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So we thought living ITP would keep us free of the trailer-park loving cyclonic activity we usually think of out in the hinterlands. Well, not so much. The photo above is not by me - it was taken by photographer Shane Durrence and shown by WXIA here in Atlanta and shows, backlit by lightning, the tornado on the ground over downtown at the far left of the image.

We got the tornado warning (SMS from wunderground.com) about five minutes before it hit on Friday night. It was a fairly generic notice - for the whole county - so I wasn’t really worried, didn’t grab the kids etc. as they were asleep. In seconds the rain began to pound and swirl, and then we heard that classic freight train sound. I actually went out on our back deck to grab some things that were flying around - silly me. And then it was done. Turns out that the 200-yard-wide EF2 tornado (estimated winds of 135mph) had carved a path from the west side of the Georgia Dome (the Vine City neighborhood) onward over the dome, ripping sections of the roof away just as it did about ten years ago when I was there covering a game (designed that way?) then right over the Ga World Congress Center and past CNN Center and Centennial Park. That side of CNN and the Omni had dozens of windows blown out - including ones just feet from my friend Steve Almasy, one of the handful of folks working at 9:45pm on Friday night in the CNN.com newsroom and near my friend Kate Sandhaus’ desk. The twister then went past Centennial Tower, the Georgia Pacific Building, the Westin Peachtree Tower and the Equitable - taking out many windows, interestingly mostly on upper floors. Then the storm headed towards us - taking the roof off parts of the Cotton Mill Lofts and then destroying close to 20 homes in the Cabbagetown neighborhood - but sparing Sam’s preschool, the Grant Park Cooperative campus in C-town, only a block away from the worst damage. Then the tornado crossed over I-20 and hit parts of East Atlanta, coming less than 1/2 mile from our house - we were really lucky.

The second round of twisters that came through North GA on Saturday had us taking things quite seriously, holed up in an interior closet for the duration of the warnings. That only resulted in 1/4″ hail without much other damage at our place - but two deaths in a rural county near Atlanta. Weather is serious business.

Tags: CNN, storm, tornado

Yes, the day is finally here.

After over 18 months of work amounting to literally thousands of staff hours, the CNN.com site has been reborn in full embracement of modern web content and technology approaches. After an extensive beta, the site has now replaced the prior version of CNN.com which had essentially never had this extensive and end-to-end redesign in it’s nearly 12-year-long history.

And yes, the site looks lovely on the iPhone too.

And here’s what the blogosphere has to say about it…

A slideshow of these images can be found here, or click on a thumbnail below.

Tags: beta, CNN, iphone, relaunch, web2.0, work

You’d think I’d hear about this around the office, but instead saw this blogged by someone at Optaros, a vendor we use. My co-workers David Payne, Dermot Waters and Lori Adams are blogging the CNN.com Relaunch project. Check it out here. The comments are a great read.

Tags: advertising, beta, CNN, cnn.com, relaunch, work

It’s been a busy few days for us at Turner Broadcasting. Today, CNN.com took the wraps off a beta preview of their new design coming on July 1st (as reported earlier). Full disclosure - I work for Turner Broadcasting, and my ad services team has worked extensively on this project, but the views herein are my own. But as one blog put it:

Something strikes me as… different. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It looks cleaner. Brighter. Cleaner. Grayer. Whiter. Redder. Bluer. Nicer.

The blogs seem to have welcomed the new video treatment (no popup player, and now in Flash!), the Amazon-like ‘We Recommended’ feature, the intelligent use of Ajax, the tabbed presentation in stories highlighting multimedia elements and even, daresay it, the cleaner ad presentation. Some comments do opine for the ability to embed videos on user sites, however. I do think the new site embraces the spirit of Web 2.0, emphasizing the blogosphere on every story (via Sphere) and utilizing Topix for local coverage. Another very cool feature are the new Hot Topics pages, which are being autogenerated for pretty much any story, personality or subject you might dream up; here are a few examples: tuberculosis, Lindsay Lohan, Vioxx, and George W. Bush. As an added bonus, all of these are also available as RSS feeds, huzzah!

As with Gametap 3.0 that launched yesterday, my team has been working on the advertising portions of this project for many months. I’m encouraged to read in some blogs that the ads are less obtrusive, and on the technology side, we’ve really broken what I believe is new ground with some of the underlying approaches, especially around the new video players.

Please do check it out, and be sure to add your comments - there is a handy ‘+Feedback’ link on most pages, and the site wants to hear your opinion. More coverage of the beta can be found here.

Tags: advertising, beta, CNN, cnn.com, relaunch, work

A colleague has pointed out that our hometown Atlanta Journal Constitution (free registration required) has a more in-depth story on Pipeline moving to a free product. Read ‘CNN’s Pipeline will Stream for Free.‘

In a story in today’s Wall Street Journal (free content) today that focuses on a new CNN initiative with Internet Broadcasting, a Minneapolis-based company that publishes the web sites for 70 local television stations, CNN has secured rights to use local stories from these affiliates, and will in turn provide content to them. As part of the deal, CNN is also taking a minority equity stake in the company. But an interesting tidbit can be found in the last paragraph of the article:

This summer, CNN also is planning to roll out a redesigned Web site that makes all its live and archived video content available free, shifting the subscription model to an advertising model.

And yes, my team has been working tirelessly on this effort for the last six months or more. I believe it’s a game-changer - the product formerly known as Pipeline (reviewed by PC Magazine at launch as ‘the most impressive video offering the Web has ever seen’) is moving to a free model, and when news is happening, I can’t imagine anyone not turning to this product if they don’t have direct access to a television but are online.

The article also talks at length about how much local market online advertising has grown relative to the overall interactive business, something on the order of 200% v. 70% over the last few years according to eMarketer stats cited in the story. This deal helps CNN in this area, and ideally increases traffic (and advertising rates) for both properties. By way of comparison, the article points out that IB has an audience of 13mm, versus CNN.com’s 27.9, and Yahoo and MSNBC.com’s 33.1mm.

Tags: advertising, CNN, internet-broadcasting, journalism, msnbc, news, Video, yahoo

Echostar held the 6th Annual Interactive TV Awards last week in Englewood, Colorado, and my project CNN Enhanced (nominated previously for two Emmys) won for ‘Best ITV News Program.’ Echostar - which runs the DISH Network service - offers over 40 virtual and enhanced channels, including entertainment, news, shopping, sports, user support and games.

Tags: awards, CNN, Interactive Television, work

Yes, that’s our very own Anderson Cooper reporting live from Oscar’s trashcan, sporting a mike with a ‘GNN’ moniker on it as he taped a segment for an upcoming episode of Sesame Street. I hope Sam doesn’t get confused and mistake our gray-haired reporter/anchor with his old buddy Oscar. TVNewser reports this episode was taped this week but doesn’t air until next September. But the photo above is pretty priceless.

Tags: CNN, work

Well, it’s deja vu all over again, folks! CNN Enhanced on Echostar (launch, interview) has been announced as an Emmy Finalist for Outstanding Achievement in Advanced Media Technology for the Non-Synchronous Enhancement of Original Television Content, this time by the National Television Academy. As those regular readers of this blog are aware, this project I spent over a year of my life managing was also nominated by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for that bodies’ similar award for interactive television over the summer. Sadly (for me anyway), the award went to TiVO. But hey, at least I can say I’m a ‘two-time Emmy nominee,’ no? And maybe, just maybe, the judges will see just how spiffy our application is and give it the nod. ‘twoud be nice, indeed. And as they say, the nominees are:

• CNN Enhanced – CNN/Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
• Fantasy Football Tracker – BIAP Systems, Inc.
• Passions Vendetta – NBC.com
• Sopranos: Crime. Organized – Deep Focus/HBO
• The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson & Wine – NetBlender
• The-N.com Video Mixer – The N

The awards will be presented at the opening evening event of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday, January 8, 2007. You’ll note that we’re up against the Sopranos this time, as well as some friends over at BIAP. May the best app win!

Tags: awards, CNN, Interactive Television, work

From a story on Sunday on C|Net, pointing out new move towards adding an outlet for ‘citizen journalism’ to the flagship CNN.com site, called CNN Exchange.

On Monday, CNN is expected to announce the launch of CNN Exchange, a page on the company’s Web site that will feature user-submitted video, audio and articles.

CNN snatching page out of YouTube’s book | CNET News.com

In other CNN news, they have also launched a new 3-minute free preview of live streams from the premium Pipeline product. Nice way to sample this cool service.

Tags: CNN, ugc, web2.0, work

Although it was an honor to be an Emmy finalist, the CNN interactive television project I led for Dish Network called CNN Enhanced lost out to the entry from TiVo. Having never won an Emmy, Tivo was announced as the 2006 Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in enhanced television programming. This year’s Interactive Television Emmy Awards recognize original interactive television programming content, applications and services that have been deployed in the United States between June 1, 2005 and May 31, 2006 and that have demonstrated creative excellence.

Other finalists include AOL Music on Demand and DirecTV Interactive Sports. The awards will be presented at the Creative Arts Awards Ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, August 19.

And while I won’t be getting a statue,  I did take home a nice certificate for our project. As a special bonus, I was able to meet both Julie Brown (of Earth Girls are Easy and many other flicks) who was attending the AFI event with Richard Cardran of ZeTools and Sharon Lawrence (of NYPD Blue fame) who was the lead on one of the AFI’s recent Digital Content Lab projects.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the groundbreaking business model shown by ABC was also honored in the new broadband category by the Academy. Their full-length, ad-supported video player (designed by the smart team at Schematic) was simple and elegant. There was also coverage on Engadget and Gizmodo - take a look there for more info.

Tags: awards, CNN, Interactive Television, work