Forrester: Broadband's Boom Begins in 2001

The Electronic Catalog: Streaming Video Online Jun 1, 2001 12:00 PM , By Moira Cotlier JobZone Search and post jobs for the Multichannel Merchant. Including jobs for brand & agency marketers, e-commerce, catalog marketers, ops & fulfillment, direct marketing and more.   Click here to access JobZone Find any supplier you need - agencies, CRM, fulfillment, lists, e-commerce, paper, printers, telemarketing, and more. Featured Categories Fulfillment Warehousing Lists & Data Telemarketing Merch. Order Processing Shipping & Distribution Print, Production & Paper Lists and Data Processing :: view all categories Get free access to more than 50,000 list data cards - one of the most comprehensive databases in the industry. >> Search Now Webinars Ask The Experts Calculators Glossaries Promo Calendar ListFinder Research Store Primers NCOF MCM Blog JobZone E-Newsletters Print Magazine Awards ACC Web 2.0 -- Build Community and Boost Conversion Rates Understanding Customer Experience Shape Up or Ship Out: The Role of Shipping in the Online Retail Customer Experience Bounce Management: Improve Your Email Deliverability WMS Upgrades: Report Reveals Five Critical Factors As the availability of Internet broadband increases, streaming video technology — which enables companies to present products and ideas via video on their Websites — will become more common online. But companies needn't wait for broadband to become more widely available. Using current technology, they can offer streaming video to their customers who have slower dial-up (or telephone) Internet connections, such as 28.8K or 56.6K modems. Currently about 80% of U.S. Internet users still have such dial-up connections, according to Christopher Kelley, analyst for Forrester Research in Cambridge, MA. But he says that more people are shifting toward non-dial-up, high-speed connections. “In 2000, only 5 million of U.S. Internet users had cable, DSL, or some other type of fast connection,” Kelley says. By 2005, that number is expected to increase to 46.7 million, or about 32% of U.S. Web users. About half of U.S. homes today — or about 144 million people — have Internet access. Even though U.S. broadband availability might increase in the next five years, it can't always protect against site overload, as was the case with intimate apparel cataloger Victoria's Secret's January 2000 online video fashion show. The high volume of visitors ogling — er, logging on to — the site to enjoy the show caused significant site slowdown for anyone who logged on, regardless of their means of access. Generally speaking, though, sites viewed with a broadband connection not only download faster, but the quality of the video presented is often clearer as well.

	Tomorrow's technology today?

Just as the number of households using broadband Internet access is expected to climb during the next few years, so will the number of companies using streaming video. According to a recent study by Jupiter Media Metrix, the percentage of companies using streaming video to promote product launches online will increase from 29% to 35% during the next 18 months. What's more, while only 13% of companies currently use streaming video to enhance their online customer service, this number is expected to jump to 45% in the next 18 months.

But though the forecasted increases are encouraging, they also indicate that less than half of U.S. businesses plan to adopt the technology at all within the next year and a half.

While streaming video is the exception rather than the rule on catalog Websites, a variety of media companies and businesses use the technology. ABCNews.com and CNN.com feature video news feeds, and many corporations, including Avon Products and Compaq, broadcast their financial earnings via Internet broadcasts, or Webcasts. BuyItOnTheWeb.com is a Website that sells products typically sold on television infomercials, such as the George Foreman Grill, via streaming video infomercials, or “Webfomercials.”

And some wholesalers feature video on their Websites to promote their products to vendors, says Kenneth Burke, president/CEO of Multimedia Live, a Petaluma, CA-based Webmedia consultancy. “Designers and manufacturers who promote their products on their sites tend to offer streaming video more often than catalogers because they don't have a catalog or other channel specific to them via which to market their products,” Burke says. “A cataloger could possibly arrange to use the manufacturer's video streams for the product on its own Website.”

In addition to using streaming video to show the products in use, catalogers can use the technology to reduce customer service queries by demonstrating how to install or assemble the products. You can also make the video interactive by combining it with personalization technology. For instance, a menu on an apparel cataloger's Website could ask a customer if she is petite or tall, and what types of pants she prefers — and then the site might offer her a chance to click on a video of a petite model wearing capri pants.

But if you do use streaming video for a more elemental purpose — to demonstrate the product's safety feature, say, or to show how to assemble it — your Website should also offer a text-based option, accompanied by photos or diagrams, for customers with slower connections or who simply don't want to sit through a video, says Forrester's Kelley.

“About one-third of people using the Internet are what we call technology pessimists, meaning that they are hostile or ambivalent toward new technology,” Kelley says. These are people who, as the Web has become mainstream, have essentially been forced out of necessity to use it, though they don't embrace its every innovation. “These pessimists [regardless of whether they have high-speed access or dial-up connections] have far less patience with various online features. If they click on a video that is grainy or choppy, they'll become frustrated with it” — and the Website.

But catalogers should not omit streaming video solely because the majority of households do not have broadband access. For one thing, notes Burke, many consumers have high-speed Internet access at work. “And many consumers do their online shopping while at work.” he says. That's all the more reason to give customers an option to view the video, rather than forcing them to view it. “If they happen to be shopping at work, a pop-up window with an automatic video [and audio] would be inappropriate,” Burke warns.