Why online video took off, is fading now, and will soon return

Trends online closely reflect human nature, which makes sense seeing as regular "day-to-day humans" are making up more and more of the content online. Video is no exception.

YouTube took off, and people were crazy about videos at first, you could seemingly find anything you wanted to find, or just get sucked into whatever people were throwing at you. TV did this, and still does (probably?) to some people.

So what happened? People's expectations have grown. Now instead of these casual encounters with a string of a few YouTube videos, people now want to "go to the YouTube" and veg out, like good ole' TV once let them do. It's tough to veg out when you're stuck with 1 minute clips though. They may be great, but not when every minute you have to then click on a new video that looks good, or worse click around until you can even find another video that looks decent... every minute.

The answer? Well easily put, playlists. Just like music playlists though, your average joe doesn't know how, doesn't even know about, or just doesn't feel like putting together a playlist, after all that's kind of like work. Videos have a much shorter lifespan than music too, where you can listen to a song 100's, even 1000's of times in your lifetime, that awesome video of a water balloon bursting in super slow motion is probably only good a few times, maybe more if you're showing it off to friends.

The answer (again, but for real this time)? Auto-Playlists that just start playing when you go to the site comprised of suggested videos, each pretty short in duration, all playing one after another with the ability to skip through if you'd like. This allows full vegetation, kick back with your bowl of cereal and enjoy.

Suggested, you say? How? Suggestion techniques are easy these days, especially with so many people watching, and with a strong emphasis and incentive for rating content, the skies the limit. Your suggestions can be based on, among other things, what your friends rate highly. Letting you know that helps too, if when a video starts a message below says "Friends X, Y, Z, and P all loved this video", you'll watch it a little differently and perhaps enjoy it on whatever level you have set with that group of friends.

Wow, what a long rant about some lame basic feature for a video site... it's almost noon, bedtime. By the way, that's just an idea pulled from Music Slice, just for video instead of songs... of course... Music Slice, slice, slice, slice... it's everywhere! Another by the way, Music Slice also has a video section with the exact feature, just for videos instead of videos. You get the feeling I love my Slice? Or maybe you get the feeling I'm losing my mind. Night.