One thing that really pays traffic dividends on the web is being the “authority” on a topic. For example, Wikipedia talks about almost immediately having become the authority on Pope Benedict XVI.
Using media centre for the last few months you quickly become aware that TV is becoming an on-demand medium. We have a huge degree of freedom in recording, watching, time-shifting etc all TV. We’ll often just continue what ever we’re doing and wait for a program to get about 20 minutes in so we can watch it in almost real time but without any advertisements.
The other impact of this is that shorter programs are no longer a problem. It’s too expensive to schedule the watching or manual recording of these for them to have made sense in a broadcast world. But, when attention spans are decreasing and we have access to quick browsing and watching of shows short-format TV makes sense.
The introduction of video for mobile devices (e.g. iPod video) will only accelerate the need and demand for this type of content. I don’t want to watch a full emotional hour of TV on my iPod. But, 5 or 10 minute grabs make a lot of sense while travelling.
There is an opportunity for someone to combine authorative source with the on-demand short video format. Cooking shows are great, but imagine working along with it when you are ready to make the meal. Turning to IMDB on a wireless laptop for a quick background on an actress you just saw in a movie is fun, but imagine just pulling up a short bio video right there on your TV.
Who will run the defacto home for short authorative video content?
Will it be commercial or a Spoken Wikipedia style set of video content?
