One Minute News is designed to target millennials like me by telling stories in 60 seconds
Have you heard of One Minute News? A brand new site that launched earlier this month, MediaPost summarized the site nicely: “As its name implies, the online- and mobile-based news service specializes in “bite-sized” content, which it is both producing and aggregating.” An article on Yahoo went on to write that One Minute News is developed specifically “for Gen Y by Gen Y.”
Stories on One Minute News are designed to target millennials (21-35 year-olds) by telling the story in just 60 seconds. I have to say, though, as a 26-year-old, it doesn’t do it for me. I see three big problems with it:
- One minute isn’t enough time. Although the reporters are interesting, chipper and fun to watch, you can’t get much content in just 60 seconds. Maybe they could add a link to a full story if viewers want to know more?
- Browsing and searching isn’t easy. There are only 5 categories on the site: Trending News, Technology, Entertainment, Lifestyle and Sports. “Trending News” is a pretty wide range of topics. What if I want to watch news pertaining to just the USA? Or politics? What if I want news about the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan? Or, if I’m interested in sports, what if I only care about Baseball? I’d have to scroll through the stories to find topics I’m interested in. There isn’t even a search bar to look for stories about specific issues.
- The reporters don’t cite sources. They provide information about what’s going on, but they don’t include where they got this information. In a world where anyone can start a rumor with a Twitter post or make something up on their blog, I want to know that the people reporting the news are getting the facts from a reliable source. This problem could also be solved if there was a link to a full story for viewers that want to know more can click on.
One Minute News claims to “educate and guide people through the news…We ask simple to complex questions, weigh all sides and react naturally to things that concern or interest us,” which sounds like something I’d be interested. The finished product of a one-minute video about the Royal Wedding App isn’t what I care about when I look for news, though. Although I don’t crack open a printed newspaper, well…ever, I follow major news outlets on Twitter and Tumblr because I know they’ll provide a wide range of perspectives on a variety of topics. If I want to know more, they include links to the full story or related articles. If I want an update about a something specific, I can go to their website and search their content.
All in all, I don’t think One Minute News provides enough actual news for Gen Y – at least not yet. I want to hear your opinion, though. What do you think of One Minute News? How do you think it could improve?
Photo Credit: Ollie Crafoord
Hi Emily, I had no idea about this site! I actually like the idea of a 60-second story (I’m on the older side of Gen Y-ers). When I catch up on the news online, I always glance at headlines, then click on the articles that I feel I need to know more about. I probably then *glance* through most and rarely take more than 2 minutes reading an article. I usually want to get an understanding and feel of what’s going on more than to know the specifics and ins and outs (again, this is for my online reading; I’ll catch up with the magazine The Week in more detail).
I’m actually not a big fan of the video clips. I prefer reading at my own pace, but do see where the attraction in 60-second video news comes from for Gen Y-ers.
Great point about the reporters not citing their sources. They should probably have that part in writing below the video.
Interesting stuff!
Irene