I often wonder why so many have a bad perception of web video or believe it can never really be a replacement for HDTV (Mark Cuban, looking your direction). Then I started looking at the recent video traffic numbers released by Nielsen and discovered what I believe is the answer. It's very simple and rather obvious, but never having given it much thought it wasn't entirely clear: YouTube.
That's right, the largest video site on the web also presents the user with the most limited video playback "experience" (if you can call it that), little excuse to go full screen, and to boot varying levels of quality. As most web video consumers will probably see more YouTube videos than say videos at an ABC, NBC, etc... it is no surprise that so many have such few hopes for this medium. A quick look at the Democratic Convention coverage shows just how shocked many are at the quality that the web can provide. Consumers have learned a pattern that involves "snack" on video for a short period of time, do not engage because the quality is poor, and move to the next thing. What percentage of viewers of YouTube regularly use the go full screen option as a behavior?
It's worsended by the fact that NBC let us down with the Olympics; for one of the more heavily promoted live events they had the opportunity to showcase the power of the web but chose not to. I've written about this extensively but it is a frustration point as the more people that are exposed to high quality, the more that will demand it from content owners and producers.
We should be raising our expectations of the web video experience online; so I implore you to look at the DNC stream and imagine what it would be like if every live event was like this online!
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