AccuWeather, Inc. has added a powerful tool to its StoryTeller Interactive Touchscreen System that allows broadcasters to share viewer-generated opinions and comments on air.
The new Social Media app, designed as a premium, subscription-based application for the StoryTeller system, easily imports social commentary from a variety of today’s most popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and more. This app allows newsroom personnel to quickly and easily aggregate user-postings, pre-screen content for on-air appropriateness, and then organises the postings to enhance story flow. On-air personalities can then easily scroll through posts, easily zooming and telestrating highlights.
“What makes the Social Media application so appealing to broadcasters,’ says Ryan Ayres, vice president of AccuWeather’s Display Systems and Services division, “is how it truly opens up a whole new dimension of “conversation’ with viewers. No longer do stories and events need to be treated as a one-way form of communication. We’ve made it easy and flexible for broadcasters to bring their audience into the story, virtually on the fly, so there’s a real sense of immediacy and relevance.’
According to Ayres, the Social Media app and others in the StoryTeller app suite were developed as a, proactive response to AccuWeather’s broadcast partners’ needs. Continues Ayres, “Given AccuWeather’s strong record of delivering timely weather content, combined with our rapid growth in digital and social platforms, we certainly understood the value of including social content in news stories. We took our own experience with app design in the mobile space and created an easy-to-use application that our StoryTeller partners can deploy for virtually any type of story. The response has been overwhelmingly popular, with newsrooms and broadcasters quickly discovering an entirely new dimension of storytelling.’
In addition to the new Social Media app, the multi-touch StoryTeller system is also supported by a library of other easy-to-use, customisable applications, including those for real-time traffic and weather, along with others designed specifically to demonstrate maps, polling, timelines, comparisons and more. The system even incorporates live HD and SD video.
