My buddy Loren made a video about why video comments will fail. I think he’s probably right on the money that the numbers just aren’t there. So few people comment, even fewer will leave a video. As usual, he’s also right that most people have nothing interesting to say. But I think he misses one point.
Loren, I love you man, but sometimes I don’t even have the patience to watch your videos. And they’re GREAT. Most are fantastic (including the one above). The problem is that I can read the same amount of text that is in a 2 minute video in about 30 seconds. Or skim it in less. I just don’t have the bandwidth to watch videos (and get work done).
Now I can tear through a page of idiotic blog comments in a few seconds, and there might even be a gem in there. But am I going to waste time watching 30 videos? The answer is fuck no, my friends. And don’t try to tell me that social voting and rating will separate the wheat from the crap. I don’t trust any of you to tell me what is good, just look at digg.
i still think the zong payment thing Loren is using is gold. and there is always room for one guy doing it in an awesome way (video ie). because *sometimes* you feel like watching a vid post. just not always. and there might even be room for one good vid comment spot on the social web. but, it is not going to spread like wild fire. and i agree, because people that surf, while working, which is a lot of regular blog readers, (counter-intuitively) are very productive. and feel it when they spend too long on a site or a post.
Hear hear!
No need to apologize. Yup, time is money.
I just
- skipped reading this entire post,
-skipped most of the comments,
and just went down to read Loren’s comment above.
Great comment Loren. Nice use of the word Yup!
I also enjoyed the one puppet video of yours I saw to no end.
dk
Amen. I think video is WAY overdone in general. The last thing I want to see is somebody’s mug (unless she’s hot) talking about something that can easily be typed out. Videos tend to be way too long and most people aren’t good on camera anyways.
The worst is now instead of downloadable audio, we have streaming video which is just two guys talking and showing a powerpoint presentation that only has one slide.
Amen. People keep throwing the word ‘video’ around to try and get VC money.
Video might work when we all have gigabit fiber. Until then, please give me text comments.
a tempo button would be nice as well. i would love to hear it get sped up. and does google index video content yet…
word to the tempo button. doubling the speed of stuff like webmaster radio means i can get through material that much faster w/ the same comprehension