Embedded Autoplay Video Bubble Set to Burst, Marketer Says

The proliferation of embedded autoplay video is a bubble set to pop, said marketing consultant Simon Owens in an email newsletter Wednesday. He said embedding such videos in their content shows publishers implicitly acknowledge there's no demand and viewership numbers get artificially inflated. He said news outlets have shed text-based staff to ramp up video production, but the media industry acknowledges its pivot increasingly toward video is driven by advertiser -- not reader -- demand. Duration of that advertiser demand is questionable since the growth of streaming service original programming means a coming glut of high-quality video content. He also said browsers rolling out updates that block autoplay video "might finally force a reckoning within the industry."