Anyone who thinks that the new video iPod is strictly a novelty item for teens and twenty-somethings should probably think again.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a video worth? Could it be ten thousand words (about twenty pages)?
That sounds about right to me. Zoom and Go, a popular travel site, is putting their entire library of travel videos in iPod format. According to the site, that is about ten thousand videos.
Travel and tourism is a huge business, and travelers are interested in the best places to go, to stay, and to eat. Watching a short video clip of a hotel, restaurant, or attraction is far more compelling that reading about it, or even browsing a few pictures on a Web site. Imagine, as you are getting ready to leave on a trip, downloading directions, hotel information, video maps, and restaurant information straight to your iPod, and having, essentially, an interactive tour guide every step of the way.
It's just an early example of what will be a flood of video-enabled information designed for portable devices. One of the advantages of the iPod, oddly enough, is that it does NOT require an Internet connection. The one-button downloads and fast synchronization of files from your desktop machine make it incredibly easy to download gigabytes of information and then use it anywhere, without the fuss of finding a hotspot or cellphone connection.
As I wrote recently, Step One of your region's revitalized economic development plan may be to buy all your leaders iPods, and then show them how to use them.