NBC’s news division invests in short-form news startup

According to an article yesterday in the Media & Advertising section of The New York Times, NBCUniversal News Group announced today their partnership with NowThis News, "a start-up that creates short-form news segments tailored for distribution over social media sites like Vine, Instagram and Snapchat."

This move comes as media companies and broadcasting executives recognize that viewers are shifting from traditional and time-consuming television news consumption towards smartphone scanning, spending just a few seconds on each item - and that's if it catches their eye. Think of social platforms and apps like Twitter, Vine, Instagram, Digg, Flipboard and Snapchat, where news and entertainment is packaged into easily digested snippets to appeal to the always on-the-go and constantly connected consumer. NowThis News allows NBC's news content to be easily viewed and shared over these platforms.

NBC isn't the only media company catching on. AOL, Yahoo, and The Wall Street Journal are also investing in this growing business. NowThis News is backed by Kenneth Lerer. In what I found to be quite a jarring statement, Lerer tells The New York Times, “We are not doing long form, and by long form I mean anything over two minutes.” I am interested to see how this partnership manifests itself in my everyday news consumption.