The traditional linear video consumption patterns are starting to change. The pre-packaged thirty minute spot that is twenty two minutes of content and eight of advertising that showed at 9:30 on a Tuesday is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Consumers have gotten a taste of control and are not about to give it up. With DVR’S, bit torrent’s, iTunes and an array of other tools that allow consumers to watch media on their own terms they now have control and they want more.
We also see the Internet changing the way that media is being watched. Short format and user generated content is growing in views into the realm of tradition TV. The numbers that a successful “web” video garner are in the millions throwing a curve ball at traditional models and the idea that the internet is for small audiences.
These initial changes are starting to push the habits, especially among the younger demographic, into new patterns that make the next phase of evolution of media a more interactive experience. This new consumption pattern moves beyond the traditional linear viewing experience and into non-linear viewing. Think of video consumption more like the way we consume blogs or other multi-threaded mediums like forums. Services are cropping up that allow a viewer to move from video to text from photo to video and back again.
An approach to media consumption I am calling N.I.M.B.L.E.- navigating interactive media beyond linear experiences. This is a choose your own adventure styled pattern of media consumption. It can extend our traditional thirty minute spot into a three hundred minute odyssey that starts with the IMDB listings of the entire cast and end with the community created wiki about the show.