HotSwap to enter useless videos market

[TC] HotSwap To Enter $370 billion Used Car Market:

Used car sales are big business – at least $370 billion/year in the U.S., with $81 billion or so of that occurring online. New startup HotSwap wants to apply some of the more recent trends on the web to that market … The company, which is based in Berkeley, CA, allows anyone to list a used car for sale. In addition to basic information, people are asked to include a video of the vehicle, which is embedded in the listing. Videos, they say, are a much better way of showing off a car.

Low resolution videos are not better. Images can show you if the car you are interested in is indeed in the condition stated. That is sufficient information. At the end of the day, you still need to test drive it.

YouTube is for TV clips and for lip sync videos. Flickr is for quality photos. If I want to see a pimped out car do tricks, a video would be nice. If I want to check if the ‘97 Accord in the ad is missing a bumper or there is a giant dent in the door, all I want are a couple of images. I don’t want to watch 10 minutes of shaky video that will tell me virtually nothing.