Austin
Digital Media

home | bio | accomplishments | teaching/speaking | articles |
press | rates and raves

Contact
Information

 back to Article Index

[Library of Articles]

Digitrends
The Role of Entertainment on the Web (January 2001)

As I've said many times before, the Internet is not an entertainment medium. Not in the sense that traditional media like movies, television and radio are. The nature of the medium called the Internet requires that you DO something, that you actively participate in accomplishing a task. These tasks fall into three areas: 1) connecting with someone else, 2) doing research, and 3) buying goods or services. Because you're usually sitting in a straight-back chair while you're working the Net, it's not the place you go to relax and have someone else entertain you. It's more of a work place.

While there are entertaining programs and sites ("Queer Duck" on Icebox.com is a favorite of mine), they are today more of a novelty—as well as showcase of new, creative work—but not the type of programming Internet users are going to "sit still for" as a rule (pun intended).

Nothing against Icebox.com. I love that it's there. But as a user, I'm working. I don't have that much time to interrupt my day and go mindless. Except maybe if I'm a Hollywood agent looking for new clients and/or content. Then I'll stop by Icebox and "work" the site, researching what it's got for me.

Applied Entertainment (a term I coined) means entertainment used for a purpose other than just to entertain. If you have a site, you can use entertainment in the service of your ultimate goal. In order to market your products, for example. Watch the cartoon demo short (Running Time 2:16) on Viva.com featuring their character "Jed, America's Favorite Renter." It's a fun piece that does a wonderfully effective job of explaining what Viva.com offers its users.

The WCN Flash Introduction at wcnonline.com provides an overview of the company by using an avatar of their CEO giving a "virtual presentation." I can watch as much of it as I want until I've gotten the message. That's because as a user, and thus the person in charge of the experience, I am God of the Remote Control of the Interactive Age—the mouse.

If you have an eCommerce site, another way to use entertainment is by showing your customers a short animation that keeps them occupied while they are waiting for your product demos to download. It's similar to what's called interstitial entertainment in traditional media. And if it's appropriate, the entertainment can be participatory, like a game, to get those customers more involved in—and hooked on—your site. "Short" is the operative word here; very few of us want to sit up in front of a small screen for very long without DOING something. One of the side-effects of our spending these last few years on the Net is that we have developed a sort of culture-wide Attention Deficit Disorder, and have less patience than ever—for anything.

What works on the Internet at this point in time in terms of entertainment is fun commercials. That's a somewhat distressing idea to contemplate, given the original promise of the Net. But from a revenue standpoint, that's where the money is now. And while we're helping to pay our way, we can use the medium and the freedom it gives us as self-publishers to create its new art forms.

 top

 back to Article Library Index