Reevaluating Video

Is the Internet ready for video? Maybe it’s a little late to ask this with YouTube so huge. Still, I’m starting to come to the conclusion that no one does video as well as TV does!

With TV, you turn it on – boom – the video is there. No fuss. Nothing more to do. And, most importantly, no waiting.

Schedules aren’t as hard and fast as they were a decade or two ago, but it’s reasonably easy to find your faves on TV.

Commercial TV stations have been broadcasting for around 60 years. They lucked into the right formula.

Even when cable tries to do video in different ways on my TV, they can’t do it effectively. My Comcast DVR, hooked to digital cable, connects me to hundreds of shows on demand. I hardly ever look!

The problem is, finding the shows and then getting them running is a hassle. Of course, that’s the Internet’s problem too. And now, on the Internet, add ‘roadblock’ ads as another viewer disincentive.

For years I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen that the future of newscasts, what I do for a living, is on the small computer screen, not some big TV. I now have second thoughts.

Until someone figures out how to index all the shows… until someone figures out how to make video appear instantly… until someone figures out how to make Internet video as profitable as over-the-air broadcasts, it’s just not going to happen.

Youtube might end up being the exception, not the rule.

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