I don't like online video on news sites when video is used to present an article or story. Less time is spent reading an article than watching it being presented in video. Text has an immediacy to it. It's easy to skim text and it doesn't take up much memoroy. Audio files distributed via RSS/Atom, often referred to by a term that invokes a proprietary device, can be downloaded and enjoyed at one's leisure away from the computer. For the talented, one can listen to the distributed audio file at their leisure with their favorite mp3 player.
I'm not against online video. Just the way it's used by news outlets and other people.
Video requires the audience's complete attention. Blink and it's gone. It's a rare presentation that someone can just listen to it rather than sitting there like a zombie. If I go to YouTube I know I'm going there to watch a clip or a movie and squander my time.
If I go to Slashdot and I am confronted by a set of pre-recorded video answers from the developers of Dungeons and Dragons it's useless to me when I could've skimmed the text in silence. More egregiously are the videos that are nothing but text and images, for example this video. Two minutes and twenty one seconds were wasted, wasted conveying information that could've been presented in five hundred words with an image file. And if one wants to review the images then fast forward or rewind and hopefully the pause button won't be stupid and freeze a differentimage.
In the case of the 'mysterious' Google Earth video, it would've subjected the subject matter greater scrutiny from skeptics.
I hope the internet doesn't become the new TV otherwise eternal September will never end.
