Ian Swenson .com

I’m an internet information junkie, as I suspect millions of Americans are right along side me. I still read the newspaper 3-5 times a week, but I get most of my news information from the likes of Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and IMDB. Yeah, I like my gossip too.

A disturbing trend has been growing lately, most evident in Yahoo. Video news feeds now run rampant on their sports page, and recently on their main news stories as well.

I personally don’t care to wait the extra minute or two waiting for the preliminary commercial that invariably precedes the content, nevermind the actual load time. Things seem to be slowing down lately with the big guys and load time. Too many people with high bandwidth connections and too much crap like video clogging it, I suppose.

So we’ve established I don’t like video. Besides, the whole point of internet viewing is information at your fingertips on demand. I don’t have to wait for the News @ Whenever’o'Clock just to find out which Oklahoma City Sonic was signed today, I can just look online. The video/commercial wait time slows that down for me, adds extra minutes I wasn’t counting on (pun unintended).

This is all minor gripage though. My real beef is with the video only news. I can survive if I don’t hear who Tony Gwynn feels is going to win the AL West, or which home video has become a recent web sensation for Britney Spears. However, it really irks me when there’s a story I’m interested in that the particular website I’m viewing only has readily available in video format.

Par example: Man headline on Yahoo this evening is ” ‘Naked’ airport screening?” and they have a picture of some guy walking through what seems to be an X-Ray machine of sorts. This is intriguing to me. I’m aware of eroding civil liberties and I am interested in its outcome and effect on me. This is a story I would read on any other website or in any newspaper.

But I’m not going to watch the friggin’ video.