"The person you always wanted to be could be presenting the news for you. It has some very cool potential," said Robbin Steif, CEO of Pittsburgh, PA-based LunaMetrics (www.lunametrics.com) in Pittsburgh, and co-chair of the Web Analytics Association.
In prototypes of News at Seven, a female newscaster named Alex delivers the main news, while a co-host named Eli provides commentary and counterpoints based on opinions gleaned from blogs.
"We mine this huge mass of blogs that nobody touches or reads," said Hammond. "We’re looking for opinion, stories, points of views that come from people who might not have thought they would be sharing with the world."
The idea is that eventually individuals like you or me could go to a website, choose the news topics that interest us the most, pick from a variety of available newscasters (most likely based on video game characters), and select a background.
But in this age of the podcast, will the video component appeal to people? That’s the question, said Steif.
"How many people will want to watch versus listen, versus read?" she asked. It depends on their ability to produce a strong video component, she said, and make the broadcast personally appealing.
