E-Media Tidbits

Amy Gahran UNLV journalism prof Charlotte Anne Lucas shows off the complex cabling required to hook lavalier mics up to a Nokia 95 phone to provide decent audio for her students' live DNC video coverage.

Last night, as 80,000 people crammed Denver's football stadium to watch Barack Obama's acceptance speech, millions sat back and watched it on TV. But in the world of online and mobile media, the experience was anything but passive.

Fellow Tidbits contributor Kim Pearson liveblogged the speech for BlogHer using CoverItLive. I followed the pre-speech action there via my iPhone while half-watching the predictable TV coverage by PBS. I must say, CoverItLive has a very nice iPhone interface that was smart enough to automatically detect my device and optimize the display. I especially like how easy it was for Pearson's audience to contribute comments to the discussion. I participated in the discussion there for a while, and appreciated the quality of the discourse. I also checked out what people were saying on Twitter by following the hashtags #DNC08 and (for the opposite view and a dose of inspired snarkiness to counteract adulation overdose) #RNC08.

Several people at Invesco Field and elsewhere provided live video streaming of the events from their cell phones via Qik. Check out Erin Kotecki Vest's videos from yesterday. Lots of other people were using Qik for DNC coverage, too. One cool thing about this service is that comments and questions from the live online audience get sent back to the videographer's cell phone, bringing people into the live action on location.

A similar but more sophisticated live video streaming service that works with cell phones is Kyte. That's what Charlotte Anne Lucas' team of journalism students from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas were using to provide live video coverage from the DNC all week. Check out the UNLV videos. One cool thing about their coverage was their strategy to localize it for the East Paradise neighborhood of Las Vegas, where the UNLV Greenspun school of journalism is located. Their mission was to get answers from four Nevada elected officials attending the DNC to questions raised by East Paradise residents. That information will be posted to the hyperlocal site East-Paradise.com, which is run by the UNLV journalism students.

Mindy McAdams focused on watching the speech on TV, but before and after the speech she augmented her experience with Twitter, blogs, and other tools.

Steve Yelvington watched the speech mostly online, via streaming from MSNBC.com. He observed: "Apparently a lot of us are fed up with the theatrical performance of the cable TV news hosts. Twitter user Dan Conover reported he was 'tempted to watch something other than CSPAN. But it's like watching squabbling parents drive into an oncoming train.'"

What online or mobile coverage of the Obama speech, and its run-up and aftermath, did you check out or participate in? How did that affect your experience of the event? Please comment below, and give links.