Business Week takes a look at the future of long-form video on the Web.

Right now, what works best are short clips. Web surfers currently have short attention spans, want instant gratification, multitask, and can get frustrated by technology that is still buggy.

How consumer habits will change when the technology improves — and trust me, it will improve — is hard to gauge. I still suspect that quick-hit video will always be popular.

I do see a coming market for longer pieces, though, which is great for independent producers.

Huell Howser now offers a “podcast” of his show via iTunes. I downloaded my first full-length television show the other day, watched it all the way through and enjoyed it immensely. Aside from the technology, I think as more people discover the advantages of such downloads and how to work them into their media consumption habits, we’ll see a growing popularity for longer-form video.

The BW article mentions that Lycos has launched a project called Cinema, which sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I can’t check it out since they completely shut out the growing legion of Mac users. Bad move. Nothing like saying “I don’t get the Internet” by going with a proprietary format when launching a new service.