Shhh!

We here at Gopherx.net have long known the dirty secret of online video – almost no one watches until the end.

It doesn’t matter how long or short your video is, or what type of hosting you use, most of your viewers click away before the video is finished streaming.

Now, I’m not a fan of bloggers who simply rewrite other blog’s content and call it their own, so I’ll let you check out the post on Visible Measures that inspired this one on your own. (But you’ll have to wait for the link at the bottom, cause I do want you to read my post first!) But essentially they discovered that 20% of viewers leave in the first 10 seconds. That’s an average figure across the whole online video sphere. (Is there a g33k term for it that I’m not aware of?)

Like I started out saying, that’s nothing new. We discovered this fact when we were analyzing our figures for our early series, especially Team Leader, which was launched just when these sorts of robust tools were first being developed.

The first response people throw out when confronted with numbers like this is “People have shorter attention spans today.” Usually with a roll of the eyes. What they’re really saying is that the it is the viewer’s fault

that they’re not sticking around past ten seconds, or even to the end. And I just that that’s mean. It’s not the viewer’s fault that they didn’t like your piece of video enough to watch it all. (At the risk of bragging, we’ve found that our videos tend to blow away to the average numbers for completion – as far as we can tell we some of the highest completion rates on the internet.)

The myth of lowering attention span I think comes from a comparison between old media and new media. When you go out to a movie, you have committed yourself and your time to about two hours of watching. Not so with online video. Often we get a link emailed or tweated to us and we have no idea how long it is, or even what it is really about. We open it, watch for a few seconds, and then glance at the time bar. “Four minutes? I better get back to that report. I’ll watch it later.” And that counts as someone watching the video and clicking away. Is it a problem with attention span? Or is it just the fact that entertainment on the internet is still very much about discovery. How often do you sit down with a plan to watch internet videos for the next hour? (Despite what media gurus would have you believe, people don’t plan their time that way – they pick series, not platforms. But that’s another discussion.)

Another element of viewer abandonment (and the myth of the short attention span) is that watching stuff on the internet still… kinda… sucks. Let’s be honest about it. My computer is fairly modern, but I still set the resolution way down on a video so it will play smoothly and buffer quickly. Fiction videos, like web series, have a bit of a raw deal. To get the kinds of scenes viewers expect to see – being used to film and TV – can choke up a stream. It is hard to compress a scene where there’s lots of action and motion. And so the picture stutters, and freezes and buffers and we huff and puff and get to a point where watching that video just isn’t worth the wait anymore. It’s not the videos fault. And it’s not the viewer’s fault. If the experience sucks, why should people put up with it? They can click to Fail Blog or Lolcatz where the pictures come up right away, we can feel good for a moment, and then get back to that report.

So, yes, people click away. And we’re not supposed to talk about it – it might scare off advertisers. But it happens. For one reason or another, some people just don’t want to watch your video. It’s not great, but instead of keeping it a secret, we should be upfront and deal with it.

And the answer is not making that first ten seconds super exciting and super high energy or have boobies or whatever (unless that is what your video is about). Let it introduce your story, let the people who will never like to watch that story leave, and the rest of us can get on with enjoying it.

For those who are interested in the numbers, check out the post from Visible Measures.

Aaron Sorkin said that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was his most autobiographical work. Well… Scott says that Robot Roommates is his. Does that mean you’re a robot, Scott?

We’re working with talented Bryce Hallet (The Red Green Show, History Bites) for the animation to this one. We’re super excited to have Bryce on board with us. We’ve been trying to work with him for awhile now, and Robot Roommates is the project that made it happen.

We hope to go into production on RR (as we call it in our lazy way) by the end of April.

We’d like to thank Movieola for believing in us. If you get the channel, check us out!

Tights and Fights airing schedule

If you don’t get the channel, you should look into it. They’re doing great things. You can watch a whole bunch of stuff on their website, too!

This is an exciting time for us. We’ve got a brand website, and while it is still a bit of a work in progress, we’re very happy with it! We hope you like it.

Plus, we’re gearing up to do a new animated series, Robot Roommates, and after that we’re going to dive right into series two of Tights and Fights. We’re calling it Tights and Fights: Ashes, and it focuses on five different super heroes and their (eventual) quest to find Captain Euchre.

And we’re forming a new partnership, one that will definitely take us to the next level. We’ll let you know as soon as we can.

Watch this space!

October 22, 2007

Captain Euchre is Fighting Crime… without a Full Deck!

Tights and Fights, An Innovative New Canadian
Comedy Series, Launches October 26!

(Toronto, ON) Soon to be airing on Movieola—The Short Film Channel (www.movieola.ca), the short form, multi-platform comedy Tights and Fights will be available for viewing online starting Friday October 26, 2007, at www.tightsandfights.com.

Tights and Fights is a fictional video diary of the ups and downs (and sideways) of a Canadian super-hero, Captain Euchre (played by writer/producer Scott Albert). Once a highly ranked player on the professional Euchre circuit, Captain Euchre now fights crime using a Euchre card deck which was exposed to mysterious cosmic radiation! Using his webcam, Captain Euchre keeps us updated about his daily life – whether he’s bogged down in meetings with Ronin Force, fighting Librarian Marm or the Salad King, or dating Dynagal, each hilarious episode contrasts the comic book clichés of being a super-hero with the frustrations of modern life.

Created expressly for the demands of multi-platform distribution, Tights and Fights is simultaneously distributed online, on mobile, and traditional broadcast. Each episode is less than five minutes long, making it ideal for viewers looking for a “content snack” on the go or just a quick break, while the ongoing storyline is also perfect for someone to sit back on the couch and watch a number of episodes in a row. The current storyline of 52 episodes will last until March 2008, with plans for a new batch of episodes to begin soon after.

With this ongoing series, GopherX.net is building on the run-away success of our previous multi-platform series, the animated six episode limited series The Retired Porn Producer’s Guide To… which has received over 100,000 views across the internet since its launch last year. It is currently airing on Movieola—The Short Film Channel and is distributed on mobile by Big Bang Pictures. A second 12 episode limited series, Team Leader, is currently in post-production, with a launch expected by the end of the year.

GopherX.net is a partnership between Christopher Guest and Scott Albert. Gopher X and The Retired Porn Producer’s Guide To… has been featured on G4 Tech TV’s Torrent TV, and has been covered by C21 Media and Playback Magazine. Tights and Fights can currently be seen on Movieola—The Short Film Channel and after October 26, 2007 at www.tightsandfights.com.

For More Information, please email contact@gopherx.net