When it comes to web video length , I’ve always said the shorter the better with a sweet spot being around 60 to 90 seconds. Video 2 Zero has taken an interesting look at  how long people will watch web video analyzing audience attention span coming to the conclusion that ideal run-time for web video 2.5 – 4 minutes. I know that will be a relief to any video producers out there, because it is rare to find a producer (and I used to be one pre-web) who can say anything in less than 90 seconds.

For their analysis six top video sites (excluding YouTube) let Video 2 Zero  have access to their statistics for two weeks giving them 188,055 videos, totaling 22,724,606 streams to break down.

The New York Times ran a couple of articles at the first of December illustrating the need for doctors to behave appropriately and listing the six habits of highly respectful physicians. Although neither of these articles mention online communications, I believe some paralells can be drawn as to how doctors should communicate with patients online.

First, I think it’s important to acknowledge the role that electronic health records and secure messaging between physicians and patients can have to improve the doctor patient relationship and the patients overall health.  In the next five years we are going to see more and more doctor-patient communication move online and hopefully see more health care team communication move online (think of a facebook like social network all about your health where your nurses, primary care docs, pharmacists, specialists and you can all keep each other up to date about your health).

In this new era it will be important for your doctor and your health care team to exercise appropriate online etiquette to maximize their relationships with you and each other.  Here are some online etiquette tips that a doctor should follow:

1. Respond quickly  to patients online questions. Tell your patient you or a member of your team will respond within XX hours (24 or less hopefully) and have a work flow set-up to ensure that you meet that goal.
2. Respond fully to patients online. Take the time to write in complete sentences in language that your patients will understand. In my day to day work i communicate with some doctors over email who reply to me over email in cryptic short bursts of information which if I didn’t know better would leave me thinking they were upset, not just overworked.
3. Check off and share health care alerts with your patients. Have an automated system for sharing troubling health care issues with your patients and information on solving their health care problems.
4. Prescribe information online.  Just like patients need prescriptions, links to online information can be a great way to inform the patient and let them make informed decisions about their health care.
5. Confer with other health team members online. Find a way to create a social health care network where specialists, pharmacists and therapists can all communicate online with each other about the patient.

Eventually a form of online etiquette may need to be taught in Continuing Medical Education and in Medical School to help standardize the appropriate way to communicate with your patients online.

The Pew Research Center released their top stories of 2008 report (pdf) and the big news in their report is not what the top stories are, but where people found them. In 2008 forty percent of the respondents to this national survey said they found their international and national news online compared to only 24 percent in 2007. This moved the Internet ahead of newspapers (35%) but still behind television (70%). However for respondents under thirty,  59 percent said they found their international and national news online which is exactly how many found their international and national news on television.

The end of the year brings on many predictions for next year. Placecast looks at digital advertising trends for 2009. Again my favorites of their predictions with some comments.

• View-through metrics gain traction –For at least five years I’ve said theres got to be more than just clickthrough to sale an advertiser as their primary metric and here it comes.
• Web will be connected to the physical world –geocode, geolocation.
• Online video consumption will continue to grow –preroll, postroll, overlays will become part of every media buyer’s vocabulary.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch is reporting that they are hearing predictions for content web site revenues to be down fifty to eighty percent in 2009 with “the median pessimism point around 50%.”

The only thing that can be said is on the other side, those that survive will be stronger and will have found a revenue model that really will work.

Shel Israel has written a great case study for his new book Twitterville on how to use twitter to catch a PR disaster before it becomes nightmare and how to put it out quickly using twitter. Israel outlines how Scott Monty, Ford’s head of social media, catches a web site and the Ford legal team in a spat, get the real story out and helps settles the dispute.

The latest issue of A List Apart examines how building “a website without a content strategy is like a speeding vehicle without a driver.” It looks at what content strategy is, why it’s important and how it effects design.

Chris Bogan has posted a great list of 40 Ways to Deliver Blog Content. Not that I follow it, but if I wanted to have an awesome blog, I would.

Morris Interactive is launching a new drupal powered site for their Jacksonville Newspaper and have developed some great new features. My favorite feature extolled by Morris Interactive VP Steve Yelvington allows editors to design new home page and feature page layouts with no html knowledge– that’s right you heard me no html needed!

If you compare that to the Ellington/Django powered templating system that we ran with Scripps Newspapers it is light years ahead. In the Django system you had to not only be html and css proficient but able to sort out it’s python powered templating tags.

If you’re tired of asking your family and friends to let you know what they think about your latest design and you don’t have time or money for formal usability testing, you should try out Feedback Army. The new service uses Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to get 10 random peoples response to any 10 questions you want to ask all for only $7. You normally get the first response to your question within a couple of minutes.

Joshua Benton at the Nieman Journalism Lab tried it out and said a couple of the responses were duds, but overall it was useful feedback.