Having Fun at The Wire
If you're frustrated that your newspaper's Web site is little more than shovelware, you might want to check out AP's The Wire for some inspiration.
The Wire, in case you haven't heard, is the Internet version of the AP wire. The Associated Press began working on it in the fall of 1995, tested it at a small number of newspapers throughout 1996 and moved it into full production in January 1997. Although The Wire is a Web site, Web surfers can reach it only by linking though the Web site of a newspaper that has purchased The Wire from AP.
The Wire is packed with interesting content made possible by combining AP's traditional information feeds and some hot Web technology. In addition to text and photos, there are audio clips from AP Network News and video clips from APTV. All of this is collected and edited in an object-oriented database called Illustra from Informix Corp. of Mountain View, Calif.
The Wire's home page includes a news bar, programmed using Java and JavaScript from Sun Microsystems Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., that automatically cycles through the latest AP headlines. When a user sees an interesting headline pop up, he or she can simply click on it to jump to the news story.
Also on the home page are links to audio newsbriefs in Shockwave audio format (Macromedia Corp., San Francisco) and the "Video Clip of the Day" in QuickTime from Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.
Perhaps the most impressive, and certainly the most zany section of The Wire is called "The Fun Wire." If you were to click here over the holidays, you could have played a Shockwave-based game called "The Dreidle of Gersh." Named for The Wire's editor, Ruth Gersh, and based on a Jewish Hanuka game, "The Dreidle of Gersh" allows you to spin a cyber-top as you gamble against a cyber-Ruth.
The Fun Wire was also home to a Shockwave-based "Tickle Me Elmo," a multimedia Christmas quiz and a panoramic view of "Christmas at Rockefeller Center."
For the last of these, AP's Steve Hart used an AP2000 digital camera mounted on a base that rotates in precise increments. He set up his tripod in Rockefeller Center near the big Christmas tree and took 16 pictures while rotating the base (click, rotate, click, rotate). Back at the office, he "stitched" the pictures together using QuickTime.
A visitor to "Christmas at Rockefeller Center" was able to scroll through the stitched pictures, giving the effect of operating a remote-control video camera.
All of which demonstrates that a news-based Web site can--and should--be more than just shovelware.