Exclusive: CNN.com Had Record-Breaking 11 Million Video Views on Day of Virginia Tech Schootings

CNN online video clips of news surrounding the Virginia Tech shootings totaled 11.4 million views on Monday, far more than the daily average of 2.1 million streams and exceeding the previous one-day record of 7.7 on December 30, 2006, the day after Saddam’s execution.

These are internal traffic numbers provided by CNN to Beet.TV. Nielsen/NetRatings are not available.

Story_albarghouti_ireportThe dramatic cell phone video taken by student Jamal Albarghouti was viewed nearly 2 million times on Monday. Albarghouti uploaded his video to CNN’s I-Report, the part of CNN.com that accepts citizen-made videos.  (CNN confirmed that although the video was submitted under normal terms of a citizen upload, which does not involve pay to the uploader, an undisclosed payment for exclusivity was made to Albarghouti.)

His was one of hundreds of videos, text messages and photos uploaded to I-Report. Many submissions to I-Report have been incorporated into a tribute page to the victims at CNN. As of yesterday, the page had 15 million views, making it the most popular feature page ever on CNN.com, a CNN spokesperson told me.

Traffic to CNN.com reached 19 million on Monday (domestic and international) way up from an average of 7 million.

Below is my interview with CNN.com chief David Payne.  I interviewed David a couple of weeks ago on the set of the Anderson Cooper 360 set.  David spoke with me about Pipeline, the online service that provides consumers with multiple live news streams.  We also spoke about the success of user-generated content, of which is was very postive.  Judging from the content and traffic at CNN, the Virginia shooting has defined how user generated content can be a powerful companion to traditional reporting.

…news you can use

New Video Journalists Making an Impact, IHT Reports

Check out this story from today’s International Herald Tribune about freelance video journalists in Europe. 

Virginia Tech Shootings and Citizen Journalism

This is an excellent overview of role of citizen journalism and big media by London’s Guardian newspaper.

Electronic "Finger Prints" Coming to Video Sites

Very good story from the Wall Stree Journal, no subscription required for this story.

Andy Plesser

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Posted on 04/22/2007 at 1:15 PM by Andy Plesser

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