(Annette Moser-Wellman) -- I visited the Newseum in Washington DC, a permanent new museum dedicated to the role of news in our culture. Beautiful building and some great exhibits. But one exhibit (for which you had to pay $8) was called "Be a TV Reporter." It involved standing behind a large television camera, talking into a microphone while reading a script from a teleprompter. My first thought was, "Couldn't we get a bit more up-to-date on the art of reporting?" Surely gathering and distributing the news has evolved since ancient times of one person behind one camera?

I recently interviewed Max Haot from Mogulus. Talk about a new way to gather and distribute news. Mogulus is a company that enables you to produce your own 24/7 TV channel and broadcast it via the Web. Mogulus provides the tools so that you can broadcast live from a camera anywhere and then mix in live reporting with video from a play list of many online sources, develop a storyboard, customize your graphics and even invite others to collaborate live with you.

Mogulus currently has more than 60,000 producers online, creating and managing these channels. They are growing by 300 channels every day -- many of them run by media companies, including newspapers. But anyone can create and produce a channel.

Haot explains it like this: "TV is, most of the time, a pre-recorded scheduled broadcast that everyone watches together - synchronized. When there is a breaking event in the world or a scheduled live show, it can go live. If a Web producer wanted to do that, she would need to buy a lot of broadcast equipment, create a traditional channel and encode it for the Internet. We democratize the tools TV stations have access to and put them into a network- based platform – a Flash-based studio -- that allows anyone to do exactly the same thing on the Internet."

Haot said The Indianapolis Star puts its latest clips on Mogulus software and schedules them just like a TV station. If there is a live event, the Star reporters break in and broadcast it to thousands on their Website, with the use of a camera and a wireless connection. When reporters live-streamed a press conference with Hillary Clinton and the paper's editorial board, it wasn't just a Webcast followed by a blank screen. The live segment rolled into the existing video the Star had on its Mogulus player - snappy graphics and all.

This ability to host a 24-hour video feature on a site provides a lot of novelty for the viewer. They know that there will be new content there, already selected for them. Haot believes there is a place for what he calls ‘linear TV' on the Web vs. the on-demand video we are used to from the YouTubes of the world. Just like in your living room, sometimes consumers want to have a place where you can kick back and be passive. You don't always want to interact and troll for what you want on the Web. Mogulus channels help you watch a source you know and trust who has done the selection for you and may even break in live occasionally. For example,NLL (National Lacrosse league) puts clips into a Mogulus player and refreshes them regularly. They are generating 10 times more views by featuring 24-hour video than they were featuring on-demand video alone. Just one more way for a media company to enhance the offerings it provides its users online.

So the Newseum is right. Anyone can be a TV reporter. But what's really amazing is that with the tools available on the Internet, you can be a TV producer too.


What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.

Annette Moser-Wellman is President of Firemark, Inc., an innovation consultancy, and author of "Running While The Earth Shakes: Creating An Innovation Strategy To Win In The Digital Age," published by Media Management Center. She teaches in MMC's Advanced Executive Program and Digital Strategies for Media Executives seminars.

This TechScout article is part of a new series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. Click here to view others in the TechScout series.