TAKEAWAY: A simple quasi multi-media story, the Winter Olympics and The New York Times. Perhaps a template of what can be done without an avalanche of bells and whistles.
I enjoyed reading a piece titled Fourth in The New York Times. I read it in my iPad and this is as simply as anyone can go into the realm of multimedia—-not that there was much “multi” to the definition of multi here.
The story is what it’s like to just miss an Olympic medal by seconds.
Four athletes are profiled, each recounting the experience of his “almost” medal. The multimedia element is audio. Each athlete tells his story. In addition there are short texts to go with each profile.
A graphic timeline shows how close each athlete was to winning that medal.
That’s it.
I admit that I kept touching the timeline to see if it would lead me somewhere. Not a happy finger, but, nothing major.
The takeaway here is that almost any publication can attempt a story like this, add dimension via audio, and enhance the user’s experience.
For the record, this Times story included credit for 10 producers.
That is a bit difficult to understand, and it is likely to scare off those who lesser means to attempt this. I still think it can be done without a cast of dozens!