How is it of use to journalists? Essentially a social broadcasting platform, Spreecast is a great tool for journalists to host interactive videos for interviews or to discuss current events.
It also allows you to search for videos by topic and follow other users that are of interest to you, which makes it a handy tool for research.
Founded in 2011 but only released from beta in October last year, Spreecast describes its mission as "to connect people through conversation". It does this by offering three option to its users: watch, chat or join on camera.
Journalists can use the platform to host videos and invite up to three participants, similar to a Google+ Hangout, which has a maximum limit of 10. However, where Spreecast has one up on a Hangout is its ability to also integrate comments and interactions from Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
In addition, anyone can join a video conversation by submitting a question or joining a 'live chat', resulting in a great interactive experience.
All Spreecast videos are recorded, so for research purposes you can search a vast back-catalogue of archive videos by topics including news and politics, technology and entertainment.
There's also a Spreecast iOS app that allows you to watch and participate in video conversations via iPhone or iPad.
Spreecasts can be as public or private as you like, either viewable by everyone, unlisted (only people who know the link can view) or by invite-only. The latter option might make Spreecast a good alternative for office video conferencing calls.
The Wall Street Journal is just one news outlet using Spreecast to discuss and analyse the news, such as this video about Chris Christie and the Republican Party.
Screenshot from Spreecast.com
Hat tip to Sarah Marshall, social media editor of the EMEA region for the Wall Street Journal (and former technology editor at Journalism.co.uk) who tweeted about the news outlet's use of Spreecast.
Spreecasts are like G+ Hangouts. Here’s an example. Readers sent pics and pro photographers gave tips http://t.co/aOJhF7ReFW @WSJ #DjatDJ
— Sarah Marshall (@SarahMarshall) January 14, 2014
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