(This is a guest blog post by Ben Moskowitz of the Mozilla Foundation.)Over the next few weeks, the Knight Foundation and Mozilla are running a series of news innovation challenges. The goal: get the world's smartest hackers thinking about how news organizations can harness the open web.The first challenge, which runs through Sunday, May 8th, is all about video. This is a great opportunity to be creative with the YouTube APIs—if you have a big, ambitious idea, you could get support from Knight and Mozilla to make it real.Check out the brief: Video is a central part of many people's daily news experience. But despite all the opportunity offered by the open web (social, linkable, real-time, dynamic), most online video is still stuck in a boring embedded box, like "TV on a web page." This offers little in the way of context or opportunities for viewers to engage more deeply.
If you're reading this blog, you're probably interested in hacking web video. The challenge is: how can web video bring innovation to the news biz?How would you take advantage of modern JavaScript, advanced HTML5 features, and the richness of web service APIs like YouTube's? How would you make use of the millions of connected YouTubers who upload 35 hours of video per minute? What are the news video opportunities that are unique to the web? The YouTube API blog is rife with possibility: check out some posts on curation, remix, and the YouTube chromeless player. Read up on YouTube Direct, a cool open source app, or visit the YouTube API project gallery. While you're at it, check out popcorn.js, the HTML5 video framework (now including a wrapper for the YouTube Flash player!)What kinds of innovations would you bring to the newsroom? How would you transform news video?Head over to the challenge site and enter your idea. Submit a short abstract, a napkin sketch, or however you choose to best express yourself. By entering your idea, you'll be eligible to take part in an online learning lab with famous hackers like Christian Heilmann, Burt Herman, Aza Raskin, John Resig. And if your idea rocks, Knight and Mozilla will fly you to Berlin for an in-person development sprint, to take your idea from napkin sketch to prototype to deployment. Finally: five participants will be invited to become Knight-Mozilla news technology fellows. Fellowships are paid positions inside newsrooms at the BBC, Boston.com, The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, and Zeit Online, to build world class web apps for a large audience.The challenge ends May 8th, so hurry and study up on the YouTube APIs. For Sunday’s deadline, all you need is a great idea, a rough sketch. If you proceed to the next phases, there will be plenty of time and support to further prototype and build out your idea. Mostly, we want to get to know you through this challenge. Happy hacking!
