Capturing and Holding the Attention of an Internet Audience

The proliferation of internet players and their pages are certainly diluting the attention of the contemporary surfer. Capturing the attention of a body of relevant traffic has never been easy, but it is getting more and more difficult with the explosion of goods, services and information providers clambering for an audience.

 

The online forum has been changing the way we grab attention, and the way we give it. In the world of cyberspace, fewer and fewer people have the concentrative patience to devote long moments of attention to text. In a general trend, bullet points are replacing paragraphs. Bulleted columns define outlines that are powerful in immediate impact but weak on detailed information. Animated graphic ads and dynamic sound effects succeed in getting but not holding attention. The average internet surfer just does not have the mindset to settle on the details, and that's what a web manager wants them to do. What changes are we seeing that should affect the way we attract and interface with our online audience?

 

Online informative Audio and Video have come of age. The recent past has presented inhibitive restrictions on the use of these medium due to file size/band width issues. In the past few years however, great strides in compression, computing, and infrastructure have removed the impediments to a large degree for a large portion of the global population.

 

The internet format provides a unique opportunity to use blends of imagery both motion and still, sounds both effects inspired and content driven, and text both bulleted and extrapolated. We are seeing more intelligent and blended use of these mixed media methods, and the population responds to it. Although the context and circumstance should dictate what mix and measure of media a site manager decides to use, video has a powerful history of success in capturing a loyal returning audience. Circumstance aside, this fact seemingly demands that video be re-scaled to fit the online realm; re-calibrated to bring its power more concertedly to bear on the relatively new world of the internet.

 

Short episodic streaming video serials are a new art form that is beginning to be explored. It is a blend of the old and the new. In the past, video programming that was mostly entertainment oriented and serial in nature commanded a position of dominant advertising power in the industry. Advertisers would interrupt the primary content with secondary ad messaging. Currently however, people do not want to have their attention interrupted and no longer tolerate that approach. The internet experience has absolutely contributed to the coalescence of an intolerance that has been long in coming but now is here. What do the internet and the art of short episode streaming video serials bring to the table for advertisers and site promoters in this climate of intolerance?

 

Advertisers might think of developing video content where-in the advertisers are actually characters in a serial program. Entertainment is a huge content sector, but so is education. Cooking shows, healthcare issues, charity efforts, financial advisors, and a near infinite list of additional subject potentials lend themselves to the task of effectively capturing and holding the attention of large bodies of internet traffic. The best advantage of the video approach is the proven ability of video programming to bring the audience back again and again. Do we really need <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Hollywood writers, producers and actors to create captivating video serials?

 

The technology exists for video dominance on the internet, and it is in use. The strategies are teetering on the cusp of commonality but they yet lack a lot of relevance. The video content that dominates is not serious or professional. If video over text is a new and improved future for internet interaction, then it would be wise to get on the bandwagon early on with a controlled volume of serious serial video programming.

 

The old and crude HTML websites are really not conducive to the new world of web management. There needs to be hardcore computer programmers behind the sites of the future. The content needs to change often to hold the attention of a frenzied audience of viewers and Search Engine spiders. Video and audio has to be administrated fluently, along with still graphics and text. Begin looking for providers to appear with programming that allows you more free usage of these established technology, and that turns some of the revenue control over to you. YouTube and MySpace type services hand over a little bit of the power, but are not willing to allow page or revenue autonomy. In that way they retain control of the traffic and the value of user content.

 

Is there any way for a site manager to capture some of that power and control? The expensive way is to hire a good programming team and risk the capitol cost of development that may or may not pay off. The other way is to find programming already in place that gives you that power and control. It is out there, and more of it is coming.