Interactive video essay!

Analysis of Interactive Video

Interactive media is where a product which involves digitally controlling a video either on television or on computer to either start, stop, play or pause. These days’ television and computers aren’t the only way to watch interactive videos, there are many other platforms to use interactive media on such as; Internet, DVDs, MP4 players, mobile phones, VHS, PlayStation 3s and even bus stops.

With so many platforms available having unique qualities it would be essential for manufactures, people in the media

and media audiences to really have a purpose to be use them, for example; the internet would be a great way to inform us about local news and also, a very easy way to advertise products. On the other hand an educational documentary could educate viewers as well as entertaining the audience.

Some of the categories will be looking at are; virtual, this covers a lot of areas in the media such as; virtual tours, virtual teaching, virtual images and virtual advertising etc. Another category that I’ll be covering is analysing film trailers, although film trailers aren’t very long if adjust properly could be very appealing and exciting.

Virtual tours are an easy way of viewing a place and getting an idea of a place without even leaving your house. Virtual tours are helpful as you don't have to pay to use them and depending on the format you use you can get excellent quality of video streamed backed to you. Two examples of virtual tours are Google maps street view and Chelsea Virtual stadium and museum tour, where both virtual tours give us the advantage of exploring places which before theses virtual tours where avaliable you would have to go in person. 

Google Maps Street View is an interactive video that enables users to explore streets of certain countries in the world and gives you a street view of the street that you want to see. Google's street view is a great way for someone to get know an area that the are planning to go and also, creates a great understanding of the area before you visit the area. The google maps can only be accessed on google.com as no one else has attempted or released anything similar. The quality of the street view is very clearly as you also have the option to zoom in and out your chosen locations.Google Map Street View!

Chelsea Virtual Stadium and Museum Tour is an interactive video which gives viewers a full tour of chelsea fc stadium and museum. This is a good interactive video as it would attract Chelsea football fans all across the World that can' travel to the real place but, have internet access to view the place. Just like the google street view you have the abilty to zoom in and out of seleted parts of the screen. Chelsea FC Virtual Tour

User generated videos are everywhere these days due to the fact that everyone everywhere has the ability to upload videos onto the web without charging a penny.

Viral marketing is a very common and very good way of enhancing a brand’s awareness. Viral marketing is a very common and unique way of gaining brand awareness. Viral marketing is unique because you could be performing viral marketing without even noticing you are doing it. For instance a very common way of viral marketing is known to be word-of-mouth; simply telling someone to visit a website to view an advertising video is a contribution into marketing their product without much influence. Other techniques that companies use to conduct viral marketing are; social networking, text messages, images and flash images/ animations. They are the most popular methods of viral marketing that companies use to insure to win over new customers.

Two examples of viral marketing for companies that I’ve seen are The Burger King Chicken and The Honda Cog advert. 

The burger king chicken is an interactive video which would definitely be a talking topic for people that enjoy people just fool around. The video is a flash format which response to commands that visitor of burger king’s website type in, in the command box. Due to discussions in the class came to a conclusion that mostly boys would this type of video interesting and amusing. The girls in the class said that they lost interest in the video after while whereas, the boys said they would tell their friends about it and, use it again for amusement.  But overall I think that the target audience of the video was for anyone that enjoys eating fast-foods and young teenagers and children. Although people would visit the site again to watch/use the video again everyone agreed that apart from the video being on the burger king advert, they would be no other way of knowing that the video was a burger king video due to it having no advertising and it had nothing to do with burger king. Burger King Chicken Video!

Honda-The Cog advert was a very good example of viral marketing as it was recommended to watch a lot whilst I was doing the media course last year. The advert is about individual car parts connecting with each other without any force at all. The advert is really enjoyable, interesting and exciting as back when it was launched as a television advert a couple years ago it was something many people hadn’t of seen before.  Watching this advert the impression I get is that all Honda cars work perfectly and everything goes well together. In the advert the voiceover in the advert is quoted “Isn’t it nice when things just work”.



The quote backs up my thoughts of everything working well together with each Honda car.  The quality of the video is very clear as it appears on the television and the internet and, on the internet there is also a button which gives people a choice to watch it in high definition.

Two examples of user generated videos are; The Chinese backstreet boys and

David Blaine Street magic parody.

The Chinese backstreet boys is user generated video where two Chinese boys sing a backstreet boys’ song called “I want it that way” to a webcam.  The video doesn’t really have a target market and is just uploaded just to entertain and make people laugh. The video was uploaded on to YouTube but it could be spread out on other web pages due to either the up loader uploading it to different sites or, viral marketing for example; someone that liked the video uploading it to their facebook page or, their blog page. This video has no other purpose apart from being amusing as it is not a marketing video as well as it not being made by a company.



Due to the video being shot on webcam the video quality is very clear but, it doesn’t change the fact that it is a funny video.

The David Blaine Parody is another user generated video where one person acts to be the famous magician David Blaine and, two other people act like random people just passing by. The target audience for this video is probably people that enjoy magic tricks or, follow David Blaine street magic programs.

Just like the other user generated video this video was posted up YouTube but, could be posted up on other sites due to viral marketing or the up loader uploading it to other websites.   The purpose of the video is strictly to make people laugh as it contains funny elements during the video.  I think the video was shot with a handheld camera as the video wasn’t all that good but, just like the other video it doesn’t change the content of the video.

Overall I think that interactive videos today are just the beginning of a new generation of technology which only has improvements that could be added towards it. I think that viral marketing will be constantly used as people will always recommend their friends to watch videos that they themselves have enjoyed. Furthermore user generated videos will definitely not stop and numbers of user generated videos will only increase as so many people are learning how to upload their videos to various sites.