Exchanging film recordings is latest in entertainment
By Sarah Bradshaw
Poughkeepsie Journal

September 17, 2006

Nothing passes time better than watching a belly-baring man in a blonde wig perform a spoof of Shakira’s music video “Hips Don’t Lie.”

Or someone demonstrate the Coke/Mentos explosive experiment.

These are a few of the Web videos viewed by thousands of workers each day that help move the hour hand on the clock a little closer to 5 p.m.

Stickam executive Aaron Novak believes Web videos are the lastest craze in e-mail forwards and entertainment Web browsing.

“Our site and other sites make it easy to e-mail a link to the video file, which gets passed around, and everyone starts watching,” Novak said.

Videos are broadcast

Stickam allows users to link to videos on the site and add photos, video, music and live streaming video chat to a Web site or blog. It is just one of many sites, including YouTube, Google Video, mtvU and Yahoo! Video, that allow users to broadcast their videos publicly or share them privately with friends.

YouTube, which boasts about 20 million new users per month, explained the popularity of its site stems from more consumers using video devices, according to its Web site fact sheet. However, another contributing factor could be the number of workers who browse the Internet for entertainment while at work.

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Labor’s statistics bureau found that 77 million people used a computer at work. In June, 61 percent of U.S. workers polled said their fellow employees spend an hour or less using company technology for personal use, according to a Harris Interactive survey for The Marlin Co.

“Honestly, everyone has their own downtime at work,” Stickam user Jason Devlin said. The 24-year-old California-based graphic designer said he doesn’t work nine hours with out taking a break.

“In one way or another, people are guilty of logging online for entertainment,” he said. Devlin likes to post videos on his friends’ MySpace sites and e-mail videos to co-workers because “that’s how I keep in touch with them.”

New form of interaction

Brett Phares, an interactive media professor at Marist College, said sharing Web videos allows people to interact with a large circle of friends without the added time constraints caused by face-to-face communication.

Renay Pettersen, a State University of New York at New Paltz graduate who works on Wall Street in Manhattan, said her job can get boring at times, but entertainment sites like ebaumsworld.com help her “get lost for hours” and the best part is “you view Web videos on a computer so it still looks like you’re doing actual work,” she said.

She also receives forwards from friends, including some video forwards, and those are her favorite, she said.

Devlin said chain e-mails aren’t as popular as Web videos.

“Chain letters are impossible to believe. You don’t think, ‘Oh no, I’m going to have a horrible love life because I didn’t send this to 10 people.’ A video is instantly gratifying,” he said.

Thomas G. Henry, a Dutchess Community College computer science/media arts student, said text is outdated.

“I don’t communicate with text. I communicate solely with videos. Instead of leaving a comment, I leave them a music video from 1993,” the 25-year-old said.

Henry also launched a Hudson Valley events vlog site, with Web videos that highlight local artists.

Henry said he has heard of companies blocking sites like MySpace to stop employees from goofing off during work hours. He wasn’t sure if YouTube and other Web video sites would be the next sites blocked.

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