The Adventures of Cedrick Chan

These are the chronicles of my East/West adventures. I'm currently based in Hong Kong, China and San Jose, CA, USA.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Watching the Election from China

I am experiencing an online media ORGY!

I am a self-professed media junky. So I've given myself a surreal media experience while I'm watching the US election from China. I'm currently simultaneously watching CNN live from a Slingbox feed from New York, CNN International live feed from cnn.com, Fox News Web page updates and MSNBC live over msnbc.com while popping between Google News and Facebook updates. I pop audio on and off between video feeds as I see something interesting popping up in each window.

I find it surreal that I have access to so much live information while I'm in Beijing, China. At this point I have access to more live newsfeeds in China than I did during all my years living in the US. That includes my short stint working for a news organization in Florida where I had access to live newsfeeds and AP wires. I find this experience to be an astounding statement on the state of global media, technology and telecommunications.

Some observations I've made while subjecting myself to this early Beijing morning media orgy:

* Whiz bang graphics and technology
Every network is using huge touch screen technology with GUI driven maps and graphs

* Touch screen
There's just a lot of touching and sliding around going on. I'd say that John King on CNN is the king of the touch screen

* Live interaactive maps
Each Web page has constantly refreshing information. But I really like Fox News map that shows the graphs and numbers growing and changing live. The mouseover on each state also brings up key stats and graps for each state.

* 3D graphics the reporters can walk around
CNN supposedly will use a sophisiticated technical setup to allow reporters from around the country to be virtually in the same studio space. i haven't seen it yet, but I'm waiting for it.

* Virtually projected reporters
So far my favorite are the MSNBC 3D virtual graphs that the reporters can walk around. So far it seems gratuitous, but I'm waiting to see if ther's a new, dyanmic way for the reporters to present news and data.

Finally, I find it interesting how Fox News live map updates. It currently puts McCain ahead of Obama, but CNN, MSNBC and Google show Obama ahead. It's almost like they're in denial with the wave the Obama seems to have.