YouTube Gets Interactive With Video (On the Surface)

With the launch of YouTube Video Annotations this morning, the term “video games” may soon take on a new meaning and, more importantly, Google may have provided a tacit indication of how it plans to achieve the arduous task of properly indexing and monetizing video in the future. Currently the feature isn’t viewable within their distributed player, which is a significant letdown, but even still — this is a great move for both the platform and content producers, but Google itself stands to benefit even more:

With this feature, you can add background information, create branching stories or add links to any YouTube video, channel, or search results page — at any point in your video.

The immediate implication is that videos now have a response mechanism by which viewers can engage and make choices along the way. Yes, it’s the return of Choose Your Own Adventure nostalgia, but with a LonelyGirl15 twist; though that’s really only one possibility.

• a variety show could point directly to the sources they are mocking (ex: Best Week Ever, The Daily Show or, more likely, Wallstrip);
• a non-profit could use this newfound interactivity to provide navigation allowing viewers to drill-down for more information on a particular aspect of their mission;
• or consider this early experiment in the form of an interactive shell game

There’s any number of cool ways to use this interactivity, but the real power and brilliance of this feature is the context… both for users, and for Google. Looking at the user side for a moment, there’s the benefit of:

• adding lyrics to music videos;
• highlighting key tips (or warnings) in an instructional video;
  
• creating multilingual versions of the same video (not currently possible, but easily achieved by allowing for more dynamic annotations);
• or just interesting ancillary information and notes [example]
  

Those are a few possibilities, but not particularly brilliant. The real brilliance of this feature is that Google has once again developed a tool that ostensibly looks like just another enhancement to the user experience, while quietly serving its own agenda: interpreting, indexing and eventually monetizing video. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not criticizing them in any way… in fact, I applaud them for taking inspiration from Seinfeld’s Kramer and asking for more direct assistance. With the help of content creators — and I’d imagine all viewers at some point down the road, as overwhelming as that will become — Google will soon be privy to a wealth of new data which can help to make sense of the content within these videos [as opposed to just titles, descriptions and tags]. Eventually, this information can be leveraged to sell contextually relevant advertising in true Googlopoly style, though the most effective form for that advertisement remains undetermined.

In this world, Purina can associate their ads specifically with videos featuring dogs, “Buckle Up” PSAs run alongside clips of car crashes, and SPF-30 suntan lotion next to scenes on the beach. Who knows what this means for Chocolate Rain or the dramatic lemur… maybe nothing (God forbid we don’t monetize every scrap of daily life!). It’s still a far better means toward understanding the content and context of a video than the current tag-based system.

It’s not the whole solution to indexing or monetizing video by any means, but it’s a meaningful step. As Google endeavors to make sense of this incoming data, I look forward to watching creators leverage this power in new and interesting ways.

Interactivity and Empowered Advertising

I love this recently launched “interactive” campaign for the UN Voices Project (by Saatchi & Satchi Australia), which employs mobile technology as a link between outdoor portraits and the voice behind their expression. Interactive marketing is all too often regarded to be the privileged domain (okay, I’ll concede my bias) of a small group of over-zealous technophilic specialists. It is not, nor should it retain that myopic, self-imposed limitation for much longer.

This campaign reinforces my longstanding belief that “Interactive” is not a medium as it has been regarded, but rather a way of thinking — a calling for marketers, designers and manufacturers alike to shift their perspective and begin challenging their assumptions. The web, and those working within it, have been early to embrace this view simply because it is inherent to the structure of the medium; but interactive philosophy must/will eventually make its way into nearly every aspect of our lives and, consequently, marketing.

We have only begun to explore the applications, challenges and opportunities of a truly interactive world. We have been slow to challenge the belief that a poster can be nothing but; that television is a one-way megaphone; that movies must be experienced as linear and uniform; that action figures are limited by their pivotal joints; that the mobile phone is only for making calls. This will change, and to some degree we are already beginning to see the power and value of thinking interactively (outside of the web), albeit these explorations are still quite early in their evolution:

• The instant text-to-vote system that determines which American Idol contender will sing only their swan song, or the broadcast iReports from viewers on CNN may not seem revolutionary - but its evidence of progress.

• It is no coincidence that many popular toys among children today are really just keys to unlocking interactive experiences (WebKinz, UBFunkeys) or incorporate interactivity as part of their design (Pleo, LeapFrog’s Tag Reading System).

• Or what about RFID-enabled billboards which greet you by name, alternative reality games, GPS-powered scavenger hunts, Subservient Chickens, and merry-go-rounds that leverage playful interaction to pump water for an entire village?

All of these examples, and there can be many many more (drop your examples in the comments), are evidence of a change in mindset more than revolutionary technological advancement. The birth of a new technology or medium does not necessarily call for the death of its predecessors; but it ought to begin a new round of scrutiny and innovation. Surely some industries will fade into obscurity as a result of new technologies, but many more will force that fate upon themselves by failing to embrace the value and possibility of empowering people/consumers/audiences with interactive control.

A poster is not groundbreaking, but the idea that a poster can serve as a gateway to a grander interactive experience is — and this campaign has only, but admirably, scratched the surface of possibility.

[via CultCase]