This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, May 23.
When I first met Deniz Ergürel he was a journalist with the Turkish newspaper, Zaman. He was one of the first that I heard speaking about virtual reality four years ago. Today, Deniz has turned immersive technologies, and virtual reality, particularly, into his big project and he is in New York at the moment working hard to make sure that as many media people as possible take a look at Haptical, where he shares his knowledge and most interesting tips about the adoption of virtual reality for news, film and everyday life.
Haptical is now on Medium, making accessible to a larger audience. If you turn to Haptical today, you will see headlines such as:
#NewsIn360 — VR will be ‘the biggest change in filmmaking in our lifetimes’
You can now watch any YouTube video in VR with Google Cardboard on iOS
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/05/16/youtube-ios-app-google-cardboard-support/
#NewsIn360 – How Facebook sees the future of social virtual reality
https://haptic.al/how-facebook-sees-the-future-of-social-virtual-reality-f7d93535c098#.irga4mo1r
I had a chat with Deniz about his project and how he sees the future of virtual reality, especially as it relates to news:
There is an interesting trend in the technology world. Every 10 to 15 years the computing landscape is reshaped by a major new cycle. In 1980 it was PC, in 1994 it was internet, in 2007 it was smartphone. I am betting that in 2020 it will be virtual and augmented reality and this is not just a wishful thinking by a tech journalist.
Deniz cites a recent report by Goldman Sachs indicates that within 10 years the VR/AR market will reach to $80 billion USD and will affect nine major areas including video games, live events, healthcare and education.
This is the dawn of a new computing age but only few media companies are leading the community and they are mostly focused on the early adopters. There is room for new media brands. With Haptical I am aiming to create original content for the early and late majority audience who are trying to make the best use of this new technology in their lives and businesses.
Virtual Reality and News
Some newsrooms around the world have already started to explore the possibilities with virtual reality, among them The New York Times, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, ZDF are just a few brands to name that started producing high quality content.
News organizations around the world are experimenting with virtual reality and 360 degree videos. These experiments allow journalists to tell stories in a very different way and put audiences at the center of the action.
Deniz suggests you take a look here:
AOL is planning to open a new 13,412-square-foot studio space in downtown Manhattan for live VR programming:
http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/aol-studio-live-virtual-reality-downtown-nyc-1201765541/
Deniz also mentions that we are seeing some serious investment like Huffington Post acquiring the virtual reality studio Ryot in a $10 to $15 million dollar range deal http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/20/verizons-aols-huffington-post-acquires-virtual-reality-studio-ryot/
As the number of VR hardware in the hands of the consumers grows, media companies will need to produce more VR content to attract more eyeballs and to create new sources of ad revenue.
For more information
You can follow Haptical on Medium and receive a weekly newsletter on the latest VR/AR trends.
Virtual gets real! http://haptic.al
Stuff we like
Two wonderful examples here from the Orange County Register reflecting the great work of my dear friend , Jeff Goertzen, along with his , Kurt Snibbe, as they continue to turn out much visual and graphic content in what is now a rather small graphics department.
Here are of the latest pieces they have produced, The Bison page, which is part of a series of Focus pages (4 per week). “We have a version for print and a vertical interactive version for the mobile device. They are the most popular pages at The Register,” Jeff wrote me.
Amazing illustrations, great storytelling, and, I am sure, very satisfied readers of the Register.
Also, we don't see too many newspapers in the United States, or anywhere, offering this type of space to the type of graphic design work we see here.
We need more of these stories
A story for the ages: Love it when I find one of those timeless stories that has it all. As I remind my Columbia journalism students, no matter how much our craft changes, how many platforms we now have to tell a story, it is still THE STORY that is at the heart of how we, the audience, react. Thursday's New York Times does it this time with what it headlines A Subway Love Story. Here is how the story begins, and you you may continue on your own:
It was the Brooklyn-bound Q train that set their love in motion.
Eugene Kolb, 28, and Clara Flaherty, 25, noticed each other on a Sunday evening in fall 2011, sitting face-to-face in a subway car rumbling underneath Union Square.
This is likely to be one of the most shared stories of the day. It is also the one story that many readers knew nothing about it till they found it at the Times.
It is the type of story that seduces. I found myself putting aside what I was doing the moment I had the digital daily newsletter from the Times with that story as the lead element of the day. Well done.