Is Video the New Reading?
November 2, 2011
Something quite intriguing happened this fall, and chances are if you are reading this, you were probably involved.
Stats released by comScore Video Metrix showed that 182 million U.S. Internet users watched 39.9 billion videos in September; meaning 85.3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience watched online video content for an average of 19.5 hours per viewer. Search Engine Watch tells us more in the article, “85.3% of the U.S. Internet Audience Viewed Online Videos in September 2011”:
Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in September with 161 million unique viewers. Even the most watched network television prime-time broadcasts – including multiple Super Bowls, mini-series, series finales, special events, and regular television shows – haven’t reached that many Americans.
Amazing. And what were we watching? Jennifer Lopez, rap covers by children, people getting hurt, and other very worldly, intelligent pieces. It makes me very proud of our society. Hey, at least there wasn’t a funny cat video on the Top 40.
Video is becoming more accessible and easy to use online, but users need to remember that point-and-click and easy may not equal knowledge. The future of search is apparently mobile and touch – which we aren’t so sure about.
Perhaps Google isn’t so sure either? This might be the reason some Google executives are sending their children to the Waldorf school in Los Altos where computers are not used until the 8th grade. At this school – computers aren’t allowed in the classroom and are frowned upon being used at school.
The growing trend is discussed in the article, “Some Googlers Don’t Want Their Kids Using Google Products,” which tells us:
‘At Google and all these places, we make technology as brain-dead easy to use as possible,’ [Google executive Alan Eagle] told the Times.
So who are these ‘brain-dead’ users? The rest of us who cannot afford to spend over $17,000 a year on elementary school? The children in third world countries?
The school backs its methods with high rates of graduates going to college and gaining post graduate degrees – not for an instance thinking it could be the influence of the educated parents who would see this not happening as failure.”
I believe the video stats I cited earlier make it very clear that, like it or not, books are not exactly the future. What’s the future of search in a semi-literate video saturated world? Yikes.
Andrea Hayden, November 2, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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