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By Anna Valmero INQUIRER.net IF a picture paints a thousand words, how about a series of still images combin ed with sound? During a forum with a group of Filipino photographers, international photojourn alist DJ Clark says today âs photojournalists deliver stories using not one but a series of still photos combined with short video clips and sound to form a seamless narrative â almost like a movie. This method, dubbed âstreaming media,â changes how photographers tell stories. By creating a series of still images and blending them with other content, such as audio and interviews, telling stories have become more interesting, he adds . âTraditionally, photographers have been viewed as predators to peopl eâs despair,â says DJ Clark in an interview with INQUIRER.net. âThrough streaming media, this traditional view has fundamentally changed. For example, in video interviews, the people in the story can voice their opinion a bout whatâs happening in the picture,â he says. Will this require photographers to become videographers? Yes and no. Says Clark, the photographerâs unique talent to capture highlights of events is the key talent involved in streaming media. Aside from capturing stills, they get to capture videos to accompany the stills and help them tell a better story. On top of that, photographers explore other content, such as audio to accompany the series of images. However, this does not mean that photographers do what v ideographers for television do. âIt is about producing a quality narrative material that people can view on a p latform like the Internet,â the British photojournalist says. He says that over time, people will chose to watch quality content on the Inter net over nonsensical videos currently topping the charts of video sites, such a s Youtube.com. At present, the concern is how to let purist photographers embrace the change i n approach to photography. People can view image over and over and examine it carefully, while video has a timeline. He says photographers should do bothâhave a series of still images that can sta nd on its own and can be part of the seamless streaming narratives. âThis will be the future of newspapers,â says Clark. Links

By Lawrence Casiraya INQUIRER.net HERE'S one of those someone-must-have-thought-about-it bright ideas: a browser- based video chat service. As described in this NYT story, TokBox has some good vibes about it: the people behind YouTube (including the unheralded "third" founder Jawed Karim) are also funding it. It reminds me of Meebo -- no need to install YM, MSN or Skype (a blessing for u sers whose office networks are firewall-protected and thus, IM-proof). Just log on and chat away; both you and your friend should have a webcam, of course. I've yet to try it myself to see how it compares with either YM or Skype (and s ee whether it runs properly on "broadband" in this country). But while reading about it, the first thing I thought about was how something like this makes it easier to teach Internet calls to the uninitiated. All you need is a good enoug h Internet connection and a few clicks should put you on VoIP mode.