Boldly go where they've never gone before
After hearing an earful about the limitations of internet video from a content perspective, I ask the room if they've ever heard of Joost, a video destination site still in beta testing. Only Todd and Andrea, who downloaded the small application ahead of time, know about the site. But nobody in my ad hoc focus group has high expectations for what they're about to see.
With the click of a button, Todd transports us all from the familiar -- and pedestrian -- YouTube to Joost, where Adam quickly remarks that he finds the streamlined layout pleasing to the eye.
But the crowd is still wary, having been burned by too many bad internet video experiences. And so when Todd selects a full-length "Star Trek" episode, the room settles in for a laugh at the expense of yet another platform that promises the world while delivering ad-supported buffering.
To everyone's surprise, a high-quality video begins to play instantly and without interruption either from wonky technology or distracting ads.
Barrett marvels at the quality, while Andrea takes note of a friendly banner ad precisely because it does not interrupt her viewing experience by appearing inside the stream or flashing while the video plays.
But Adam and Michelle, who say they like what they see, remain cynical.
"Todd has the right equipment for this," Michelle says, as Adam notes that even the best computer screen isn't as comfortable or familiar as his couch and TV.
Yet the more the group plays with Joost, the more they seem to be willing to acknowledge a world where internet video has more to offer than Chris Crocker pleading with world to leave his beloved Britney Spears alone.
Todd smiles and says he's going to look to Joost for at least some of his video content. But the others aren't so sure…
The catch, the catch
Everyone laughs when Hervé Villechaize shouts, "The plane, the plane!" as Todd opens an old episode of "Fantasy Island." But after a few laughs, it becomes clear that Joost has cornered yesterday's content market, not today's.
We open the Comedy Central channel and disappointment sets in.
"It's got everything you don't want to watch," Todd says.
While Joost has high-quality content, its offerings aren't as competitive as the group would have hoped.
Todd wants to watch old episodes of "Star Trek" and Barrett is intrigued by an Elvira-branded horror film channel, but the others aren't so keen on the content offerings.
Adam sums it up, saying Joost has great platform that needs better content.
Arrested content
Looking for different, newer content, we check out Veoh.
Barrett and Adam criticize the layout, which appears cluttered to them compared to Joost.
But when we find an episode of "Arrested Development," everyone is pleased until the pre-roll appears.
To be fair, it's a short clip from Cisco that doesn't last more than a few seconds, and after it runs, the video plays without commercial interruption.
For Andrea, pre-roll is just another place where video is likely to buffer or fail altogether. She's been there before and she's cut shows out of her media diet because of it. So when she sees pre-roll, she doesn't think about the ad, she thinks about the likelihood that she won't get to see her favorite show.
Adam, who says he's OK with the pre-roll, makes a point TV advertisers are coping with on a daily basis.
"I could just as easily watch this on TV without the ads because I have TiVo," he says.
Barrett, who doesn't mind the pre-roll, says it's still a tough sell.
"It's all about expectations," Barrett says. "If I'm watching TV, I expect ads every 10 or 15 minutes, but I know I'm also getting something done by professionals with an excellent picture. On the internet, I don't have those expectations, and so I just don't have the patience for the ads, especially if it's short content."
But that's not the only problem with Veoh.
The picture quality leaves something to be desired. Everyone wants to go back to Joost, or worse yet, break out a DVD. Although it loads relatively fast and there's no buffering, Veoh suffers from diminished picture quality compared to Joost. So even though everyone rates the Veoh picture quality as high compared to what they see elsewhere on the web, it's still not high enough to sustain a 30-minute show.
Back to You, Tube
I try to show the group one more site, but the fact that the unnamed destination is down highlights how precarious long-form internet video really is.
So when I instruct Todd to load [website name omitted], the group turns to me as if to say, see, this is the kind of uncertainty we deal with when we try to watch video online.
Then someone remembers that there's footage of an exploding whale on YouTube and we return to the comfort of internet video's established powerhouse.
As debris from the beached whale carcass falls from the sky, and someone remarks, this is the great thing about the internet, I can't help but ask if anyone has ever seen an ad on YouTube.
YouTube launched its pilot ad program last year and has had trouble making it work. No one has seen an ad, but they all have a piece of advice for the Google-owned video company -- keep the ads out of the video player.
Conclusion
There's something terribly basic about TV from a user perspective. You watch the show, the ads come on, you go get a snack, and you watch the rest of your show. But while internet video may look a lot like TV (assuming the content and the quality make their way to the computer screen), the advertiser/user relationship is something quite different.
That old exchange between brands and people didn't require advertisers to delve into the minutiae of a consumer's viewing habits. After all, the medium and the advertisers set the rules. But internet video is first and foremost the domain of the users, so it's worth finding out what they think.
Perhaps you've played with some of today's video portals or done qualitative research with a user that goes beyond the usual metrics. If so, I encourage you to join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community by posting a comment.
Editor's note: Adam, one of the people who expressed concern that Joost only looked good because of Todd's expensive monitor, tried to run the application at home. To his dismay, he got a message telling him he couldn't support Joost even though his computer met all of the site's requirements. Slaying the TV giant is indeed a tricky endeavor.
Michael Estrin is associate editor at iMediaConnection. Read full bio.