Professional multi-clipping for the 21st century
Hello Current blog readers! By now most of you are getting used to the new release and the updates to the Current.com submission tool. There’s a lot of new ways to do things (check Mario’s blog post for a really good overview of the new goods), so today I’m gonna give a quick rundown of what I have hastily named ‘multi-clipping’ (if you have a better name for it please email me at bdorries@current.com).
What is multi-clipping?
Multi-clipping occurs when you to add multiple sources to the description field of your story. Instead of only getting to choose media from one source, you now get to browse all the media from each available source. All you have to do is copy/paste the URL of your sources (as many as you want) into the bottom of your description text and the submission tool will do the rest.
Why so many sources?
Submitting multiple sources has two (that we’ve discovered so far) really beneficial and distinct applications.
- Keep us updated. Let’s say a story breaks at 10:00 AM about jellyfish capsizing a Japanese fishing boat. It’s a really awesome story, it gets featured on the homepage and lots of people are commenting on it. Two hours later at 12:00 PM another source reports that it wasn’t a Jellyfish at all but a Giant Squid – this is when you need to multi-clip. Instead of going through all the trouble of changing the source article and finding an appropriate image, simply post the URL of the updated story in the description field. After that just add some text updating your readers about the break in the story – and boom goes the dynamite – we’re up to date.
- Let us know what you’re thinking (my favorite). Just like before, a jellyfish has capsized a Japanese fishing boat. This reminds you of an article you read a couple years ago about a killer jellyfish population explosion as well as an article that gave some insight into possible causes and effects of the jellyfish population explosion. It’s time for multi-clipping. Copy/paste the sources, choose your media and let us know what you’re thinking!
Those are just two possible applications for multi-clipping, if you find any more please let me know about them. And as always please let us know how it’s going on our Get Satisfaction page. We’ll have plenty more tips and tricks about the submission tool and other updates coming up in days to come – so check back often!
Thanks,
-Ben
bdorries@current.com
P.S. Here’s a great example of multi-clipping from Current online-producer Andrew Fitzgerald :
http://current.com/items/91327125_honduras-reaches-deal-zelaya-returning-to-power.htm
