Online Video is Boring

The history of video online is pretty incredible. In the early days, it was technologically impossible. Our modems were slow, connections shaky, and HTTP couldn't be trusted for large file downloads let along movies (remember when you had to choose between FTP and HTTP links? If not, you're not a geek, and that's okay, we love you anyway). Then it became technologically possible, but it was a pain. First you had to choose between Quicktime, Real Player and Windows Media, and then you had to choose your speed, and unless you had a blazing-fast ISDN line (remember those?), you got your video in an itty bitty little square. And the images were so blocky and choppy I had better luck stop-motion-animating my legos.

Then came YouTube. YouTube took the existence of certain technologies - Broadband Internet with Adobe Flash, Flash Video and Media Server - and innovated everything we know about online video. Now, basically everyone can partake of video online because nearly everyone has Flash player (and you can use it, mostly, on slow connections). And so blogs, Facebook & MySpace pages, and even news sites [iReport] are littered with funny little videos in 300 pixel boxes. But I'm still bored with it all.

You see, unless I'm just killing time with StumbleUpon, I generally go to a website for a particular purpose. I want to learn about the company, product, initiative. I want to buy something, review something, or interact. And in the web biz, when we want people to do these things we call 'em calls-to-action, and when they do them, that's called a conversion. And figuring out what does and doesn't generate the highest conversion rate is a whole psudeo-science unto itself. My boredom problem? I haven't seen a good example of connecting online video to the call-to-action.

Many producers are still separating out the technologies in their minds. Calls-to-action are often web forms or shopping carts. Videos are edutainment. Rich Internet Applications - configurators or product-explorers - are Flash / Flex widgets. But these are all separated - with separate development cycles, separate project managers, separate deployment schedules. And that makes for a really boring Internet.

I'd like to see more done with online video - a lot more. The video shouldn't be next to a call-to-action - they should be integrated together. When I have a little person talking to me in the little box, that person should be able to point to the actual button, form, or widget I'm supposed to use. If an online store has a video selling a product, why can't I add that product to my shopping cart in the video (and of course, see my total or other items in the video too)? And if you really want to get fancy, why can't the video respond to my actions? It's just a matter of videotaping a few extra scenes.

This stuff isn't hard - technologically it's all pretty easy, actually. But I think we're missing the technological producers who can see the big picture clearly enough, and understand the different technologies well enough, to link it all together. And until that happens, YouTube is just going to be a point-and-click player. :: snore ::