What’s holding back virtual reality news? Slow tech adoption, monetization, and yes, dull content – Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard

For news organizations, the promise of VR has been marred by a handful of challenges that have so far made it difficult to justify wholesale investment in the technology.

VR has emerged from its early experimentation phase and is now bedding down in news organizations as they address the challenges of content and user experience, writes Zillah Watson, the reports author, who has also headed up BBCs own VR efforts. But it is still some years from what it could become in the same way that, ten years ago, no one could have foreseen the role today of social media.

So whats holding things back? Watson, who talked to 20 sources from news organizations at different stages of investment in VR, cites a few persistent challenges:

Technical limitations are also an issue on the production side. While cheaper VR-enabed cameras have lowered the barrier to entry, VR production is still held back a lack of standards and an overabundance of walled gardens that complicate the process of developing for multiple platforms. For smaller news organizations, these factors have made investing in the tech a non-starter.

One thing many agree on, though, is that a video has to make sense for VR. Jason Farkas, CNNs president of premium content, said that 360 video in particular needs to pass what he calls the witness test: Is this a story where presence in the room, or the city, or the square helps you understand the story more deeply?

One of the most vital open questions for VR is how news organizations will make any money from it. So far, most news organizations have embraced either partnerships with tech companies orbranded content deals with advertisers to fund their VR projects but neither model feels like a viable longterm answer to the monetization question. The equation couldchange as VR wins over more consumers, however, making advertising a more compelling option.

Despite these issues, news organizations are still pushing ahead with creating VR content, in part because doing so helps brand them as innovative and forward thinking, as Watson writes.

Forward-thinking organizations want to be positioned to embrace it and dont want a repeat of how they were left behind by the Web. And to the extent that such tech experimentation is seen as important for the brands, simply doing it could be seen as a success in itself.

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What's holding back virtual reality news? Slow tech adoption, monetization, and yes, dull content - Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard