According to CNN's General Manager of CNN.com Kenneth Estenson, CNN.com currently gets about 1.7 billion page views and 100 million video views every month. In total the CNN homepage has been called up over 120 billion times since its first iteration in 1996.

CNN clearly put a lot of thought into this redesign. As William Hsu, CNN's VP for News Advertising Sales for Asia Pacific told Exchange4media.com earlier this week, the CNN team "did a lot of research, biometric research, in Europe" (update: a CNN spokesperson just told us that this study was done independent of the site redesign). According to Hsu, these studies showed that very few users ever went beyond the current homepage. Because of this, the new homepage will show far more content but will also make it easier for readers to navigate the site.

More Emphasis on Video - Including Videos from TED

At today's press event, CNN also stressed that the new site will integrate more of its TV product. Instead of keeping video and text separate, the new CNN.com will bring the two together. 50% of CNN's users already watch both the video and read the story, so bringing the two closer together is a smart move for CNN. CNN also announced a partnership with TED, which will bring TED videos to a completely new audience.

NewsPulse

The new homepage will also have a new feature called 'NewsPulse.' This will allow users to reorganize news stories by correspondent, subject, or keyword. Today's press event was low on specifics, but this looks like a good way to personalize CNN's homepage and to find interesting content on the site.

Similarity to CNN Go

CNN also recently launched CNN Go, which focuses on news for the Asian market and also has a more magazine-like layout.

What About the Competition?

We have also heard that MSNBC will soon launch a redesign of its own. While we aren't aware of any specifics yet, the new MSNBC will focus on adding value to news wire stories by bringing together more material from NBC's affiliates and a larger focus on interactive elements designed specifically for MSNBC.

The choice of the fake user's "real" name, username, avatar, and bio are typical examples of the kind of crass and often tasteless humor that runs rampant on anonymous forums like 4chan. The new Twitter account clearly refers to Joseph Fritzl, the Austrian who, unknown to the rest of his family, imprisoned his daughter in his house's basement for 24 years until his double life finally unraveled last year.

Not all of the humor on 4chan is this crass, however. The site, after all, was also the breeding ground for popular Internet memes like Rickrolling and lolcats.

While the members of 4chan's 'random' board (often referred to as /b/) first tried to manipulate twitter with automated scripts that set up fake accounts, they weren't able to hack Twitter's captcha process, which is probably the reason why even the enterprising 4chan pranksters haven't been able to reach more than 200,000 followers for their fake account yet. Knowing 4chan, however, we don't expect them to give up anytime soon, and we wouldn't be surprised if they managed to break Twitter's captcha at some point as well.

If you would like to see how exactly this hack works, here are the instructions that one of 4chan's members created for the rest of the /b/ community.

Oprah Might Just Win this Race

However, given that Oprah is going to talk about Twitter on her show tomorrow, there is still a good chance that she will pass by Kutcher, CNN, and 4chan's BasementDad in no time.

Moot

The members of 4chan's /b/ board also made the news a bit earlier this week, when they manipulated a Time.com poll so that it featured the name of 4chan founder 'moot' as the most influential person in the world.

Where is Twitter?

Interestingly, Twitter, which should be aware of the sudden rash of fake accounts that all subscribe to only one user, hasn't closed this account yet.

Update: We just head from Twitter's Biz Stone. Twitter is aware of this situation and "and will react accordingly."

Note: we did not include a link to 4chan in this post, as a lot of the material there is NSFW (or worse). If you insist on going there, a quick Google search for 4chan will do the trick.

If there was any doubt of the power this platform provides, we've just witnessed an incredible - if not historic - example of what it can do. President Obama's inauguration is sure to knock Facebook Connect ahead of its main competitor in the realm of portable social identities, Google Friend Connect, whose current claim to fame is a blog widget that does little more than the falling-from-grace Yahoo's MyBlogLog widget does now, save for some over-hyped integration with social services like Twitter, Plaxo, and Orkut.

In the end, not only did Facebook Connect provide an interactive look into the thoughts and feelings of all those watching CNN's coverage via the web - it did so without crashing. According to the statistics, there were 200,000+ status updates, which equaled out to 3,000 people commenting on the Facebook/CNN feed per minute. Right before Obama spoke, that number grew to 8500. Additionally, Obama's Facebook Fan Page has more than 4 million fans and more than 500,000 wall posts. (We wonder if anyone on his staff will ever read all those!).

CNN didn't do too badly either. They broke their total daily streaming record, set earlier on Election Day, and delivered 5.3 million streams. Did you have trouble catching a stream? We didn't hear of any issues, but if you missed out, you can watch it again later today. CNN will replay the live video at 3 PM,  5 PM,  9 PM, and 12 midnight (EST) on cnn.com/video.

For more political coverage as it relates to the web, see also our post from last night 7 Online Things You Can Do to Help Obama Restore America.

According to citizen reporter, Johntw: "Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack." Apple quickly squashed the story, claiming it to be untrue. Did citizen journalism just fail us? You bet it did.

The report about Steve Jobs appeared on CNN's citizen journalism site, iReport this morning. It read as follows:

Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable. I haven't seen anything about this anywhere else yet, and as of right now, I have no further information, so I thought this would be a good place to start. If anyone else has more information, please share it.

Silicon Alley Insider then proceeded to follow up, making phone calls to Apple. They were able to reach Katie Cotton, Vice President of Worldwide Communications, who replied saying "It is not true."

This Is Trouble

The question was then raised: do false reports like this damage CNN's credibility? The answer is yes, absolutely. This particular report may even lead to an SEC investigation where CNN will be asked to provide an IP address for the user who posted the story.

The problem here stems from the fact that because CNN has obviously decided not to police or edit the iReport section of their web site, the section is left wide open to "reporters" who want to wreak a little havoc.

But who are these citizen journalists? And how easy is it to become one?

Apparently, it's as easy to become a citizen journalist on CNN as it is to sign up for a new web app from an internet startup, if not easier. The process involves nothing more than filling out a name, screen name, and email address. Adding a phone number is optional and only necessary if you want the story to be considered by CNN. There's a CAPTCHA to prevent bots and an email confirmation link, but thanks to disposable email addresses, those are practically a waste of time these days.

Above: The Registration Form - Congratulations, You're A Journalist!

While most citizen journalists take their responsibility seriously as reporters of actual news, it's apparent that with iReport, just as with any web site on the internet today, there is going to be someone who decides to have a little sick "fun" with it. Who is the reporter by the name of Johntw anyway? As far as we could tell, the only way to get in touch with the reporter is through iReport's built-in messaging system. We sent him an email asking him why he reported this story, but it remains unanswered. In our minds, we're already imagining an adolescent kid who's having a good laugh with their friends this morning over how they just "punked" CNN.

We're interested in seeing how will CNN respond to this muddying of their good name. Will they disassociate themselves a bit from iReport? Or will they just be happy for the pageviews it brought? And will this give pause to other news outlets thinking of launching citizen journalism sites of their own? It's very possible. In these tough economic times, news reports that affect how the markets move are taken very seriously. Had the timing of this report been different, Apple stock could have really suffered. Fortunately, the rebuttal today came out fast enough that it shouldn't have any long-term effects. Next time, we may not be so lucky.

As Erik Berlin also points out, offering embeddable video should be a no-brainer for content producers. Indeed, one could argue that the success of entertainment sites like Hulu can at least be partly attributed to the fact that their videos can be embedded. Among some of the recent converts to embeddable video are the Internet outpost for South Park, which is making clips from all episodes of the popular animated show available for embedding. MSNBC enabled embedding in January this year and both CBS and ABC announced the availability of embeddable clips from news and entertainment programs.

Here is Dan's comment, with some great advice for big media companies using web 2.0 technologies...

"The top concern many media companies had initially when venturing into web 2.0 was moderation of conversation features such as comments. The truth is you can’t grow a community without it but with some clever thinking the hurdles were overcome. Take the New York Times for example, they have now embraced it and as result have shifted into a gear that enables them to grow.

I think moderation of community and content are the biggest factors in stopping media companies in taking social media a step further; they are frightened of the unpredictability of the medium but they have the resources to do it. It’s great to see CNN take the social web seriously.

One suggestion in resolving the accuracy problem is a self policing community – where the community governs the content via voting on whether or not it is appropriate and accurate. Slashdot.com did this even before web 2.0 was a popular term. It worked extremely well ensuring quality content. It’s simple features like this which can save a lot of resources and hassle."

Great points Dan. For everyone else, be sure to comment (or trackback) tomorrow to be in to win a $30 Amazon gift voucher - we're giving one away every day for the next month.

The new site, according to Mediaweek who got an advanced look at the site, will be completely open in terms of what users can upload. Users will be in charge of deciding what constitutes news, and which submissions should be removed from the site. "The community will decide what the news is," CNN News EVP Susan Grant told Mediaweek. "We are not going to discourage or encourage anything -- iReport will be completely unvetted." (Though CNN will monitor the site for inappropriate content.)

Mediaweek says that the new site will look and feel a lot like YouTube and will also feature the usual community features, such as the ability to rate and discuss videos, and embed them on other pages.

CNN recently paid $750,000 for the domain names "ireport.com" and "i-report.com," so this is clearly something they are serious about. And they should be. As we've noted in the past, citizen journalism is fast growing in importance. The only way to keep up with a shrinking news cycle, is to have distributed reporting capable of capturing breaking news as it happens. Often times, the people best suited to report breaking news are amateurs. CNN saw that happen with last year's California wild fires, when much of their most compelling footage came in via i-Report.

"The real contribution of citizen journalists in a story like this, where whole areas of land are closed off and the fields of greatest danger keep shifting, is in having more eyes on the ground," Thomas Hollihan, a professor of media at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, told the Baltimore Sun. "Citizen journalists are swapping information back and forth - reporting where the flames are now headed or showing images on their cell phones of the fire. And with so much happening so quickly, that kind of information can be really powerful - if it is accurate."

Accuracy is a potential concern for CNN, who have had editors vetting users submissions before allowing them on the web. CNN's Susan Grant said the network will be clear about labeling the new iReport site as a "post-moderated site" (i.e., moderated after posting, rather than before) and that the views put forth in videos uploaded to the site don't necessarily reflect those of CNN.

But accuracy concerns aside, not embracing citizen journalists, or at the very least their tools and methods, seems to be something that the mainstream media can't afford to do. As Scott Karp says, "The news business -- and the journalism it supports -- can no longer afford to wait for innovation to happen in due time. It needs to happen NOW."

CNN Election Center 2008

In our opinion, CNN has by far the slickest and easiest to navigate election site out of all the major mainstream news media sources. They have a well designed, easy to navigate, and clearly laid out page that puts a wealth of information at your fingertips, including live election results, delegate counts, entrance and exit polls, candidate overviews, money charts, and general election info. If you're looking for just the straight state-by-state results, USA Today does a great job.

Politweets

Politweets is our favorite Twitter politics mashup. Last month we said that, "For political junkies, Politweet will be a must monitor web-site on every primary date this season until we know who the candidates for the general election are." Assuming Twitter can keep the lights on, Politweets will again be a must watch site throughout the day. Also check out the SuperTuesday Twitter stream from the Virtual Vantage Points blog.

Google Super Tuesday Map

In an effort to make sure Twitter goes down, Google has also teamed up with the service to create a maps mashup that shows Twitter updates about the primaries as they come in from across the country. It will display election results down to the county level after the returns are in, as well. The Google News team also slapped together an election gadget so you can embed state-by-state results on your web page.

YouTube YouChoose Super Tuesday

YouTube has a Google Maps mashup of their own that will aggregate and post geolocated videos throughout the day from candidates, news organizations, and YouTubers. The coverage isn't really restricted to Super Tuesday states, but it is still worth checking out -- many times the citizen journalist view is clearer than the one you get via mainstream sources.

MTV Choose or Lose Street Team

Speaking of citizen journalism, MTV's Street Team has citizen journalists dispatched to 23 Super Tuesday states to upload live and recorded mobile videos and blog posts throughout the day (absent is a representative from West Virginia, whose primary is actually May 13 -- the Republican party is awarding some delegates today via a statewide convention, however). Last week we called MTV's online election coverage a coup for citizen journalism.

Newsweek Live Webcast: Inside Super Tuesday

If mainstream journalism is more your thing, then Newsweek has you covered on the web. The magazine, along with owner the Wasington Post, is trotting out the heavy hitters for six continuous hours of live streaming web video coverage. Bob Woodward, Ben Bradlee, Sally Quinn, Howard Kurtz, and Leonard Downie will participate, with Newsweek editor Jon Meacham anchoring from Washingtonpost.com's headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. WaPo and Newsweek reporters Michael Isikoff, Howard Fineman, Jonathan Alter, and others, including those from online magazine Slate, will contribute reports throughout the evening. Newsweek's operation is aiming to bring the name appeal and polish of broadcast news to the web. We'll see if it works.

Memeorandum

From the maker of Techmeme, Gabe Rivera's political memetracker keeps a pulse on the political blogosphere. It's a safe bet everyone will be buzzing about Super Tuesday today, but what are the individual storylines that will no doubt permeate the coverage? Following the related and discussion links on Memeorandum will let you find out. For a broader view of what people are talking about on the blogosphere, check out PoliticalTrends.info.

In the IPO filing, Current describes their media model as "innovative but unproven".

For an in-depth analysis of the Current media model, which utilizes the Internet and user generated content far more than its TV network rivals, here is another look at our product-focused report on Current:

Introduction to Current

Current was founded by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore and launched August 1, 2005. Gore serves as its Chairman and has understandably been the focus of much of the media coverage Current has received. [FWIW I sat in Al Gore's office in my visit, although the man himself wasn't present] The TV Network and accompanying website specifically targets "young adults" - i.e. the MySpace and Facebook generation. The 'read/write' principle is very much in effect on the Network and website, because Current encourages TV viewers to create content and engage with it on a very interactive level. For example viewers can create their own ads, called vcams (for 'viewer created ads'; I was told that viewers much prefer them to professional ads). As of now, the Current TV Network reaches 52 M people worldwide, 42 M of those in the US.

Current's Pod format - more on this below

As a Reuters report on the current.com launch noted, Current aims to be "the first fully integrated online and television network". Website users can create their own content, and there is a digg-style interface for voting on it. Comments on stories may include text, video, photos and other forms of media. For example users can post a YouTube video. The Current folks told me that in the private beta, they noticed that users would post videos and other media that was only tangentially related to the original story - which they said produced a more diverse conversation around a topic. Current.com was in a private beta for about 8 weeks before its launch last week.

Another thing to note is that Current is not purely user-generated - it has a strong editorial voice and many of the frontpage stories are editorially selected.

Viewpoints

The first innovative feature I want to highlight is Viewpoints, which is a part of the .com site that Al Gore himself envisaged. It's a facewall based around a specific topic; usually political or current affairs based. When you first navigate to the Viewpoints page, there is a tagcloud of topics, which then desolves into a facewall of the main topic - today it is "Torture In War". When you click on a face, a 1 minute video of that person opens. There are 11-12 topics currently, many of them related to the US election. Al Gore himself has posted to Viewpoints, but the Current team were quick to tell me that Gore is just one of the wall of faces - and doesn't get special treatment. Gore hopes this type of system will encourage politicians to become more topic-focused in the election and other politcal issues.

The design is stunning, but more importantly the format works - you're limited to 1 minute to make your point and the community can vote and respond with their own 1-minute videos. The example below shows a video with a 73% disapproval rating and it was responded to by 1 person. The Current folks told me that this format results in more nuanced, personal opinions. Because it is "peer to peer" (in the human sense), people can quickly influence their peers by uploading their viewpoint. What's more, the best of these clips will be run on Current's TV shows.

'On TV' and the Concept of Pods

The other main feature on the Current.com website that impressed me was the wagon wheel-like TV programming guide. It is under the tab labeled On TV. It uses a concept called "pods", which were described to me as Current's form of programming. Each pod is a chunk of content, displayed on an interactive wheel. Here is a screenshot:

As with Viewpoints, the pods are visually very slick and interactive. I really have to tip my hat to the Current designers, they have done a great job with the site.

The philosophy behind the pod is fascinating too. It's designed to cater to their young audience - who are prone to multi-tasking. I was told that 70-75% of Current's audience has a computer in the room while they watch TV. And while they are watching TV, they are interested in learning more about what they're watching - e.g. constantly refreshing the website and getting content from their community. That's the theory anyway, and the pod format was built around it. The UI makes it very simple to consume the media (video, music), click on responses (uploaded community videos), find related information, even do "assignments" about the topic. As well as showing what times the shows are on TV, of course.

Current's Joshua Katz (President of Marketing) described the pod to me as "what FM radio used to be in the early days", when one song led to another and there were connections - and (back then) there was still a wide variety of content.

A note on the Current demographic: it is roughly 18-34 years old, but perhaps more importantly they're targeting "influencers" - people who want new info constantly, share it via the Web, and have on average 25-60 people who they interact with online (IM with, etc). This is the Internet age audience, not couch potatoes with a remote control glued to their hand.

Conclusion: Reaching for New Form of TV

What I like about Current, apart from the awesome design, is that they're attempting to change the way television is consumed and created. It's a much more interactive experience, where the audience participates and creates.

I buy the theory that young people are watching tv and on a computer accessing the Web at the same time. So the pod format is, in my view, an innovative new UI built around this new form of television watching. It's a bit like when Google created Gmail - they built it for the Web, rather than copying the desktop paradigm. Likewise, Current has developed their pod UI based on a new form of TV/Web experience, rather than copying traditional TV programming formats.

Of course, for any TV Network, the content has to be compelling - so it remains to be seen how Current fares long-term on that count. But on the technology and concepts behind Current, what do you think? Is this type of TV/Web format the future of TV?