The Tipping Point for Interactive Video?

As I write this, YouTube videos are being viewed over four billion times every day. Add to that, numerous other sources of videos, and it is not hard to notice the explosion of videos all around.  Whether you want to entertain yourself, or learn something quickly, or check out a product, or watch a piece of news, the preferred medium is videos. 

There are two fundamental consequences and in turn, two issues that arise out of this explosion of online video:

1. New video content is being added to the internet every second. So, how do you find the videos that are most relevant to you?
2. Our attention spans are getting shorter, and  the number of things to be accomplished using videos are increasing. So, how do you skip past what you don’t need, and quickly get to what you must watch?

Better search resolves the first issue. Say, you found the video that contains what you need.  The second issue still remains.  How do you quickly get to the right part? This is where interactive videos come in. Interactive videos support a much more sophisticated set of options than play, pause, rewind and forward. They are capable of providing skip navigation, informative overlays, and interactions that engage the user.

As Harbinger goes to market with Exaltive, an interactive video platform, we see an endorsement of this point of view from many segments: enterprise HR departments, educators, content publishers, and more. Just when the tipping point for interactive video will arrive is not for me to say. But one thing is evident – people are doing more and more work using videos, and their need for flexibility can only go in one direction – up.