We've been experimenting with video for a while now, going back to 1996 or so. Anybody remember Casco Bay Online? Here's a page from 1997 that's in the Internet Archive, including a video feature.
(I'm glad they saved it, because we sure didn't.)

In 2007, we're doing lots more with video, including the blogs of Wendy Almeida and Roger McCord, experiments by our summer intern, Nick Brennan, and of course Shannon Bryan's video of her "training" on the Beach to Beacon course. Video -- both content and advertising -- is a hot topic around our industry.

But where is all this heading, and do people really watch video on the web? Blogger Howard Owens has pulled together a nice summary of recent research, finding, for example ,"More than half of those surveyed (51%) indicated that they watch video online at least once a month, 27% watch at least once a week and five percent watch video online daily."

Howard's Compendium of online video research is well worth a read.

We're interested in your thoughts, so share them below. What kind of video do you think would be most useful or interesting on our sites?

Howard Owens, well known around the newspaper online world, blogged about the new MaineToday.com design yesterday. He is Director of Digital Publishing at Gatehouse Media, which owns a large group of newspapers and websites around Boston, as well as nationwide. Howard formerly was head of online at the Bakersfield Californian.

If you have any interest in online newspaper stuff, especially video and "citizen media," I highly recommend Howard's writings.

Give this entry a read and share your thoughts. (Cut him some slack for omitting the "e" in MaineToday, though)