A screenshot of The Des Moines Register's homepage, taken moments ago, as the paper publishes updates of flooding along the banks of the Iowa and Cedar rivers that have brought disaster across the state's northeast. Coverage includes photos of the devastating 1993 floods. Plus, the Register is offering video, using a player that lets me embed one of them, below:Unfortunately, the Register is using one of the very annoying players that automatically starts when a page is launched. I much prefer the player type we discussed when South Dakota's Argus Leader published that much talked-about Hillary Rodham Clinton video.
Thanks to a reader for suggesting this post! Got a feature to recommend? Post a note in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, use this link from a non-work computer; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
Re: The player ... it depends on where you get the embed code from. If it's from a player that auto-plays (like the full-page one), the embed version auto-plays too. Get it from one that doesn't auto-play (article, section front), and the embed version won't auto-play.
ReplyDeleteAnd again, it is Maven, not the newspaper sites themselves that is responsible for this functionality.
I thought Des Moines already had television stations. TV can offer stabilized video without it looking as if it were shot by a fifth grader. Bottom line, what are people getting here they could not get from TV? That is a real question Gannett needs to be asking. They used to say don't piss off people who buy ink in 55 gallon drums. I now question if we are going to realistically compete against $30,000 video cameras, digital production suites, hairspray and helicopters at the ready.
ReplyDeleteRE: the player comment above.
ReplyDeleteNo, it is the newspaper. There is a setting in Maven that determines if the video will autoplay or not, it is up to the individual market to make that decision, it takes a grand total of about 4 seconds to disable autoplay on any or all of the published players so I suggest you RTFM...
But guess what? Each time the video autoplays or loops BING BING BING, video stream tracked!!! It's probably the best new tool for artificially inflating numbers!!!
The autoplay option can be switched off in the template section of the maven admin console. It's an easy fix but the individual property has to set it.
ReplyDeleteDes Moines is now garnering some national attention: As of 9:40pm Central time, 4 scouts confirmed dead after tornado rips through a western Iowa scout reservation, 30-40 others injured.
ReplyDeleteInterested in seeing their online coverage of this incident...
On a map, Little Sioux appears much closer to the Omaha, Neb. market than Des Moines.
sigh ... guys, it's perfectly reasonable and expected for the fullpage player to autoplay ... it works that way at YouTube, for instance. If somebody clicks a link to a video, they expect the damn thing to play, not to have to click *another* link/button to do so.
ReplyDeleteThe issue is, Maven doesn't let you selective turn off autoplay *just* for the embed players.
So, you can't do the expected thing and autoplay the fullpage and then have the embed that comes off of it not autoplay.
That's my point.
Jim - you have to take this stupid video down. I was listening to itunes when I opened the blog and I thought something was going wrong with my soundcard.
ReplyDeleteIf you dont want it to autoplay, just change immersiveplayer to articleplayer in your embed code.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Sato
ReplyDeletearticleplayer
Thank you for the articleplayer code advice ~ that thing was driving me nuts.
Now the player is off and you have to turn it on to hear it.
I changed it in two places to
playerId=articleplayer
~where it said
playerId=immersiveplayer