iRadar: TiltView: One Continuous Stream From A Variety Of News Sources

Friday, July 29, 2011

TiltView: One Continuous Stream From A Variety Of News Sources

TiltView: One Continuous Stream From A Variety Of News Sources: "

Open a site, tilt your desk chair back, and watch the news from a variety of sources. That’s the idea behind TiltView, a site which aims to replace cable news channels for people who don’t pay for cable. It’s TV, Internet style.

Including content from Al Jazeera, France24, The Associated Press and many more, TiltView doesn’t just bring you the news; it brings you the news from a wide variety of international viewpoints and perspectives. More channels are being added so keep checking this site to stay informed.

We’ve shown you how to stream professional news online for free in the past, but that was a collection of individual live streams. TiltView is different. It’s not live; it’s an automatically generated playlist covering the big stories of the day. A variety of different sources means your viewpoint will be nuanced, important on an Internet full of self-reinforcing points of view.

Couldn’t Be Easier

Want to watch the news? Just head to TiltView to get started. You’ll see a video loading and not much else:

The interface is simple, which I respect. Move your mouse and you’ll find three buttons: pause/play, forward and back. These can be used to navigate videos in the usual way, of course.

There is, happily, not a heck of a lot else here. Just like when you’re watching TV.

While writing this article I noticed videos from the following sources:

Al Jazeera (Qatar/Middle East regional).
Associated Press (USA).
Deutsche Welle (Germany).
France 24 (France).
Euronews.
RT (Russia).
TenNews (Australia).

This is just what I managed to note during a few hours of viewing; there may well be sources I’ve missed. No complete list is provided, sadly. Feel free to point out any other sources you noticed in the comments below.

One disappointment is that there’s no way to preview the playlist or filter out particular news sources. This isn’t a big deal, though, and would perhaps detract from the simplicity of this web app if it was offered.

Find The Videos On YouTube

Want to share a video you’ve found with your friend? You’ll probably notice that the Twitter and Facebook buttons on this site don’t really do that. Don’t worry; you can still share. Just take a look at the URL:

The http://tiltview.com/ bit of this URL makes sense, of course; it’s the site you’re using. The code after may make less sense, but don’t panic: it’s easy to understand.

The first three characters, #yt, are pointing out that the video is from YouTube. The characters after this are unique identifiers for the video. Google these characters and you’ll find a Tweetable video link:

Even better – add the unique identifier to www.youtube.com/watch?v= and you’ll be taken straight to the video. A quicker way to share videos would be nice, but at least it’s possible.

Why This Is Cool

With all the places to get news out there, why does TiltView stand out? For me it’s two reasons – simplicity and a variety of sources.

To quote the service’s creators: “Choosing which videos to play and clicking on each one made me realize there should be a better way to watch news online.” TiltView does this.´The service isn’t completely original, of course. Previously reviewed 1Cast offered a similar service, albeit with licenses from the content creators, before shutting down last year.

I don’t think TiltView will suffer a similar fate anytime soon. Its design, based on embedded videos from other sites, doesn’t cost a lot to maintain. So long as news sites keep uploading sites to YouTube or offering embedding code, TiltView will keep having videos to aggregate.

I want to know what you think. Is TiltView cool? Do you think this will be a good news replacement for you, or will you stick to specific streams? Let us know in the comments below.

TiltView: One Continuous Stream From A Variety Of News Sources is a post from: MakeUseOf