I was in one of those online forums about a week or so ago. This one was for folks interested in talking about trends in business uses for web videos. You know, corporate communications, marketing, training, stuff like that.
During one long thread, a few of us got into a nice little exchange about podcasting vs. streaming video. Now, I was expecting that there'd be some consensus that podcasting and streaming video would each have their place depending on the situation and the audience. Surprisingly, there were those who'd swear only to podcasts as the solution for all things video over the web. (??!!)
I couldn't figure that. I mean, even though I'm a big supporter of streaming video and all (it is, after all, a mainstay for videoHomeStories), I'd be the first to raise my hand and say that streaming isn't the solution for all web-based video. Similarly, I certainly don't believe podcasting is the singular solution either.
In the real estate market, for example, my server logs show that the typical consumer views a web video, on average, about two to three minutes before moving on. The 'ol AIDA principle (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) applies -- especially here. Ya gotta get their attention and interest in the first 15 seconds. Now, the property video they see will either make it's mark with any given viewer or not. But, the idea is to continue to capture their interest for another minute or two, so if the property itself doesn't float their boat, then at least multimedia information about the community and the neighborhood (which you don't get in traditional virtual tours and photo-based "videos") will be of continuing interest for them to take some action. This action might include contacting the agent about other properties in the same community, or by forwarding a link to the property's web video to someone they know.
Some interesting reading: Podzinger's summary of research they conducted in online advertising seems to bear some of this out:
Consumers typically play only 15 percent of an entire online video or audio. The average run time for video is 7.5 minutes (shorter, depending on the topic category)... Consumers are more likely to play content online than they are to download it by a factor of 6 to 1...
You can read more here:
http://www.blogzinger.com/2006/11/20/market-research-on-online-advertising/
