Popcorn Framework Brings Interactive Video To The People's Choice Awards

A few weeks ago, we discussed Mozilla's interactive video framework, Popcorn.js, an HTML5 application that will allow for content creators to provide context links and information to their videos.  It was test-driven with documentary films.  Now, with the support of content optimization company RAMP, and Mozilla's release of version 1.0 at the Mozilla Festival in London, Popcorn is getting its first commercial use through the People's Choice website.  Videos on peopleschoice.com have the technology, so that when certain points of interest are mentioned, another window opens next to the existing video without interrupting it, and gives you the option of learning more about that subject.

Popcorn Lands on People's Choice Awards Website

The video interactivity is pretty cool. I wanted to embed the player, but their embed code doesn't seem to be working. Here's a shot of what the player looks like, though:

SEE ALSO: Mozilla Introduces Popcorn Maker, Interactive Web Video Remix Application Open to All

So, in the clip above, the nominees were given for Best Smile, with each nominee marked on the timeline with a blue dot.  As each blue dot is reached, suddenly, to the right of the screen, you also have some biographical information on J-Lo or one of the other nominees, and you can click through for more information.

You can also hover over the video to see the scroll-down options that let you skip to the next video or search for people and terms within the video you're watching.

Click here to try out the interactive video player for yourself.

As the RAMP announcement says:

RAMP was able to deploy this experience across thousands of PeoplesChoice.com videos using its highly scalable algorithmic approach to generating time-coded metadata.

This is your usual press release vague mumbo jumbo.  But Ramp's metadata technology finds interesting topics in a video, with whatever technique they use, and then uses Popcorn to bring attention to those topics and create links for them.  What's interesting is that the metadata and interactivity were created using absolutely no humans.  No humans were harmed in the making of these videos.  So there wasn't some poor guy scouring videos and placing links on each one, it was all done through automation.

So now imagine, if creating interactivity is that easy, how long before news organizations/networks, or YouTube, get involved with this?

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