CNN Relaunches With Slicker Video

Joseph Laszlo | July 02, 2007, 11:13 AM

Sad to say, I've generally used cnn.com as an example when I talk about news sites deploying video online. Sad because I didn't think it worked too well: the lack of embedded video, pokey pop-up player, big buffering time, and preroll ad generally trained people NOT to click on links with the little camera icon next to them.

So it's interesting to see cnn's relaunch. I like a lot of the stuff they're doing.

Most importantly, given the thing I found less than sanguine about the old site, the new flash video player is much slicker, starting to play almost instantly once it loads. If you choose not to embed video, fast playback is the next best thing.

There's other nice things about the site as well: CNN now features "video search" as an option at the top of the page, something I'm sure we'll see more of from other news organizations. And there's a little video box prominently off to the top right with previews of video topics.

What would I still change? Well, there's some finicky layout stuff but I leave thinking about that to Barry Parr. One video-related suggestion: in the video box, CNN includes in gray the length of each clip. That's a great practice, one that I wish they would pull into the video links under "Latest News;" consumers looking for the latest on a topic would probably be more inclined to click if they knew how much of a commitment they were getting into.

My next report is for Jupiter's News and Info service, it'll look more at best practices for delivering news video online. Clients should keep an eye here over the next few weeks.