For the data coordination, Yahoo built a proprietary software application that it calls the DataWrangler. When a guest brings up a subject or a particular stock, the person running the DataWrangler brings up relevant information and links and inserts those pages directly into the stream during the Webcast. It's kind of like a Chyron, but she can create things on the fly and she can react to what's happening in the studio quickly and pick things up there. If the guest comes in and brings up some other subject, she's right on it. At the same time that the data is put into the stream, it's also going into a guest list database, giving FinanceVision a running resource to draw upon for future visits.
Viewers see the ancillary data and links to the right of the video.
FinanceVision's clever, embedded-player page design splits the window into four quadrants. Presenting the guests' names and title information as HTML text in the adjoining window rather than as lower-third captions in the video stream lets users easily find archived FinanceVision interviews with specific guests. FinanceVision uses a PSMG GlobeCaster for switching needs and an Avid NewsCutter to prep commercials and wire stories. Outside feeds FinanceVision keeps cameras on the floors of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, and a camera at Merrill Lynch's New York City office. It's one-tenth the cost of a Vyvx feed.