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    Futures Lab Update #128: 360-Degree Drone Video, and Reporting via Yik Yak

    by Reuben Stern
    November 5, 2015
    Yik Yak, a location-based app popular among college students, has features useful for journalists and newsrooms looking to gather and produce information for millennials. Screenshot courtesy of RJI.

    This week we see how aerial drones are being fitted with 360-degree video cameras, and we learn how an anonymous social platform might help with news coverage.

    "My interest now is not in producing content for VR headsets, because not everyone has them...They're novel and they're very interesting, and I think things are moving in that direction, but right now, many people have mobile devices. So, with a mobile device and 360-degree video, watching a video on YouTube, because YouTube supports this, and now Facebook -- which means you can take your phone or your tablet, and you can move it around to look around the video [is what I'm trying to do]. So it creates a more, sort of immersive, engaging video experience." -- Ben Kreimer, open lab fellow, BuzzFeed

    PART 1: 360-degree drone video

    Working as a fellow inside the BuzzFeed Open Lab, Ben Kreimer is finding new ways to capture 360-degree footage from aerial drones. We visit him in the lab and get a peek at his work.
    Reporting by Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

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    [To skip directly to this segment in YouTube, click here.]

    Additional information:

    The BuzzFeed Open Lab is recently launched research unit that aims to test out and share open-source solutions with the industry. It offers fellowships designed to bring in innovators from areas like the arts, technology or journalism to pursue interesting ideas in the context of media. Selection of the next set of fellows will happen in spring 2016.

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    More information about the projects Kreimer has produced is available on his website.

    PART 2: Reporting via Yik Yak

    Yik Yak is an anonymous social platform that offers a location-specific way to share information and see what people are talking about. Co-founder and CEO Brooks Buffington tells us how the platform might be useful for journalists.
    Reporting by Haley Reed and Daniel Shapiro.

    [To skip directly to this segment in YouTube, click here.]

    Reuben Stern is the deputy director of the Futures Lab at the Reynolds Journalism Institute and host and co-producer of the weekly Futures Lab video update.

    FuturesLabWebBanner-mediashiftThe Reynolds Journalism Institute’s Futures Lab video update features a roundup of fresh ideas, techniques and developments to help spark innovation and change in newsrooms across all media platforms. Visit the RJI website for the full archive of Futures Lab videos, or download the iPad app to watch the show wherever you go. You can also sign up to receive email notification of each new episode.

    Tagged: anonymous apps apps buzzfeed campus shootings drones goPros local news location-based reporting millennials mobile reporting open lab rji rji futures lab video virtual reality vr yik yak

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