How to make your multimedia stand out on the Web

If you're into multimedia, that's great.  But lots of interesting text should accompany everything you do -- even audio and video.  Steve Rubel makes a compelling case that text -- not video -- is still king of the Web.  Why? Here are some highlights:

• It's scannable - according to Jakob Nielsen users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average site visit and 20% is more likely

• Three letters: SEO - For all that Google Universal Search has done to elevate video, search results are still largely made up of text and everyone wants better SEO

• Distribution - Nothing flies like text. It's so easy to cut and
  paste it and send it somewhere or to clip and re-syndicate it via
  email, RSS or social networks

I think he's right, and my experience with blogs and podcasts bears that out.  I think multimedia is still very important.  It's easy and inexpensive to do, and it adds a lot of information you can't convey very well with text.  But all your multimedia content should be accompanied by text.  It makes it more findable, more sharable, and more scannable.  And those are three important factors in making yourself and your organization more influential.