Storm of video programming from publishers : Opportunity awaits law firms

No longer are print news publishers going to stay with print only. No longer is video broadcasting going to remain the province of television networks.

The Internet has provided a distribution channel for video news, information, and commentary for mainstream print publishers. Print publishers are not just dabbling in video, they’re doubling down through their investment in video.

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) reported earlier this week on the flurry of video programming coming from the print news media.

The race is on at places that, until recently, did not think they could be or would be in the live video business. The Internet and a fleet of devices like the iPad have made it possible for, say, The Wall Street Journal to compete with CNBC and CNN for viewers’ time.

The Journal already produces about four hours of live programming each weekday, with plans for more hours this year. Other newspapers, like The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, are preparing their own live programs as well. Last week, the Web site of The New York Times started running a morning business newscast, which joined its existing taped daily show, TimesCast.

Also last week, The Huffington Post said that it would enter the emerging market in a big way this summer with 12 hours of live video each weekday.

The video need not be live, it can be on demand. Heck, for those of you like me with kids, you know how they look at television on a schedule dictated by the networks. That’s a nonstarter. They watch news, sports, and entertainment shows on YouTube, Hulu, and the like.

Video from print publishers is not going to be an ‘over there’ thing, it’s going to play side by side with TV from the networks. From Stelter:

Over time, these news organizations believe, the definition and the distribution of television will change, allowing upstarts like The Journal’s live network, WSJ Live, to appear on both big and small screens alongside incumbent networks. Already, some Internet-connected TV sets can stream live and on-demand video from The Journal, which is seen as the trailblazer of this nascent industry.

The growth of online video presents huge opportunities for law firms. But law firms cannot repeat their mistakes of the past.

• Video is not about you producing information about your firm and its attorneys. Get over it, it’s boring and no one cares. The only people who like it are the ego driven and the producers and website companies who charge big bucks for the videos.
• Video is not about you producing news and information blips to be run on your website. Your website is marketing, and you cannot change that by running news and commentary on the site.
• Video needs to be run and played on environments such as on blogs and custom social media solutions that lie outside your firm website.
• Video needs to be viral. You need to have it stored on YouTube for easy search and sharing.
• Video should preferably be done and run by independent third parties, not your law firm. That makes it credible. Think LXBN or Bloomberg Law.
• You do not need perfection. Look at the example of skype interview on LXBN of Attorney Jim Walker on the Costa Concord shipwreck. Your firm may think that’s amateur, but that’s the likes of the videos being run on CNN and major sports networks.

We’ve always talked video on the net as if it were a ways ahead. Well, we’ve arrived. And video today presents a golden opportunity for law firms prepared to do it the right way.