'Video Snacking' New Frontier For Media Creators

News.com has up a piece from the NYT about the concept of 'video snacking', a new focus for media companies as they gain a certain savvy about the internet. They're increasingly targeting the 'lunch market' for office workers, creating short to-the-point videos that can be consumed over a sandwich. "The midday spike in Web traffic is not a new phenomenon, but media companies have started responding in a meaningful way over the last year. They are creating new shows, timing the posts to coincide with hunger pangs. And they are rejiggering the way they sell advertising online, recognizing that noontime programs can command a premium. In 2007, a growing number of local television stations, including WNCN in Raleigh, N.C., and WCMH in Columbus, Ohio, began producing noon programming exclusively for the Web."

Comments

Lunchtime routine

[xant]

I got a new video iPod for christmas. I also have a fairly stressful job dealing with constant communication 8+ hours a day. So at lunch I want to get away from people. My routine has been to listen to fiction podcasts (short stories.. escape pod, pseudopod, drabblecast, etc.) while I walk to lunch, and then when I actually get my food, sit down and continue to tune out with a show of some kind.

I'm partial to Heroes, but I'll be caught up with that pretty soon (I'm up to episode 9 of season 2.)

There is a real niche here. I REALLY WOULD like media companies to market ipod-format media to me.. I would watch it. There's a space in my day for it, exactly the thing to use to tune out the world for that half hour when I really need it tuned out. I will say this though: my standards for quality of content stay just as high at lunch as they do the rest of the day. :-) If you want to market to me, it had better be watchable.