Nieman Foundation at Harvard
Interested in NowThisNews, the much-talked-about social video news startup? They’ve got some big names — Huffington Post cofounder Ken Lerer, ex-HuffPo and ex-WaPo digital star Katherine Zaleski, and ex-CNN boss Eason Jordan, among others — and a bold promise to compete directly with television news by thinking digital and mobile first.
Their site hasn’t launched yet, but you can get a taste of what they’re doing by looking at the first videos they’ve posted to their own vertical on BuzzFeed. (They’re posting videos there, in their own proprietary player, before their own site launches. And the relationship will continue after launch, too — which makes sense, since Lerer and BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti were both present at the beginning at HuffPo.)
The videos so far aren’t much to write home about — newsy video clip with intro, a nice inspirational tale, a kinda painful clip-art mashup explainer, a sub-SNL skit, a video listicle. But it’s early yet:
@jbenton Keep an eye out; we plan for our aesthetic to shift over time as well. Thanks for checking us out!
— NowThis News (@nowthisnews) September 18, 2012
