Bhutto Assassination is Big Media's First "Sharable" Event....Reuters Opens Vast Library of Videos with New Interface

Editor's note: The first video we posted had to be taken down because the copyright expired. This newer footage of the assassination was posted 10/02/08.

While user-generated videos of news events from the 2004 Tsunami -- to the hanging of Saddam Hussein have made their way around the Web, a video of the Bhutto killing is a milestone in the online media business.

For the first time during a major news event, videos created by Reuters and other news organizations are being made "sharable"  to anyone for free by providing an embed code.

Recent decisions this year by Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post to enable users to simple click the "share icon" on a video player and copy the embed code and paste onto blogs and Web sites, means that authoritative news can be shown legally on a vast number of  "non-media" sites.

I was struck by the home page of the Wall Street Journal, which for the past 24 hours, has lead with the government-released video of the Bhutto assassination as reported by Reuters.  I've pasted the clip on this post.

The Washington Post has its own edited version of the video on its site.  Both publishers provide embed codes.  It appears that The Washington Post provides embed for selected videos and apparently not for clips from The Associated Press.

The Reuters video home page provides an index to a treasure trove of videos which can be shared. In a dramatic demonstration of the company's commitment to sharing videos, the new video page provides the embed, just to the right of the current video being viewed. 

We will track usage of embed codes of the mainstream media over the next few days.

One thing is for certain, more and more publishers will provide free embed codes of their videos in the year ahead.

-- Andy Plesser