Deploying Video on the Web
Logging, Searching, and Streaming
By Chuck Fuller
Web video has the potential to greatly enhance public Web-site stickiness through community building, content-driven advertising, and content-based e-commerce. However, simply offering a number of MPEG files to be downloaded from your site does not meet the needs of most Web users. As with text-based information, users expect to be able to quickly search for and find specific content of interest to them. To realize these goals, companies must provide video that is searchable, interactive, and targetable. Essentially, video must become a first-class data type with fine-grained access.
The applications for video-as-information are broad, since video is one of the most pervasive information types in existence. Media applications for searchable video include news dissemination, financial news monitoring, competitor tracking, ad tracking, and content-based communities surrounding soap operas, cartoon characters, hit shows, and movies. Enterprise and institutional applications include video archives, strategic decision support, focus group analysis, corporate communications, and distance learning and training.
Once the searching and streaming infrastructure is in place, an application can be extended for more engaging uses. For example, a site could let its users maintain personalized "favorites," email clips to friends, and chat with other enthusiasts. Another option is to feed a user's selected video search terms or video metadata tags into your ad server to create customized ads targeted directly to the user.
