'How online video powers global innovation'

"What Gutenberg did for writing, online video can do for face-to-face communication. So that primal medium, which your brain is wired for, just went global."

That's the opinion of Chris Anderson, curator of TED, a small non-profit "devoted to ideas worth spreading," says its website. Anderson, who's video presentation at the TED2010 conference is available here, gave a presentation titled "How Web video powers global innovation."

His talk is upbeat and focuses on the positive uses of online video, its power and promise. It's an interesting point of view piece for journalists, certainly, but for businesses who have held off on jumping into using online video for sales or for marketing, it presents an argument that's hard to refute: online video helps companies establish a deeper, more basic connection with an audience.

In online video, "There's a lot more being transferred than just words," Anderson says. "It's in that nonverbal portion that there's some serious magic. Somewhere hidden in the physical gestures, the vocal cadence, the facial expressions, the eye contact... the sense of how the audience are reacting, there are hundreds of subconscious clues that go to how well you will understand and whether you are inspired.... Incredibly, all of this can be communicated on just a few square inches of a screen."

For more:
- watch this video
- see this Columbia Journalism Review article