Robert_Charlton - 2:28 am on Jan 25, 2008 (gmt 0)

One thing you said did get me thinking though...and that is what if people go to a site (while browsing in work) not really expecting sound and all of a sudden the audio blares out.

Unexpected audio can be extremely annoying. It will cause me to back out of a site immediately. This is true whether you have background music or a spokesperson... and in fact a spokesperson might cause me to run away faster. Also, don't forget the time factor. People surf the web to get information quickly. This is why splash pages and mandatory Flash intros are disappearing, and why I have some doubts about low quality videos as a long-term strategy.

Here are two classic WebmasterWorld discussions about background music on websites. While some considerations in these discussions might be unique to music, I think there are more parallels than differences. IMO, anyway, it's a bad idea....

Background Music
Is it a good or bad feature?
[webmasterworld.com...]

How to politely talk a client out of music on their site?
Loves his MIDI files playing in the background...yikes
[webmasterworld.com...]

One thing I am interested in finding out is people think there are any search engine optimization benefits by including this type of video on a site.

No direct SEO benefits. I could make some arguments for well-done stand-alone videos that work for viral marketing or Universal Search... but unless you've got someone who catches on (for a while anyway) like Ms. Dewey, there's not going to be any traffic boost, certainly no search boost, from an embedded spokesperson.