Fox Chicago Journalists Seek to Bring News Alive Online

The vast majority of the streams utilize the Windows Media format, but Baron said the site can display feeds in Flash, QuickTime, RealMedia, or any other format that is embeddable. The site also features a live video feed powered by the Mogulus player in which moderators from around the world answer user questions and direct visitors to the top feeds of the day. According to Baron, Mogulus is considered a vendor, but the site has no formal business arrangement with the company.

The Numbers Game
LiveNewsCameras.com is free for users, who can watch any stream they choose without registering. Also, there currently are no advertisements to monetize the site’s content. Finlayson said that the site is currently being paid for out of the Fox News Chicago newsroom budget and that ads will eventually be included to offset costs and, hopefully, turn a profit. However, he said his goal is to get the site working properly before trying to make money.

"The old way of thinking is get the ads on, figure out how to make money, and do that, and the new way is, ‘Let’s get it working, get it right, make it a good experience, make sure it works right, and then the money will come,’" he said.

While they could not say how many users visit the site daily because of fluctuating numbers depending on the news of the day, Finlayson and Baron both said they were happy with the amount of traffic the site has received so far, especially since it is still in beta. Finlayson said the site has attracted a large audience of EMS workers, firefighters, emergency responders, and weather people who watch the streams and use the site’s chat function, which requires users to complete a free registration process to use, to provide "expert information" on what they are seeing.

Baron, meanwhile, said one stream of Fox News Chicago’s weather radar was watched by 2,800 to 3,000 people on the weekend of June 7-8. He said the numbers bode well for the site’s acceptance.