Live from the Voices That Matter conference, author Richard Harrington reveals what’s next beyond YouTube and why offering consumers the ability to download your content is imperative. He also talks about Facebook’s platform, video user statistics, demographics, what constitutes an optimal distribution plan for publishers, and why “video is the new photography.”
Note: video tested and known to work in Firefox and Safari; may have issues with IE7.
I subscribed to this site and find it quite useful.
I don’t know why I should go to Facebook and become a “member” there, to see this video. I’m not the slightest bit interested in becoming a facebook member.
Call me a contrarian. I just don’t have time to become a member of too many sites - especially sites not directly tied to my industry. I don’t have time to become a “member” because it’s the “in” thing to do and everybody else does it.
I know, I don’t have to join facebook; nobody is forcing me to.
And I am not. Sorry I missed this video but time is valuable.
Posted by wsmith on 07/29 at 11:09 AM
While I am using the Facebook player, the video is set so ALL can see. You don’t need a Facebook account in order to watch the clip.
Just click Play.
Posted by Richard Harrington on 07/29 at 11:24 AM
Glad to hear that. However, clicking on the middle of the screen does nothing. Clicking on the title at bottom of screen takes me to the Facebook login page.
Am I missing something?
Thanks!
Posted by wsmith on 07/29 at 11:47 AM
There is a triangle in the lower right corner that should start the movie
Posted by Richard Harrington on 07/29 at 11:52 AM
I don’t see that control.
I’m using IE 7. (as a web designer I use that because most people do and I need to be on the same page as them, so to speak…)
Posted by wsmith on 07/29 at 12:17 PM
well… as a media creator…
it uses Flash, and is fully compliant.
IE7 sucks… hate to say it but its true.
You can also view the video here if you are so inclined.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#1Kn7NH/www.peachpit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=95a4cb56-d151-4218-91ea-ec0ee53a3f57/
Posted by Richard Harrington on 07/29 at 06:35 PM
I the next major breakthrough will be to EASILY access web video on TV screens. I’m aware that there are a few nascent efforts like Apple TV, Boxee, etc, but for now these solutions are either buggy and unreliable or deliberately constrained by the manufacturers.
Anyway I expect that finding the ideal hosting site will continue to be a moving target as audience interests and expectations change.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/29 at 07:33 PM
I’m also a media creator (as well as a web designer) and I’m fully aware of how much IE “sucks.”
As I said, I’m using IE (among other browsers when testing page display) for reasons I think illustrate what is problematic here.
So IE sucks and Flash is “fully compliant” but I still cannot see the start button. Who’s problem is this really? I suppose since this is free video, it’s my problem.
I wish everyuser would use what everydesigner and everycreator (and I) thinks is superior but that is exceedingly unlikely to ever happen.
I’m well-paid for the online video work I do for a number of well-known organizations nationwide. I wish I could just foresake the users who aren’t in line with what I regard as superior or convenient for my particular workflow.
I will go to the alternative link you provided.
Thanks!
Posted by wsmith on 07/30 at 10:33 AM
By the way, if any IE users here are able to see and click the start button please let us/me know.
(For what it’s worth, I’m using a 24” BenQ 1900x1200 pixel LCD monitor.)
Posted by wsmith on 07/30 at 10:43 AM
wsmith-
Stop being a d*ck. Rich is offering his knowledge up for free. As a web designer, you may have heard about running multiple browsers on a single OS. Go download Safari or Firefox and stop wasting Richard’s time.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/30 at 12:11 PM
Hi Aschin,
May I ask you a question? Who asked you?
Posted by wsmith on 07/30 at 02:40 PM
wsmith-
Sticking up for Rich and all of the other hardworking people who dedicate their time and energy to provide quality content at absolutely no charge.
So stop wasting everyone’s time and go back to your “well-paid” online video work.
I’m out.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/30 at 05:21 PM
This has nothing whatsoever to do with you so your comments are dismissed by me.
Please be advised: I will say what I wish, whenever I wish, without regard to anything you may think or have to say about it whatsoever.
So far it is you who is in violation of the rules here and that’s what I would be concerned about if I were you.
Moreover, I take personal offense at the language you have directed at me. Quite easy to do online…
Thanks for your understanding.
Posted by wsmith on 07/31 at 02:59 PM
It is JUST a video
There are 2 links.
One shoudl work for you.
If not… upgrade your media player. This is a site about professional video… I assume the audience has Flash and QuickTime installed.
I also assume they are willing to use a browser that actually meets the W3C browser specs.
Move on. Watch the video, feel free to discuss it. But stop whining.
Posted by Richard Harrington on 07/31 at 03:03 PM
Thanks Richard.
(pro web designers are condemned to use IE as much as possible, for viewing pages created by others (so that we may avoid any pitfalls experienced by other designers)
Insofar as the general public refuses to boycot IE, we pro designers must deal with that and design accordingly. It is for that reason, only, that the W3C browser specs are rather meaningless, in practical terms.
(Maybe this is a problem caused by the designer of the PVC site and not anything you did?) Or, maybe it’s a Facebook problem.
This is the first time I’ve seen a video posted on Facebook and delivered externally embedded outside of Facebook.com Insofar as your video discusses the virtues of certain video delivery platforms, Facebook included, I must say that I did pay particular attention to the technical transparency of this delivery example, as a viewer rather than a designer or producer.
We can talk about the merits of the available delivery/content sites all day long but then there’s the practical side and the viewer’s ability to actually see it without difficulty.
Please understand that I’m just trying to find out what exactly is going here technically - not to harrass you - as someone else here has suggested.
I do value and appreciate your professional insights
Thanks!
Posted by wsmith on 07/31 at 03:44 PM
When I load this page in IE7 (on Win XP in VMWare Fusion), the right and bottom edges of the image/player are cut off compared to the same display in Safari. At the bottom, the cut comes just above the baseline of the first row of text; at the right the edge is brought in just enough to crop off the “play” button. The only clickable item is the (partially cropped) text, which does indeed take you to a Facebook login page.
In Firefox on XP and Firefox on OS X, the player displays displays just as it does in Safari on OS X, with the full text box and the play button visible.
Both Firefox and IE7 are running the current Flash plugin, 10,0,32,18.
Also, interestingly, the IE7 display has a “facebook” overlay on the upper left corner of the image. Firefox and Safari don’t show this overlay.
Ah, standards….
If this isn’t readily fixable (and given the nature of our publishing system, it may not be), why not add a note below the player area, saying something like, “Note: video tested and known to work in Firefox and Safari; does not work in IE7.”
And if you really want to rub it in (he said, as a former web designer tasked with making complex CSS-formatted AJAX pages work in all common browsers [“quirks” mode, anyone?], grin), add, “for best results, open this page in a standards-compliant browser”, and provide a link to Firefox!
Posted by Adam Wilt on 08/02 at 12:01 PM
Your sense of humor is truly appreciated.
I just tweaked code…. does it work yet in IE7?
-Rich
Posted by Richard Harrington on 08/02 at 12:14 PM
Still cropped in IE7, but the stumbleupon link works fine.
Posted by Adam Wilt on 08/02 at 12:25 PM
Still looks the same to me with IE7. No start button showing. Facebook overlay is showing but I wondered if that’s just because Facebook requires it for externally embedded video. No?
Ahhh, bringing video to the masses!
Inasmuch as are not “the masses” here, I don’t suppose anyone here is going to be confused by the term “standards compliant browser.”
I’d avoid that wording if I were designing for the masses though. They’re all using IE on Windoze and probably will be for a long, long time.
I’ve been known to design ecommerce sites and people like me don’t want our customers to go broke because we only design for compliant browsers. My advice to designers of sites that include video should approach it like they approach ecommerce development.
If media creators really want to bring video to the masses - online that is - they need to design and test for the non-compliant browsers as well as the compliant ones.
Posted by wsmith on 08/02 at 01:06 PM
I guess you’d say that facebook with 250 million users is just a passing fad. I am going to stop being nice. IE7 is a piece of *hit.
I don’t care if the video doesn’t work in it. IE7 is awful, and most users choose to abandon it in record numbers.
I always publish everything with more than one link. Move on… most of the world has:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
June 2008
IE7 27%
Firefox 41%
June 2009
IE 18.7%
Firefox 47.3%
Lets see.. its lost 25% of its share in 1 years time.
Seems most would agree with me. Next you’ll tell us that we shoudl switch the whole video engine over to Silverlight.
I am done trying to fix stuff for IE7. Upgrade, follow standards, or stop whining when your piece of cr*p browser fails.
Posted by Richard Harrington on 08/02 at 01:43 PM
“I’d avoid that wording if I were designing for the masses though. They’re all using IE on Windoze and probably will be for a long, long time.”
Agreed; I’d simply say something like, “Video not working? Running IE? Try using Firefox [link] or Safari [link]; they’re free, work better, and are easier, safer, and more fun to use than IE”.
Most of the masses are using IE out of inertia, not conscious choice: it came on their PC, and the icon is right there on the Desktop. A little push towards awareness may actually improve people’s overall browsing experience.
There’s always a cost in deciding to support or not support some subset of browsers (for simplicity’s sake, let’s just consider MSIE on one side, and the roughly standards-compliant, Mozilla / Webkit / etc. browsers on the other: call that subset “everything else”; oversimplified to be sure, but a useful simplification). Coding even a relatively simple CSS site for both MSIE and everything else takes, in my experience, more than twice as long as coding for either subset alone. Not everyone has the time and resources to do that; providing a link to a compatible browser is an affordable alternative.
Sure, some people won’t be bothered (and on an e-commerce site that’s a revenue loss), but you have to pick your battles.
And even the alternative-browser option fails (and fails hard) if the site is coded only for MSIE; anyone using Mac or Linux (or iPhone or Blackberry or Android or PS3) can’t use IE and is thus locked out. Sadly, some e-commerce sites (and even some government sites with a mandate to serve the widest audience) are still locked in the IE ghetto and are thus inaccessible to a growing percentage of their potential visitors. Coding for all browsers is the best way to allow the widest audience possible, but coding for cross-platform browsers that hew (however sloppily) to industry standards is the second best way.
And of course there’s audience-specific variation, too: PVC visitors, for example, are 53% Mac and 30% Windows so far this month, and the browser breakdown is:
- Safari: 38%
- Firefox: 31%
- MSIE: 12%
If Richard has to pick one subset or the other to code for, he’s made the right choice, at least for PVC visitors. YMMV, and you may choose differently for your audience. That’s freedom, isn’t it?
But dang! I was really hoping that with HTML 5 we could finally start working towards a true, cross-platform, cross-browser standard—but the interested companies can’t even agree on the freakin’ video codec! And don’t get me started on how dysfunctional CSS still is with basic layout tasks, such that anyone trying to lay out a site that survives the user changing the text magnification must use tables… aargh!
[Deponent exits stage left, gulping down stress pills and blood pressure meds like they were Tic-Tacs…]
Posted by Adam Wilt on 08/02 at 02:36 PM
Thanks Rich.
Quick questions about the video if you have a free moment to spare:
What are your top destinations for web media statistics such as the one you quoted about podcasts?
Do you believe that a site like vimeo will ever expand their model to become a sort of IFC for short films (distributing ad revenue to their content providers)?
I’m not a “Long Tail” acolyte but I’ve always believed that if an indie feature film could be purchased on iTunes for say, 30% less than a studio release, a turbo low budget feature could potentially earn at least some of its money back or potentially break even if the quality of the project was good enough. (something like this probably already exists, I’m just ignorant of it)
Thanks again to all of you for all of the great content on the site.
***Oh and is Adam “The Camera Master of Shaolin Temple” Wilt ever gonna review the 5D Mark II for us?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/02 at 02:39 PM
OMFG – A discussion about the content - YIPEE! (seriously).
Top destinations for web media statistic:
Here are a few
http://www.infinitedial.com/podcasting/
http://www.edisonresearch.com/home/archives/2009/04/the_infinite_dial_2009_presentation.php
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/
http://www.newmedia.org/
Distributing ad revenue to their content providers?
Some already do. YouTube, atom films, and many others. Some make money… most don’t
iTunes sales
There are indie films on iTunes.
Also check out models like FilmBaby which offer direct download sales.
5D Mark II
yeah… I’d read that.
Posted by Richard Harrington on 08/02 at 02:47 PM
These links look great Rich, thanks kindly!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/02 at 03:17 PM
Thanks Richard, for your candor.
A little thin-skinned? I never asked you to be nice to me in the first place. I wasn’t whining and I certainly wasn’t trying to tell you how to make your video available online. I agreed that IE was crap. And I’m sure Facebook is no passing fad.
You are the one who chose the title “Bringing Video to the Masses.” I simply made an observation that the video wasn’t ‘brought’ to me and I wondered aloud as to why.
By the way, maybe I’m just lucky but it’s rare that I come across video I can’t easily start, etc. in IE nowadays…
Thanks for the advice to use another browser. But as a producer of corporate training video and designer of pages displaying such, I’m unaware of any major corporations migrating their their employees away from Windoze/IE. But I digress.
Thanks too for the links. I’ll add another site, which is an authority on the subject of usability and statistics:
Jakon Neilson’s http://www.usit.com
Sincere thanks also to Mr. Wilt for your valuable design insights. I agree with your analysis. Someday, maybe designing with XML will be viable. I think it certainly is now, from a design standpoint. Browser handling of it is another story. If only MS wasn’t busy bastardizing it like it has with every other standard…
Lastly, to all: In reference to ad revenue sharing, see a New York Times article titled “YouTube Videos Are Pulling in Serious Money” published 12/11/08, by Brian Stelter. As a daily cover-to-cover NYT reader, I believe that’s the most recent article on this subject in that paper. Quite juicy!
Peace!
Posted by wsmith on 08/02 at 09:33 PM
hmmm. According to every one of the numerous
credible sources tracking it, IE (all versions; not just IE7) still leads by a big fat, and any margin-of-error-not-withstanding margin.
As for w3schools.com. They are the top result in Google’s SE so it may have been quick and easy easy to resort to… However, they are only tracking their own server statistics! Here’s they say about their own stats:
“Anyway, our data, collected from W3Schools’ log-files, over a five year period, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends.”
And:
“(The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools’ log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures).”
Looking at some of the venerated sources it’s apparent. If one really wants to make something available to the masses online - but only has time/money, to develop for only one browser, they would not be fired for developing for IE only.
I wasn’t the one who tried to steer this into the subject of browser market share but that statistic was wildly misleading. IE has a commanding lead by far. It didn’t lose anything even close to 25% market share in the last year except on w3school.com.
In round numbers IE (all versions): is 68%. FF (all versions): 23% A 3-1 lead!
I know, I digress again. And as the saying goes: “There are statistics, damned statistics, and lies!” As Mark Twain said: “First get your facts. Then you are free to twist them anyway you like.”
Peace!
Peace!
Posted by wsmith on 08/02 at 11:36 PM
I would like to put “wsmith” in contact with every telemarketer who calls my house, my soulless ex-girlfriend from college and the people who decided to remove the ExpressPC slot from the new Macbook Pros.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/02 at 11:46 PM
Well… if you watch both videos… its about consumer choice. And in many ways moving beyond a browser.
Simply put, there are enough “masses” that choose their own browser and can experience content.
By putting a video into iTunes, Facebook, and YouTube, I can it 600 million+.
For now that’s good enough for me.
I don’t care that IE7 refuses to work with standards. It is a terrible browser. Just wait a few more months and we’ll have a Bing Browser and Microsoft will tell us how much better it is.
Posted by Richard Harrington on 08/03 at 06:47 AM
