Online It’s a Short, Short World

Check out this Reuters article…
Poll:Online Viewers Shun Lenghty Videos

An excerpt:

The new survey found that relatively few — 7 percent of video users — have paid to watch any video online. Nearly three-quarters of online video users prefer free videos with ads.

You won’t find Vanita Butler sitting in front of her computer watching a full-length movie or television show, even though she’s an avid viewer of video on the Internet.

The 43-year-old saleswoman from Newark, Ohio, said she sees the Internet as more of a tool — for catching a news story or highlights from a

NASCAR race. When she has time for entertainment, she and her husband prefer the television set.

“It’s a little bit more of an intimate environment,” Butler said of watching television. “We can sit and do it together.”

Cheryl Landers, 50, a retail manager in Dedham, Mass., said she finds amateur clips funny and entertaining, but with two foster kids, she can never spare more than five minutes at a time, let alone a whole hour to watch an entire television episode. She said she usually has the TV on as background noise.

“I’m pretty much against paying for stuff on the Internet,” said P.J. Park, 25, of Mount Rainier, Md.

The gist is simple: online viewers of video content don’t like to watch long form media there (movies or full length TV shows). Oh, and they don’t like to pay for it either. (7% paid, while 75% think it should be free). Shorts, news clips, YouTube diet coke stunts, music videos, short funny clips from longer media they already know- yes. All these and more are the stock and trade of the online video media soup. Watching a 100 minute feature film… not so much. It would appear that when it comes to our big movie experience we prefer big movie platforms. But this only verifies the notion that the online world is the place to put out your short films and build some manner of a following. But that following, unless it is in the order of millions & millions of people, will not put butter on your bread. Not with such a large proportion of online users thinking this stuff ought to be free.