Reuters has signed up three new “end-to-end” media production apps to its Reuters Connect productivity suite, adding Stringr, Amper Music and InVideo in a move that neatly captures some of the ongoing disruption (and opportunities) in the media content world, as AI and smartphones transform content creation and access.
Reuters Connect was launched in 2017 for the news agency’s customers, as a marketplace for news content both from Reuters and third parties that lets buyers source videos, pictures, and text at speed. It features content from 40-plus providers including the BBC, CCTV, National Geographic, PBS NewsHour, PA Media and USA Today.
With media outlets scrambling to keep pace with user-generated content posted on social media, the apps all aim to make it easier for both news and enterprise buyers to generate the video or audio that they need, using some unique approaches.
Stringr
Stringr, dubbed an Uber for videographers”, has recruited a reported 7,000 UK-based videographers (anyone armed with a smartphone, although there is also a professional tier) to its network since opening an office in London in May, as the Drum reports. The company lets media firms put out alerts for B-roll footage, with those nearest to the requested incident able to accept or decline picking it up as a job.
Amper Music
Amper Music, meanwhile, lets enterprise or media teams compose customer music in seconds instead of trawling through stock music for the right fit. The company’s AI-generated soundtracks/background music is royalty free and comes with a “global, perpetual licence when synced to content”. As the company’s CEO Drew Silverstein explains to Hot Press: “If you say ‘Amper, we need you to create a piece of orchestral hip hop that feels determined’, it will figure out how to write the… music in [that] genre.”
InVideo
InVideo is a template-based, UX-focussed online video editing tool that aims to make it quick and easy to create, edit video on-demand. (CEO Sanket Shah said he is “delighted to bring our intelligent video maker to publishers across the globe.”)
The trio of new offerings are just the start of a range of new additions for subscribing users to Reuters Connect, Sue Brooks, the MD of Reuters product and agency, said. She added that the company created the Productivity Suite “in response to feedback from our customers, who have said they want simple, easy-to-use production tools and content. Our ‘one stop shop’ for content professionals is expanding and I am delighted to welcome Stringr, Amper Music and InVideo into our emporium!”
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