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NINEMSN NEWSROOM requires Silverlight or Windows Media Player
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Fancy catching up on the lunchtime news right from your desk? Leading
Australian online portal ninemsn is looking to tap into workers hungry for some
lunchtime information, launching an online only live news bulletin.
The
live stream is billed as Australia's first live news bulletin produced
specifically for the web with he 10 minute bulletin to start at 12:30pm every
weekday, being replayed twice in the stream window. ninemsn
already provides live TV streams of Nine News at 6pm and the Today
Show.
"This is great news for the millions of hard-working
Australians who are stuck in the office without a TV." said Channel
Nine’s Head of News, Mark Calvert "They can be watching the show in a
window while they’re still doing emails or whatever, so even the
toughest bosses in the country should love it.”
ninemsn says
internal studies show nearly half of their users are jumping during
lunchtime to get their news and information fix. Two thirds of people
said they ate lunch at their desk once per week and nearly half are
eating in front of their computer three days a week or more.
“With
more than 9.9 million* people visiting ninemsn each month, we know that
many of those people like to check online news during the day,
particularly during their lunch break.” said Andrew Hunter, ninemsn’s Head of News, Sport and Finance
The streaming is based on either Microsoft Silverlight or Windows Media Player, shunning Flash which has become the
de-facto standard for online video, including
ninemsn's own video player.
This decision may cause a problems for some corporate users on high
security corporate networks, however they have successfully used the
technology for their own live streaming broadcasts.
The use of all Microsoft technology is not surprising considering the Redmond giant are an ninemsn partner.
Silverlight's power has recently been showcased with Bing's fancy looking
visual search, although the plugin is still not compatible with
Google Chrome, unless you plan on
playing around with a development build.
The first bulletin kicks off at 12:30pm AEST today with ninemsn stating a number of advertising packages relating to NINEMSN NEWSROOM will be available in the coming weeks.
