Shooting from the hip: Video in a Nutshell
A
few days ago I went to a talk on “online video”. The essence of the
presentation was to roll out many facts and figures and explain why online
video was such a big deal and how the world and marketing is now changed
forever.
Some
of the numbers I managed to pen are:
1.
There are 3 billion humans that use the
internet.
2.
2.5 YouTube videos are watched everyday by each
of these humans.
3.
Average global download speeds have moved
from 3.5 Megabits per second (Mbps) in 2009, to 20 Mbps in 2014 and a predicted
for 42.5 Mbps for 2019. South Africa’s average at the moment appears to be
about 6-7 Mbps for broadband.
4.
Download speeds will increase to over 1000
Mbps as optic fibre rolls out. At this point there are 8 cities in the world that
enjoy this infrastructure. None are in SA. At these speeds you can download a
feature film in about 10 seconds.
5.
There are about 1.5 billion TV’s in the
world. This will grow to 3 billion by 2019.
6.
The iPhone 6 is 50 times faster than the
first iPhone.
7.
Amongst 13-24 year old USA citizens TV is
watched an average of 8.3 hours per week. Online video is watched for 23 hours
across the same period.
8.
Q1 2014 versus Q1 2015 saw these shifts in
TV viewership: MTV -34%, Nickelodeon -34%, Comedy Central -30%.
9.
Facebook launched a video facility last
year. This is the rate of uptake: Sept 2014 1 billion views, Q4 2014 3 billion
views, Q1 2015 4 billion views (Is Facebook video now bigger than YouTube?)
We
are lucky to live in an era that will see internet speeds increase and costs
decrease. This trend is amply captured by Moore* when he predicted in 1965 that
the average processing power of computers will double every two years. This
became known as Moore’s Law. But even Moore himself did not see this trend
continuing indefinitely. He said the “doubling of processing power every two
years” would continue for the foreseeable
future. He did not say it would continue indefinitely. And as we know,
nothing continues indefinitely.
But
our fascination with processing power and speed of transmitting data is still
with us and remains relevant today. With this burgeoning ability to transmit
data it is evident that video will indeed become a very powerful feature on the
communication and marketing landscape. But its power will be constrained in the
extent that there is actually something relevant to communicate. Moreover, if
speed of data transmission is so critical, then surely the speed at which you
can consume or “devour” what is transmitted is equally important? For instance
if I am prepared to read a book over a period of days or weeks then the
acquisition of the book (the getting of the book) does not have to take a few milliseconds.
It simply doesn’t matter. Conversely if it is important that a video arrives in
instant via the ethernet then surely the time I can afford watching it is under
equal constraint?
And
this is my issue. In most instances, watching video’s simply takes too long. I
normally don’t bother watching videos, even on news sites, and when I do I
mostly do not get beyond the 60 second mark. It becomes draining and tedious.
Sitting and waiting. Maybe it’s just me.
Not
wanting to give up too easily, I decided to look into the matter and find out what
speaking speeds are compared to average reading speeds. If the world loves
video and I can’t find the stomach for it, I needed to know why.
That
being said it is interesting to note that the average speed of talking, such as
that in an online video is about 150 words a minute. Several TED presentations were
analysed yielding the following numbers:
Compare
this to the average reading speed of about 200-300 words per minute. Or 500
words plus for an average high level exec or higher – which is where we all see
ourselves.
Clearly,
it’s no contest. One can read at least twice as fast as it will take to listen
to the same spoken words. But importantly, and this is very important, when
people speak too fast, they simply lose their audience. So speaking faster, to
catch up with the nimble readers, does not construe a benefit.
Could
our demand for, and fascination with faster and faster download speeds be nothing
more than a signal to the world that we only have a few milliseconds available
to actually watch the thing? With that thought, could we see the moment arrive
when those faced with a 5 minute video communication, modern and sexy as it is,
say “please, let me read it. I haven’t got time to watch that.”
But
then video is not only about verbal communication. It’s about images and other very
important stuff like music and fashion and cartoons and music and …..
*Gordon
E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor
