From VR to AR — New Ways of Video Storytelling: Nine brilliant
ideas from Taiwan
Nine teams of journalists, editors and developers built platforms to find new forms of video storytelling at a two-day hackathon in Taipei. GEN’s first Editors Lab in Taiwan generated ideas from VR to AR to simple innovations on existing video storytelling methods.
The last few years have seen an explosion of new digital formats for videos. From live streaming to short news clips, from mobile video journalism to documentary storytelling, the options for digital news videos are rapidly growing as are the opportunities.
At the Business Next Editors Lab, the participants reflected on these trends to build new video storytelling prototypes. They were told to prototype anything from a video report, a live stream, a news game, a video data visualisation. The scope also allowed them to build tools to improve the creation, distribution and consumption of video storytelling experiences.
The Global Editors Network and Business Next (數位時代) organised this hackathon in Taipei on 12–13 May 2017. The Business Next Editors Lab was jointly presented with the support of Google News Lab.
Speakers
Robert Hernandez, professor at USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism led a workshop to help explore the infinite possibilities of new forms of video storytelling. He pointed out that after decades of hype and disappointment, VR, AR and 360-degree video keep developing and are becoming increasingly accessible to news consumers on various storytelling platforms. How can journalism take advantage of this development?
“VR and 360 technologies are going to be the next major media platforms. We have to experiment, fail and try again” — Robert Hernandez
He challenged participants to reflect on how journalists can use these technologies to create a sense of presence in the story and thus raise awareness and develop empathy while improving contextualisation. He also warned the new level of immersion that these technologies create brings in a new set ethical concerns. What are the practices that journalists need to develop to build responsible storytelling experiences?
We also had Mike Chi, Head of the Vive X VR accelerator programme at HTC to share the latest trends and technology being utilised in the VR sector, including some do’s and don’t’s for the prototypes.
“At Google, we believe that AR and VR are the next computing platforms,” said Irene Jay Liu from Google News Lab. She presented how the different immersive storytelling initiatives from Google, such as Journalism 360, can help journalists (check Google News Lab for all the Google tools for journalists).
List of prototypes presented
- Taiwan News built Focals, an eye tracking tool for newsrooms to develop better storytelling methods for 360 and VR reporting.
- The News Lens built Weaver, a platform that provides live streaming video viewers with more related information.
- United Daily News’ prototype Spoiler is a method of commenting aimed to make long form video more digestible and interactive.
- HK01 created KongTribute a 360 video storytelling app that encourages user contributions, making the medium more interactive than its current form.
- The Reporter Foundation presented MotionGuide which preserves the “newsiness” of VR and 360 stories while adding context for a more guided user experience.
- South China Morning Post created Seer, a platform that turns breaking news events into structured records of AR and VR experiences.
- The Phnom Penh Post’s prototype Next2UStories uses geotracking to bring you VR stories close to you.
- Another Media prototyped Pray to the Moon Gods, an experiential game that explores the challenges homosexual couples face.
- Fashion Trend Media presented Who Made My Clothes?, a platform that connects users with eco-fashion industry using AR tech. Users can scan the clothes in shops and see how eco-friendly they are.
The team HK01 won the competition with their project KongTribute, an intelligent video tour platform for a journalist to present 360 and VR video. It also acts as a platform for the reader to contribute to the news story. In the team’s own words:
“Our idea was inspired by problem of traditional buildings disappearing in Hong Kong. We understand that many young people nowadays want to be touch in with history, therefore we decided to build a mobile tool, KongTribute, an intelligent platform which links Google Maps, 360 video and backend CMS together to provide guided tour of locations, buildings or even breaking news. The idea is to allow our audience to be in touch with news and knowledge in an entertaining way.”
Serving on the Business Next Editors Lab jury were:
- Irene Jay Liu (APAC Lead, Google News Lab)
- Mike Chi (Head of the Vive X VR Accelerator Program, HTC)
- Chien-chou Su (Editor-in- Chief, Li-Pao)
- Erica Lu (Secretary General, Digital Marketing Association)
- GEN’s own Director of Programmes, Evangeline de Bourgoing.
Special Mentions
The jury gave a special mention to United Daily News for their prototype, Spoiler, which is an ecosystem that makes long form video digestible and interactive. As well as team from Taiwan News and their prototype, Focals, which is an eye tracking tool app for newsrooms to develop better storytelling methods in 360 degrees and VR videos reporting.
We asked the jury member Erica Lu, Secretary-General of Digital Media Association, why HK01 were chosen as the winner of Business Next Editors Lab:
“The creators of Kong Tribute deserves the prize not just for their superb creativity, but it is their genuine need to execute this project especially these days its hard to interact with audience with video. By allowing audience to contribute extra information to 360 video stories that is engaging, HK01 fully earns their win!”
Jury, Mike Chi, Head of Vive X VR Accelerator, HTC, also added:
“It was a very very close tie between the three leading teams but Hong Kong 01 went mobile and they have a very clean user interface, very nice user experience. It allowed not only the journalists, but everybody else, the public too, to edit and to get into their platform… The topic of the event was new forms of video storytelling, and they allowed everybody else to edit the story, anybody to tell its own story, that is why they won this competition today.”
