Check out Rupert’s fun experiment with YouTube’s new annotation feature. I thought I might try to write a long post about this but really the whole idea and a lot of thinking behind it are not new (See recent posts from New TeeVee + ReadWriteWeb or read some of Adrian Miles’ thoughts on the subject) . Even this example is, like Rupert comments, “a bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book from 1982” (or even Dragon’s Lair).
The reason why I’m writing about this at all is that what I think is important is that this tool is super easy, widely available and free. Historically it’s been difficult and expensive to do stuff like this and, personally, even though I’m fascinated by the idea, I’ve never been particularly excited by the results. Even the commercial project I worked on, could have done so much more. But just as videoblogging became really interesting as the tools became simple and ubiquitous, I’m hoping interactive video will become interesting as more people get to experiment with it (> 5000 videos posted with annotations in the 7 weeks since the feature was released). Once people are as comfortable and practiced with annotating and linking their videos as they are with shooting and posting them, I think the really cool stuff will begin to emerge.
One Comment
as we spoken about before, first it’s got to be easy. Then people have to actually tell good stories using interactivity.
I could see someone really creating a sense of place using this feature. Start in one room…then let me explore the house the way I want to.