With YouTube’s video annotations feature starting to get some momentum (see below for update), I thought it might be good to address the concept of interactive video. “Hypervideo” - the inclusion of dynamic hyperlinks into video on a time-dependant basis - isn’t particularly new. In early 2004, web ad technology company United Virtualities released their Shoshmosis engine, which placed a clickable Flash layer over streaming video. Before that, eline Technologies (now VideoClix) had a QuickTime-based solution complete with clickable objects that triggered contextual content alongside the playing video. But hypervideo has yet to penetrate into the online mainstream, and most web video experiences are still remarkably linear.

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