Limelight: Take an Holistic View of Video Latency
When videos don't play quickly, viewers leave. It's that simple. But what is latency really about? Speaking at the recent Streaming Forum conference in London, Jason Thibeault, senior director of marketing strategy for Limelight Networks, encouraged attendees to take a wider view of latency.
"Latency is any delay in the digital experience that's part of your video," Thibeault began. "When we talk about a digital experience, that's all the stuff that's around, all the things that are surrounding. When latency happens, this is what you're asking your users to do: You're asking them to wait. Users don't like to wait, right? We have lots of stats and lots of information about how quickly users will abandon sites if it increases from one second to three seconds to five seconds."
To understand why latency happens, sites need to look not just at their video performance, but at the full digital experience they're providing.
"When you ask your users to wait, they're going to leave. What I want to suggest is that the real reason that people leave video experiences is not just because the video's not playing well. It's because of all the surrounding stuff around the video; it's everything that enables the video. It's the digital experience -- your website, your mobile application," Thibeault said. "Remember that your video is not just playing itself; it's part of an experience."
For more of Thibeault's ideas on latency, download the presentation and watch the full video below.
How Latency Can Kill the Video Experience
Latency. Are your videos really to blame? Is it your media server or the internet that’s slowing things down, or is it something that didn’t seem important: the rest of your digital experience? This session explores the myriad forms of latency that can impact on video performance, using real-world examples to help you look past the obvious.
Presenter Jason Thibeault, Senior Director, Marketing Strategy, Limelight Networks
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