Hypervideo or hyperlinked video is a displayed video stream that contains embedded user clickable anchors ¹ allowing navigation between video and other hypermedia elements. Hypervideo is thus analogous to hypertext which allows a reader to click on a word in one document and retrieve information from another document or from another place in the same document. That is hypervideo combines video with a non linear information structure allowing a user to make choices based on the content of the video and the users interests.

A crucial difference between hypervideo and hypertext is the element of time. Text is normally static while a video is necessarily dynamic; the content of the video changes with time. Consequently hypervideo has different technical aesthetic and rhetorical requirements than a static hypertext page. For example hypervideo might involve the creation of a link from an object in a video that is visible for only a certain duration. It is therefore necessary to segment the video appropriately and add the metadata required to link from frames - or even objects - in a video to the pertinent information in other media forms.