A few days later at the WIT Ideas Lab, Brett Henry of Abacus International pronounced this notion of “the new grammar” as a “load of c…” and called it consultant-speak.

Brett’s argument is there will be no rules, “no grammar” to creating video content as it were and anyway, (see post) we shouldn’t ignore those people still embedded in the ‘older’ channels who uses the small classifieds in the Sunday papers, he said.

In an email exchange sparked off by WIT, Ram rebutted, quoting a study by Cisco which showed that video would account for 40% of all traffic next year. “Of course the video will not be linear video which we see on cable or TV. It will be interactive,” he said.

Brett (below) responded, saying “I agree with video’s importance strongly, just not your consulting speak construct of video “grammar”. There are no rules, there is no authority.” 

Timothy O’Neil-Dunne of T2 Impact who was part of the Cross-fire on the A Team with Henry then jumped into the debate, siding with his team-mate.

“Quantity does not equate to quality. Explicit human interaction as a percentage of the web traffic has been falling steadily for some time so I think there will be a broadening of the use of the web for all forms of information delivery.

“However, does the vehicle of delivery matter – web vs broadcast? Most major markets now have interactive broadband video functionality so the line between pure broadcast and narrowcasting is not dependent on the delivery layers and its pretty blurred already anyway.

“I acknowledge that non-textual interaction is increasing on the web, however I do not buy that it will be replaced by video. The brain’s ability to absorb a message that uses audio-visual as the primary delivery mechanism is actually impaired.

“It has to concentrate more to absorb less. I believe this will reduce the quality of knowledge absorbed by the human race. Further those who control video delivery – the traditional media outlets like “digger”, Murdoch’s monolithic organization and let’s not forget the Googleplex (which includes YouTube) – will indeed control the flow and quality of information not to mention the conscience of the general public,” said Timothy (left).

“So if it’s all the same to you – I will be a bit of a Luddite here and try and struggle with the imperfect but lean forward textual world rather than the trivialized videobyte lean back and less engagement world that I think will accrue to our society if we believe in Ram’s vision.”

To which Ram responded, “Brett, the fact that you say there are no rules or no authority is itself a grammar – and your grammar is of no rules. It’s a post modernist view of the fact that everything is kind of equal but the logic faces the self referential test

“But we don’t know it but the fact is that we are already engaged with rich interactive media grammar – why do we prefer watching well shot, edited, good quality sound, well told plots in cinema or advertising or television. What I see is an increasing democratization of that capability since demand for video is growing. The winners will be those who can develop that capability to engage the traveler.

“That will also address Tim’s point of quality vs quantity challenge. The coherence we see in average textual content out there will also be achieved in the audio visual domain. Now the power is with, as you have pointed out Tim, with Media Barons, Entertainment industry and Advertising. It will be more broad based.”

Siva Ganeshandan of Autonomy Optimost (below), who was the referee during the Cross-fire session, couldn’t resist but jump in, saying, “I know I’m the referee but …

“That’s the critical point about interactive video – suddenly, it’s lean forward video. And with the sensory devices that are coming our way, it will be lean forward, and interactive in a much richer way, than we have with text. 

“Ultimately, text is never going to disappear – but we are all (most more than me) skilled in creating it. We need to get that way about video – actually, we are getting that way about video, but gradually. There will be key advantages to groups (countries, networks, companies) that can accelerate this process.

Timothy couldn’t resist having the last word though, saying, “OK, I am not so sure that getting skilled at video creation is a good thing. And I don’t believe it can be done easily.

“Let’s look at the absolute crap on YouTube. Despite some mediocre tools the stuff is junk. And worse it is not really searchable and I don’t think that will occur for quite some time yet.

“So bad tools, bad delivery systems, bad content, bad creation and bad search. Not exactly a recipe for success…

“But I am open to someone making a compelling argument that this will change my life… till then – the luddite will I be.”

To be continued …

Featured image credit (Mobile phone with video player in the hands): Ockra/iStock