A few months ago, I bemoaned CNN’s usage of it’s proprietary Pipeline player. I couldn’t share interesting news videos on my blog, and in general Windows Media format is a bit of a hassle to view on a Mac.
Well, they’ve changed their tune. The paid Pipeline service is going away, and they’re ditching Windows Media format as well! They’ll be switching to a Flash-based player, which I hope means they’ll allow sharing and posting to blogs, etc.
…once we built our new flash video experience in the Integrated Story presentation on CNN.com, we realized that that was a better experience than even the Pipeline player for videos. There are no load times, no pop-up players, no changing software environment to worry about, and you can get more context for the story in an integrated way. In short, we could create a better news experience within CNN.com than on any other site, and once that includes free live Pipeline content, our new site will be a game changer.
Greg Palmer 