This morning I read Chris Baggott was asking whether video is deserving of the attention it’s getting. I think the short answer is no. I’ve always been impressed with Gartner’s Hype Cycle which is a nice model for explaining some of this (and predicted the bursting of the bubble, speaking of hype).
I was trying to find an image of Gartner’s and came across this post from Mike Slinn. I’ve never heard from him but this post completely kicks ass. In fact, stop reading this garbage I’m writing and go read that. Make sure you understand it and email me if you have any questions.
Ok, so if you bothered to come back (thank you),now we are on the same page and you can see that both Second Life and online video are starting to cross the inflection point on the hype curve. At podcamp Toronto there were some folks saying the SL emperor has no clothes (my absurd copywriting, but I think they would agree with the intent). And I and many others have joked about online video becoming one big “laugh at guys getting kicked in the balls” film festival.
I’m most fascinated with, and trying to come up with a theory about the viral spread of video – it’s something like viral intensity. Video does spread like wildfire, faster than blogs, which are faster than podcasts, but the impact seems to be just as fleeting (and, ergo, ROI). Look at the stories like the producers of lonelygirl, getting millions of hits but not generating anything for them as far as business (at least that’s the word on the web, I haven’t actually heard that from them so that could be BS).
More to think about, but I’m going to go back to laughing at guys getting kicked in the balls.
One reply on “Video Inflection Point”
In my line of work, I run into people all the time of varying backgrounds, and I can say this with a reasonable degree of confidence: the literacy level of the average person is declining. Each year, it seems like spelling gets worse, it seems like grammar degrades a step further, and people are less and less willing to read stuff (most especially those pesky loan disclosure terms).
I recently sat down next to a girl on a plane who explained to me succinctly why MySpace is hot and email is not – she navigates visually. Click on a person’s face rather than try to remember what their email address is.
Video is garnering buzz faster than anything else because of a few factors, in my view. First, video is shorter than audio in terms of online content. The length of a video episode on average is much shorter than the length of an audio episode of a podcast. Second, video is incredibly familiar to most people – it’s TV, only on a PC instead of a tube in the living room. Third, video tools out there make it incredibly easy to share, whereas audio tools and text tools do not. Finally, there’s that whole literacy thing.
Views from the peanut gallery.