My Gadgets

To start a video project, I invested in these items:

* Camera --- Canon FS200

Cost: $329.99
Where to buy: Best Buy (622 Broadway, New York)
Phone: 212-673-4067
Check out more details of the camera here
My comment: I recommend this model. It's very light. The image is pretty steady and it is easy to upload footage to laptop.


* External Hard-drive --- Seagate 250GB FreeAgent Go

Cost: $79.99
Where to buy: Best Buy (622 Broadway, New York)
Check out more details here
My comment: Unless you have decided to take up video projects for a long period of time, you don't need a 250GB if it is just for one semester. Each 3-minute video (including raw material of about 45 minutes) counts about 3-4GB.


* Editing Software --- Final Cut Express (Academic version)

Cost: $69 with student discount
Where to buy: NYU Computer Store (242 Greene Street, New York)
(212) 998-4672
Check out details here
My comment: Final Cut Pro costs $999.99, Final Cut Express costs $299.99. This Express Academic version is really a bargain. It works very well. I strongly recommend students to take advantage of the discount.

* Case for the hard drive

Cost: $11.95
Where to buy: www.amazon.com
Check out the list of cases on Amazon here
My comment: I personally like this design the best, but I eventually bought this, because it has more pockets for the cord and a USB memory card.
Don't buy it in a store. It is cheaper to buy online.

Video 1: The Insider Tour

The Wall Street Insider Tour was started earlier this year by a former Deutsche Bank derivative trader Andrew after he lost his job in the financial crisis.

This is a 3-minute profile of the tour, with Tom Comerford, tour guide and a staff of Goldman Sachs. This is the first video I ever produced:

An Interview with Mara Schiavocampo

Mara Schiavocampo is a host for NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams. A pioneer of new media journalism, Schiavocampo reports, produces, shoots and edits video pieces, blogs and shoots still photos.

Schiavocampo was recently named to “Television Week's” list of the "next generation of television news stars" and is the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2007 Emerging Journalist of the Year, the first broadcast journalist ever to win this prestigious award.

Here is an interview with Schiavocampo on her opinion about multimedia journalism.

Q1: Everyone is talking about digital journalism and each journalist should be able to not only report, write, but also blog, twitter, take photos, shoot videos. What do you think are the pros and cons of such trend? Is this the future of journalism?

Mara Schiavocampo (MS): This is part of the future of journalism. I think that as we move
forward we'll have people working in traditional ways, new ways, and
everything in between. There will be full crews with a correspondent,
cameraperson, audio person and field producer, and there will be
solitary digital journalists. You'll have producers shooting and
shooters producing. Nothing's going away, we're just adding more.

Pros: greater control over your work and the ability to cover stories that
otherwise would be ignored. Cons: Perils of multi-tasking...do too much
and everything suffers.

Q2: How do you decide what medium to use for a particular story? How do
you try to make a story stand out and not be buried? What are the
limitations for each medium?

MS: It's just a matter of choosing the best tool for the job. If something's
really visual, video or pictures work best. If you want to get something
out quickly from the field with limited resources, file a short blog.
Spot a cute element that doesn't warrant a full story? Make it a video
blog. There are so many options that you can really choose the best
medium for the story.

Q3: What medium is the most challenging and the least challenging?

MS: Of course it depends on the individual story but generally speaking
video pieces are the most time consuming. Generally speaking shooting
takes much longer than say an interview for print, then there's logging,
then scripting, then editing. There are just more steps than you'll find
with other mediums.

Q4: What is your benchmark for each medium? Are there any role models
that you look up to in each medium?

MS: In terms of video journalists I admire Travis Fox of the Washington
Post. There are also so many talented people here at NBC like Nightly
News Associate Producer Victor Limjoco or Producer Anthony Galloway.

Q5: How have you adapted your style in terms of delivering the news in
utilizing different media?

MS: Solo digital journalism pieces tend to be a little looser and more raw,
less like a traditional piece. Video blogs are even more light and
relaxed in terms of production value. Blogs can be anything you want,
from casual to much more serious.

Q6: What is the most gratifying medium that you have worked with so far?

MS: I love shooting stills but unfortunately that's probably my weakest
skill. I'm a work in progress. Overall I'd say video. I love all the
layers in the storytelling - the story, the visuals, the sounds.

Q7: Who are your biggest competitors in each medium and how would you
compete with them?

MS: The thing with the web is that everyone's a potential competitor. Most
news websites offer everything, from text to video. So the NYT website
is as much competition as ABC. In terms of competition we just make the
best effort to serve the audience in an authentic way.

Q8: New media industry is still trying to find the silver bullet to make
money, what is your expectation of the new business model?

MS: I'm asked this question all the time. If I knew the answer I'd be rich!

Q9: How does audience of each age group respond to new media? Is this
something that only caters for young audience?

MS: Generally speaking younger people are earlier adopters and more willing
to try new things. Studies have shown that they also get a lot of their
news online, so based on that, I'm guessing our web audience is younger.
But these days, watching a clip online or reading a text piece is
becoming so common. Even my mom does it! So I feel like we're moving to
the point where some use of technology can be found in every group.

Q10: What are your advice for journalism students to prepare
themselves to become competitive in today's media?

MS: Be really active media consumers. See what's out there and how people are
watching and reading it. Become part of the audience that you're trying
to serve. Know at least the basics of different mediums like shooting
video, editing, writing text, etc. Also, I always advise people to set
up their own website and just start creating content. Even if no one
sees it, it shows potential employers that you're engaged and proactive.
Plus it's a great place to practice and make mistakes.

Intro: Video project of Life in Recession

In the next three months, I will keep a journal of my life as I carry on with the multimedia project for my NYU master program in journalism --- "Life in Recession."

The video project will feature three groups of people whose lives have changed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers a year ago.

From a former investment banker who is forced to take on a brand new endeavor, struggling writers who find new ways to market themselves and middle-age women who bravely step out their comfort zone to make a living.

How are these people surviving the recession? What are they doing now? What have they done to get here?

This is a one-person team that will spend the next three months reporting, producing, shooting and editing the videos. As my first video project, the journal will share with you every step I make as the project moves along. It is a daily dairy of the growing pain and gain as a traditional journalist develops digital journalism skills.

Size Matters: Introducing a Larger Kindle

Amazon announced its latest version of Kindle today in New York, featuring a larger screen, a new built-in PDF Reader, auto-rotation and a much larger memory than the existing Kindle e-reader, as it prepares for a Kindle textbook university trial project to be launched this fall.

Six universities will take part in the Kindle trial project. A few hundred students will use Kindle as their textbooks in the coming semester. Barbara Snyder, president of Case Western Reserve University, one of the participating schools, said they are very excited about the project and the school will observe how Kindle affects students’ way of reading and taking notes. “The e-book technology may prove to be even more transforming,” Snyder said. “Students do not need to carry heavy textbooks. Kindle will help our students stand taller.”

Amazon has reached agreements with three leading textbook publishers, Cengage Learning, Pearson, and Wiley, to provide e-textbooks for the device. That will expand the number of the thousands of textbooks already available on Kindle. The Kindle textbook prices are still under discussion. “The prices of the textbooks will be a la carte now,” Laura Porco, director of Kindle Books at Amazon, said. “But it is reasonable to expect the digital version will be cheaper.”

Kindle DX has the feature for highlighting and bookmarking. Students can also take notes on the page and store the highlighted part and the notes into a clipping file on Kindle. The new PDF Reader comes with Kindle DX supports documents like annual report, industry report, and sheet music, in PDF format.

Amazon is accepting pre-order for Kindle DX now to be delivered over summer at the price of $489. “Current Kindle users will not get order privilege,” Steve Kessel, senior vice president of WorldWide Digital Media at Amazon.com, said. “Kindle DX is not a replacement for the 6-inch screen Kindle. We are building a Kindle family here.”

When Kindle DX arrives the market in summer, it will come with 37 U.S. and international newspapers including New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe, at a price from $5.99 to $14.99 per month. The New York Times Company and Washington Post Company are also launching pilot projects with Kindle DX this summer. The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Washington Post will offer the Kindle DX at a discounted price to readers outside the home-delivery areas.

“The project is an excellent example of the convergence between print and the Web,” Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. chairman of New York Times Company, said. “This is to showcase how we can best use of new technology to offer quality newspaper experience to the readers, providing access of the Times and the Globe whenever and wherever they want it.” The price for the discounted newspapers has not been decided, but it will be in the range of $9.99 per month, according to the people familiar with the matter.

Amazon.com carries over 275,000 titles in Kindle version from major publishers. Since the first Kindle e-reader was introduced 18 months ago, the unit sales of the Kindle version have increased to 35%f of the sales of the physical books. That is to say, Amazon sells 35 books in Kindle version every 100 physical books it sells under the same title. “Amazon.com has been around for 15 years. That is an amazing increase given the short time that the gadget was introduced to the market,” Kessel said.

Young and Free, power of social media

Young and Free, this young people's social network Web site launched first in Alberta in June 2007, has jump started 2,600 new checking accounts and $3.4 million in new deposits for Servus Credit Union, a cooperative financial services company that offers most services like a bank.

More encouraging data: an additional $17 million was lent to new account members, and $1.4 million is generating 15% yield from mutual fund. That is, using the Servus's 3-year bank loan rate 4.15%, there is an interest income of $705,500 and return from mutual funds of $210,000. The cost to run the Web site, including operating expenses and fees to the marketing company, is $630,000 for the last 19 months.

Return on investment: 45%.

Wonder why?

Imagine if all your friends have a pair of Nike sneakers, would you want a pair too? Very likely. This is what Young and Free does to its members. It takes an image of a social network, filled with fun activities. Members create blogs, share videos and exchange new ideas. Some members say: Young and Free is everything I want.

Once the members are there creating content and actively take part in the Web site, they are ready for a leader. This is where the spokesperson comes in. In each Young and Free Web site, respectively in Alberta, Texas and South Carolina, a month-long campaign started to search for an annual spokesperson, who is "the voice of Young and Free 2009." The winner is an overnight celebrity, a community star that every members like and trust.

His/Her job is to create five blogs a week to entertain the members. The content subtly incorporate the concept of Credit Union. What is it? How does it work? Why is it better than a bank? His/Her benefit is $36,000 annual pay, a free Mac Book, a HD video camera and a car with Young and Free logo.

Now the "peer power" comes into play. People want to hear advice from friends, especially the ones that they like and trust. The more members sign up to the Credit Union's checking account, the more people want to sign up.

The last but the key thing about Young and Free is, quoting its inventor, president of Currency Marketing, Tim McAlpine: "Everybody is talking about creating conversations online. When it comes to sell products, it is taboo. We have the product right in the Web site. I am selling the product, but very subtly."

Direct to the point, sell the product! And there they go, an old-school Credit Union is the new black. The name relates to youth, to fun, and to hip.

Only the members of Young and Free should be aware: The name of the Web site should really be Young and Not-Free.