The Gannett Company is now letting their journalists tell stories through virtual reality. The company that owns several of the highest circulating newspapers and television stations in the country released VR Stories yesterday, a free virtual reality app that places users inside of stories.
Users can download the app now from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store and control a 360 degree video stream from inside the Cincinnati Reds organization. They can also view the World Ski Championships in Colorado, feel what it was like to cross the Edmund Puttus Bridge in Selma on Bloody Sunday’s 50th anniversary, and be on the inside of a changing farming culture in Iowa.
Gannett will provide content for both single events and on a continual basis. Cincinnati Enquirer is gathering content with the Cincinnati Reds, and will provide new experiences for fans in print, online and now with virtual reality as the season progresses.
Fans can feel like they are members of the Red’s organization as they enter their locker room, step into the batter’s box as the team hits rounds, and try to catch a Joey Votto line drive.
“Virtual reality works well with sports because fans desire to participate in games and get to know their athletes,” said Mitch Gelman, vice president of products at Gannett Digital.
“The Cincinnati Enquirer, their terrific sports beats reporters, got to play with the technology, look at the camera, and they devised the storyline and the content that they wanted to gather,” Gelman said. ”It is the Reds’ beat reporters that enabled the access and used the relationships they have with the players and coaches to create this opportunity for their audience to get closer to the athletes and the game.”
VR Stories supports a standard view if you do not have a virtual reality headset. Standard view lets you move your phone to control where you are looking within the 360 degree video stream. Gannett created the mobile app for those who do not own a high end virtual reality headset like the Oculus Rift, so that you could use cardboard VR, a growing, low cost option to experience virtual reality through the app and a foldable piece of cardboard.
“There are three types of technologies being used in order to create the content,” Gelman said. “There is a 360 degree camera which auto stitches video images together into a complete 360 degree stream; Unity 3D, a game development engine that renders content so it appears in a three-dimensional environment, and Virtual Reality Viewing, which enables somebody to participate in the experience with either an Oculus Rift, or through a cardboard viewing case that uses your phone as the monitor.”
New stories are being added on a weekly basis
“Our next experience will be on the backside of Churchill Downs where you will be put on a horse and can hear what the jockey is hearing behind her, what she, in 360 degrees, is seeing ahead of her as the horses are training and preparing,” Gelman said. “We will have all of those experiences that bring you right onto the track for the derby.”
Gannett has been experimenting with new storytelling techniques and feels that virtual reality has the potential to create a new genre.
“These stories will take you places where you cannot go on your own. Whether it is into incredible spaces, or to hang out with extraordinary athletes who are rock climbing or hang-gliding,” Gelman said. “We will take people to places you want to be able to experience, but you cannot really do on your own. This helps us get you there.”
Virtual reality has not yet hit the mainstream consumer base, but Gelman believes it is only a matter of time before the technology catches on.
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“I had a friend who told me her son got accepted into a design college, and they sent the students the enrollment pack they included a cardboard VR viewer as part of the tools they are going to need,” Gleman said.” When I went to school it was a typewriter, by the time I graduated students were showing up with computers. I do not think we are that far from consumer accessible virtual reality viewers that will make this type of storytelling something people expect and appreciate.”
With VR Stories, the Gannett Company is getting a head start with virtual reality, a technology with seemingly endless potential. And they have already found a way to monetize the experience.
“This is the first virtual reality experience that has been sponsored by an advertiser. Cincinnati’s Christ Hospital is sponsoring it all through the season,” Gelman said. “What this tells us is that there are also revenue opportunities for advertisers who see this as a way to connect with a millennial audience, and it is a perception changer. “We expect all of our properties to use this technology for their viewers in order to add value to the product they are providing.”
You can now download VR Stories for free and experience the incredible feeling of knowing what it is like to be on the inside of your favorite sports, with or without a virtual reality headset.