Thursday, May 15, 2008

Web Video: The New “Skip Intro”?

Chris Meyer | 05/15- 08:41 PM

Is video on the web being used as a way to avoid creating real content?

Remember when “Flash Intros” (or what Adobe would prefer me to call “introductory animations created with the software Adobe Flash,” lest I dilute their trademark) were all the rage? You had to have one play when a user first arrived at your site to be considered hip, media savvy, and up-to-date.

But in reality, most of these detracted from rather than added to a web site’s experience, resulting in lots of users clicking on the oft-included “skip intro” button so they could get to what they were really after: the content on a site. In the end, many were an annoyance rather than a value-add.

I’m beginning to fear that web video could suffer the same fate. I’m sure you and your client feel more hip, media savvy, and up-to-date when you include video on their site, but are you really serving their user by doing so?

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