First let me say, I love internet video blogs and shows. They fill the void of a busy office environment and provide stimuli that imitates something of the sociability factor that is lacking in isolation.
Before work I was cruising the net checking out the new Yahoo format. On a lark I decided to go the Yahoo Finance section since I like to try to follow market trends.
To my very pleasant surprise they had Yahoo Finance videos.
The biggest drawback of itv or internet video segments is that they are present on individual sites and you actually have to stop what your doing to drop from site to site to launch that individual segment. As valuable as that video segment my be, it still requires more manual intervention that operating a simple remote control as for a tv.
So, as Yahoo Finance video section appeared, I saw multiple channels of information with a plethora of segments that are as short as a minute to as long as seven or eight minutes, but total about thirty minutes per channel. Once you chose a program channel (example: SmartMoney tv) and click a video segment, the segment launches in a separate browser window (I use FireFox latest version). When that segment ends, the next segment begins and the entire channel plays on a continuous loop until you choose a different channel and segment to launch. If a segment launches that you’re not into, hit the next channel button.
Right click with your mouse on the screen and a menu appears for normal video controls. For those that are gluttons for overload, I discovered you can launch multiple video segments at the same time and they will play without degrading each other.
There were very short commercial segments that popped up, but I thought was a minor thing in comparison to normal television advertising. Roughly thirty seconds for thirty minutes on average on Yahoo as compared to seven and a half minutes for thirty minutes of broadcast.
Another minor drawback is that many of the segments don’t have dates in their logos and the commentators don’t always mention it. So you may be watching a segment that is a few days old without realizing it.
If you want to find the total range of channels look in the middle of the Yahoo Home page (not from My Yahoo) there is a frame that has a video tab with a large selection of segments to choose from all the major networks and agencies covering news, entertainment, health, finance, etc. etc..
I’m very pleasantly surprised and have every intention of coming back to this service. It’s nice to finally have an itv service that is simple to work with and provides me almost everything my TV used to. Give it a shot. www.yahoo.com
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