How long does it take you to tell your story?
July 6, 2009 — Abigail Hamilton
The Times over the weekend reported that online video continues to mature, with the average length now at 3 and a half minutes.
The two things in the article, though, that struck me were:
1.) The historic parallels with movies:
More than anything else, the longer viewing spans may speak to the maturation of the medium itself. Mr. Konkle said that the first kinetoscopes, in the 1890s, were about 30 seconds long, because the format required outrageously long strips of film.
“It was also accepted as fact that 30 seconds made for a good kinetoscope. This is what filmmakers thought the audience could handle,” Mr. Konkle said, drawing a parallel to the early days of online video. “It probably felt like a giant dangerous leap to short films of three minutes.”
2. The concept of online delivery of video freeing the storytelling from standard length formats. Some stories take 2 seconds to tell, some take hours.
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