site Pseudo Programs joined a growing list of promising content sites that have closed their doors, such as Digital Entertainment Network and Pop.com.

It's a big risk, "but the rewards are enormous," admits Jon Klein, chief executive officer of The FeedRoom, which runs abbreviated television style advertisements before video news segments. It also plans to stay profitable by licensing its storage and video delivery technology, as well as charging television stations that want to store digital content.

"My favorite word these days is monetize," Klein says of the drive for profits online.

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Jagfn.com

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