Opinion: Streaming news won't be a great success until it incorporates some form of interactivity or user-generated content.CNN announced its new
subscription-based streaming news service this week. The service, called Pipeline, offers four channels of commercial-free, Web-only news feeds. It's the cable news channel's first extensive use of live video on the Internet, and it establishes CNN as the de facto video news leader online.
I've been watching Pipeline for a few weeks now, and my first impression was that CNN did a lot right when it developed Pipeline.
My second impression was, who cares?
Despite all that Pipeline has going for it, I don't think it's going to be the "revolution" it's been touted as. An evolution of video on the Web, certainly, but not a revolution.
Why? Because Pipeline ports all the benefits of television to the Internet, but few of the benefits of the Internet to TV.
The real revolution in online content, streaming and otherwise, is coming from companies that understand (or are trying to understand) the nature of interactivity on the Web: Yahoo, AOL, and CNN's worst nightmare, Fox.
What CNN Did Right
To be sure, CNN Pipeline is technically impressive: You have your choice of viewing options, either through a small desktop application or via your browser. Most major browsers are supported, and it even works on a Mac (through the browser, not the app).
You can watch live streams, browse the CNN video archive, or select a video through a video-on-demand feature.
In comparison, NBC and CBS show their news online, but they don't make it available until a few hours after the original broadcasts. ABC offers ABC News Now, but that service is pretty meager compared to Pipeline's live streams and large video archive.
CNN rightly emphasizes that Pipeline is commercial-free. That's a big selling point, especially if CNN expects viewers to leave the service on in the corner of their screens all day long.
Speaking of selling points, I'm certainly willing to pony up Pipeline's 99-cent daily fee to watch a good car chase or monitor the outcome of a trial while sitting at my computer. (Given that the cost is the same to download a single track from iTunes, perhaps we're reaching a consensus on the worth of digital media?)
Most importantly, Pipeline doesn't repurpose existing content. That's a nod to the future of video online and to the growing power of an online audience.
CNN understands that it has to broadcast its news online if it's going to have any stake in the future of online news. It's made a big investment in online news, and that's a good thing.
But what CNN hasn't done is invest in the audience. Pipeline is based on the one-to-many broadcast model of television. And in an online world that increasingly favors participation and interactivity, that's actually a step backward.
My Mouse Is Not a Remote Control
Video online is a tricky business. There's inherently a disconnect between the "lean back" video-watching experience and the "lean in" interactive experience of the Web. With Pipeline, CNN tries to address that problem by providing unique, searchable content. It also makes the application unobtrusive and shows Outlook-esque alerts whenever breaking news occurs.
But beyond that, you can't interact with it. To me, that basically just changes my mouse into a remote control.
What's more, Pipeline restricts you to the application itself. The best type of online media acts as a gateway—it tells you about something cool, then says "go check it out yourself, come back next time." But with Pipeline, you can't click away.
To be sure, you could hear about something cool on Pipeline, then go search the Internet for more information by yourself. But can't we already do that with TV? And don't hyperlinks do that job better?
Wouldn't it be cooler if, instead, the Pipeline application showed you where to go? Say, every time you played a video, a small box of text and links updated (or maybe even a whole page) to show you where the conversation is about that topic on the Internet—and I don't just mean links to cnn.com.
What about a Pipeline Weblog, or a Web site where viewers can leave comments and suggestions? Even better, why not allow viewers to upload their own content and deploy a fifth news pipe full of user-generated content?
In this area, CNN could take a page from AOL, Yahoo and Fox. Each of these companies understands that media on the Internet, both text and video, exists at a crucial tension point between top-down authoritative news and bottom-up, user-generated information. In the future, you'll need to do both to survive.
Yahoo hired war reporter Kevin Sites to broadcast reports from conflict areas across the world. That's a great combination of hard news and "solo journalism" that the Internet warms to. CNN, there's nothing to stop you from doing something similar with Pipeline.
AOL, for its part, acquired Weblogs Inc. and combined the power of its online guides with the influence of grassroots bloggers.
Most threatening to CNN: Fox's parent company, News Corp., bought myspace.com. If Fox's interactive division can capitalize on that purchase, it will have not only the most popular television news channel but also the most popular community Web site at its disposal.
The math here is pretty simple: There are a lot more content, and revenue, opportunities within a community of 22 million people than in a video application that offers four channels.
Video alone will keep your audience busy, but it won't get them involved.
Online Media 
