Mobile Short Video Platform Tout Partners With Wall Street Journal On Political Convention Content

Launched in conjunction with the start of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL, the mobile short video company Tout has announced a global partnership with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which is called WSJ Worldstream and is part of WSJ Live, their existing video initiative.

WSJ Worldstream is being touted (pun intended) as "video for the social media and mobile age," according to a WSJ press release. Over 2,000 reporters will be using Tout's app on their iPhones to shoot under-60 second videos, which are then vetted by editors, and then posted to the stream. With the goal of being more real-time in their reporting, reporters will use a custom Tout video publishing app that they hope shrinks the time between shooting and posting to just a few minutes.

The WSJ's short videos will also be embedded into their longer stories when appropriate.

“Our video viewership has more than doubled in the past six months to over 20 million streams, and the creation of this video blog is a milestone in the expansion of video at the Journal,” said Alan Murray, deputy managing editor and executive editor, online, for WSJ.

The WSJ isn't the first media company to use Tout - there have been quite a few - but it's a huge and important one. Video "unlocks" traditional newspapers from the text form factor. Even the adoption of Twitter - revolutionary for newspaper reporters - was a real-time text extension of the existing medium to some degree. Real-time video embedded on a dedicated website and app, and within online news writing in longform is more of a revolutionary rather than evolutionary step for the WSJ, in my estimation.

Applications of this will vary widely; consider covering the Republican Convention vs. an NBA Finals game vs. the war in Syria.

You can see the WSJ Worldstream here: https://wsj.com/worldstream It also comes in app form. WSJ will not only be in Tampa but also in Charlotte for the Democratic National Convention.

Tout has been around for a couple of years. It has "bite-size video" competitors like Viddy. But this is an interesting step in a more business-oriented direction for Tout. They've also partnered with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which is also a Series B investor in the San Francisco-based company.