Is video the killer app, no, but perhaps a better name is required. I think video is not the killer app but it should be considered the “App That May Never Die.” I think that there will always be a special place for video and video sharing websites, pictures are worth a thousand words and videos worth millions, as long this model stays the same video will be too valuable to die and will in fact thrive. Video sharing websites will stay around because they allow us to share video content relatively anonymously and outside of our social circle. As more and more of our lives become online, there will remain value in being able to share video content outside of our increasingly involved online lives, however small the need may well be.
Another reason that video is the app that will never dies is its value to the news industry. As a journalist I have seen how much the world of journalism has been impacted by the use of video, especially user-generated videos. Think about the Arab Spring – would we have been able to effectively seen what was going on in those country without ordinary people capturing video of the happenings? Sites like YouTube are often at the center of this axis between people capturing raw images and platforms that give them a voice.
Because of the power of YouTube to freely allow the exchange and posting of videos, without framing or editing them, gives it a powerful platform to hear voices and opinions of the many and the few. Also, because of this news sometimes happens first on YouTube. A somewhat sad example of this is that we recently had some sicko shoot up the university downtown area here in Santa Barbara. The twisted killer didn’t send his sick manifesto to the media – he posted it on YouTube.
YouTube and other video sharing sites provide a place where people can interact about the videos, exchange ideas and culture and represent their respective opinions or views in a form of social discourse, (Burgess & Green, 2009). This adds to the power of video and its ability to persist.
One of my favorite new websites that has continued to carry the torch for video and also fit it into the new social paradigm is the website Vine.com. Vine is “a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos. Like Tweets, the brevity of videos on Vine (6 seconds or less) inspires creativity,” (Sippey, 2013). Sites like this show the flexibility of video and video sharing sites to be flexible and bend to current trends without going away.
References:
Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2009). YouTube: Online video and participatory culture. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press
Sippey, M. (2013, January 24). Vine: A new way to share video | Twitter Blogs [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://blog.twitter.com/2013/vine-a-new-way-to-share-video
Video journalism and digital storytelling | Guardian Masterclasses | theguardian.com. (n.d.). Retrieved July 10, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses/video-journalism
In my recent work with big box retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target, I have really seen how these big box retailers have begun to embrace the idea that video and other forms of rich media do a better job of explaining what a product is and thus selling it. In fact, in the document I was reading, most of the text that was recommended was aimed at giving the customer "additional detailed information,' about the product - so basically, anything that video or images can't quite capture. In addition to this most of the content has moved lower, and lower, below the rich media content as if it is an afterthought - and it very well may be. Check out these product pages here and here to get an idea of what I am talking about. 