If you’re to believe the hype, the future of traffic generation lies in video.

Beep!!! Don’t believe everything you hear!

In this edition of the Friday Podcast, I compare various channels like text, audio and video and you’ll see that there’s still life in the other channels.

Friday Podcast Episode 18: Tweaking Your Traffic Channels For Maximum Profit [ 8:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (727)

Click on the “More” tab to access the notes.

Video is the buzzword, and according to some pundits you might even think that current traffic wave is just video, video, video.

Text: easiest to create, easy to distribute, lowest barrier of entry,
skim and go through it quickly, unlike audio or video.
enormous depth of information.
low bandwidth.
downside:
has lowest perceived value.

Audio/podcast: perfect for multitasking.
listen to audio while driving, working out, in bed, while cleaning the desk.
unless person is sitting down to listen to podcast, not suited to presenting complex information.
probably most compact.
A single CD contains about 10 hours of MP3 audio.
An MP3 player or cell phone with MP3 function could contain hundreds of hours of audio.
downside:
very high noise-to-signal ratio. everyone and his mother can produce an audio.
very linear medium. need to follow through with it, step by step. not really easy to jump around.

Video:
key advantages:
-branding: physical face
-great for complex info: a 5 min video could present info from 20 pages of text easily and pictures, combined with audio create an easy to understand medium.
downside:
bandwidth intensive.
requires pretty speedy internet connection.
concept of personal TV broadcast station – getting abused.

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Bottomline: each medium has its pros and cons.
Video is great and 2007 might be the year of video, metacafe, revver, magnify, bubble ply,
I don’t buy argument that video is everything.
That’s as silly as saying that Internet news is going to put newspapers and magazines out of business.

Maximize your effectiveness, need to understand the strengths and shortcomings of each medium and match it to your marketing campaign appropriately.