If 2007 was the year for sharing video, 2008 is shaping up to be the year for making it interactive - a true mix of video with interactive elements. Where video used to be a process of putting pieces together, now increasingly it will also be a process of taking those pieces apart, to allow random access to particular sections of a video clip, user rankings and comments within the video, hotspots, and more.
Here's an example of a quick turn-around interactive video by The New York Times of the President's State of the Union speech last night. By default, the video plays sequentially from beginning to end. But The Times also marked the main topics of the speech, allowing the user to jump to any of them. A transcript of the entire speech is also displayed. When you select a title or move the progress bar on the video player, the transcript moves as well, highlighting the paragraph in your selection. Click the image above to check it out.
