• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, June 9, 2011

If most of us remember anything at all about T.S. Eliot's great modernist poem "The Waste Land" it is that we were hopelessly lost after the first memorable line - "April is the cruelest month." Eliot filled his masterpiece with so many obscure allusions to literature past and pop culture present that it seemed designed to appeal to scholars, not the rest of us. As a former academic, I will let you in on a trade secret. Even some of us in the field used to debate whether this poem was worthwhile or meaningful to anyone but bickering grad students in English departments.

So imagine if this bane of undergrads' existence were revived with dramatic gusto by an Irish actress whose gestures, expressions, cadence blend with good editing and set design to make this poem make sense? That is the not inconsiderable achievement in the new iPad app from Eliot publisher Faber and Faber and app creator Touch Press. The app is filled with tappable annotations for the poem itself to get you through the thorny allusions. And there is a facsimile of Eliot's original typescript with jotting. There are also loads of video interviews with a range of people, from poet Seamus Heaney to former punk rocker-turned-folk-singer Frank Turner who claims Eliot as an influence (he has the Waste Land epigram tattooed on his wrist).

But at the center of this great app is the performance from actress Fiona Shaw. Perhaps a tad overly emotive, Shaw speaks the poem as a person talking to another. The video plays on the top of the screen while the relevant lines of the poem are tracked and highlighted below. You can actually use the lines in the poem to advance through the video. Tap a line and the video advances seamlessly to that point in the poem. You can even hop from the Shaw performance to the same lines read by one of five other readers, including two by Eliot himself and one by Alec Guinness.

On one simple level this is an example of how video can be used to enhance and enrich any topic and draw you in through personality, gesture, tone, etc. Okay, we know that already. What is more striking here, and perhaps more relevant to marketers, is the way that video is being integrated with other media - sound, text, artifacts. Marketers certainly could learn some tricks from the ways in which the video is synchronized but also interactively linked to other media. This is more than just a white paper or coupon popping up when your pitchman makes the relevant mention. This is an interface where the other material can be used to drive the video in new directions and the video encourages users to multitask and drill into specific other material.

We have spent the last few years cultivating and leveraging the sheer love of video for its own sake. We toss video clips to users as if they rewards. As the format becomes expected and ubiquitous then we need to imagine a more evolved stage where video is working in tighter integration with the rest of the content experience. Of course have seen hot spots in video for years and sidebars that synchronize with the video ad, etc. But there is much more than can be done creatively to make video not just a value add in content but a centerpiece to a more engaging video experience. In many ways the kinds of creative activity going on in the app world will and should refract back onto Web and connected TV video experiences as well.