wireWAX: taggable, touchable video

Published 8 February 2013

Why isn’t every blog in video format? It’s far easier to consume. I’ve been pondering this question for a while and, when I saw what wireWAX had to offer, the question only became more pertinent. wireWAX is apparently “the first and only online-based video tool for adding motion-tracking hotspots to people and objects in video” and it is very cool.

The premise of their offering is:

• Load up a video. If it’s already posted (e.g. on YouTube), you can just enter the URL
• Tag objects/people
• Add pop-ups: text, images, links or special apps (there are apps to link to Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and many more)
• Style the pop-ups (optional)
• Embed the video within your site

An example of how wireWAX’s tagging could be used – just click on one of the circles

My mind when into overdrive about how this could be used. You could film famous people talking about their favourite wines, with tags giving details of the wine and where to buy them. Wine merchants can now display an intro video on their site with tags giving information on special offers, their services, their staff. Videos that come out of EWBC will surely now tag speakers and attending bloggers with links to their sites, blogs or even their books on Amazon. Tasting-based videos can now provide up-to-the-minute pricing and availability information (see my example). Vineyards can show us their facilities with calls-to-action for buying their wine, booking a visit or accommodation. You can increase sales (either as supplier or affiliate) by building it into your shopping process, such as Waitrose’s cooking demo which uses a bespoke app to add ingredients to your basket. Tourist boards can now provide potential visitors with a tour of an area, showing them videos within a video of specific places of interest (e.g. A video walking through Florence might allow viewers to click on the Duomo, the Uffizi, the Bargello, etc, to see more information on each of them – see what The National Portrait Gallery has done for inspiration in this area).

That’s just a handful of ideas that I’ve thought of whilst producing my video. I’d love to hear your ideas of how this great tool could be used.

Pros:

• Allows you to add links, more information, etc, to videos
• It’s free. wireWAX aims to make money from customisations of tags and pop-ups (from agencies and big brands)
• Very easy to use
• Looks very cool on iPads: it becomes “touchable video”
• It follows products/people around (at least until there is a cut in the video)
• Allows you to save your pop-ups so you can re-use them without having to rebuild/restyle each time
• Increases chances of affiliate payments (because of direct link to products)

Cons:

• When you click on a tag the pop-up appears, but it stops the video. (Initially I thought it would be nice to have the option to allow the video to continue playing, but wireWAX assures me they did “extensive viewer and experience testing” and found that, having the background continue to move whilst a pop-up was activated, frustrated users and resulted in less interaction/engagement)
• Doesn’t currently work on iPhones or Android phones (although wireWAX says these are coming very soon)
• Embedded tagged films currently take slightly longer to load than embedded YouTube videos (my wireWAX video took 17.7 seconds to start playing; the YouTube one took 10.7 seconds). However, it loads the rest of the page first so, unless your page just has video on it, most people won’t notice. In response, wireWAX says “we deliver from the same distribution platform as Netflix and actually have one of the lightest players. In testing, we can often match YouTube times, but it is dependent on a number of factors. The next major release of the player is incredibly light and we hope to beat YouTube.”
• Difficult to tag multiple items in close proximity to one another without looking cluttered – although styling options do help to a certain extent

Thanks to Wine Passionista for allowing me to tag her video and to Dan Garraway (number 2 at wireWAX) for answering my numerous questions.