Breaking the linear straightjacket
Jakob Nielsen: “On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
Surfers scan, they don’t follow dutifully along the path we lay. For a linear medium like video this creates a problem, and explains why “Text remains King of the Web“.
Two approaches, one from the BBC, the other from MSNBC.
Modularize
The approach of bbc.com to the use of web video is instructive. An average of 34 stories in the bbc.com RSS feed each day. Sampling 3 different days over a few weeks I counted 12 videos. 2 Barack Obama speeches excepted, video length was 23 seconds to 1minute 20 seconds, average around 45 seconds. Video is used as a modular, optional element within a text story, just like a paragraph of text or a photograph. The videos are bare-bone - no sequencing, no storytelling. Say your piece and leave.
Provide transcripts
[MSNBC promotes] the value of transcription and emerging use of voice to text technology….This functionality not only provides more effective searchability by surfacing metadata, but provides viewers with the power to find and watch what they want by reading text.
Other news organizations and video sharing sites including YouTube publishing platforms such as Delve are integrating transcriptions into their video pages. Blinkx and EveryZing use raw transcriptions to drive search functionality. Adobe will soon integrate transcriptions into workflow.”
Obama’s speech auto transcribed in 15 minutes
msnbc.com used a voice-to-text solution from Nexidia to transcribe last night’s address to Congress by President Barack Obama. The online news site got the Obama transcription up in 15 minutes after the conclusion of the speech, we have learned.
Getting the transcript up that quickly was not a scoop. After all, the speech was distributed to the media and the members of Congress before it began, but it marks a significant landmark in the automated transcription of such a notable speech. Not just a transcript, the document was immediately linked to words within the video, giving viewers the ability to find a word and find a related passage.
Executives at msnbc.com say that the transcription was proofed by humans before it was published, but there were very few edits.”
