Why Video Blogs Will Suck 234
Ohreally_factor writes "Web Usability Guru Jakob Nielson has recently written a piece for his Alertbox Blog that does not bode well for video bloggers: Static, talking heads are even more boring on the internet than they are on TV. Nielson backs up his ideas with data from a study done on eyetracking while watching web video. One of Nielson's caveats: 'keep distracting elements out of the frame of your shots. If there's a road sign in the video, for example, users will try to read it and will thus miss some of the main content.'"
Faith in numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
If 100,000 teens make vidblogs, they'll probably be terrible. Many will publish one, maybe 3 vidcasts and then stop. Yet I still believe that 1 out of 100,000 could make something worth viewing, and once we find it, we'll let others know.
I've been working with video since my Junior High School days. I started a video/film production house when I was 20 and sold it when I was 23: video was not ready for prime time then, because distribution was in the hands of the cartels, as it still is today.
BitTorrent and blogs have changed everything. I can seed a torrent and post it to my blog. RSS encapsulating these two devices will really make distribution easier for the layman.
The video editing capabilities of most new PCs surpasses what I had just 10 years ago! The easier it is to make, the more garbage we'll see, but the more likely it is that good content will be created by some rare creator.
I don't see vidcasting as a talking head-only style broadcast. I see documentary-style vidblogs (with a cameraman) and even numerous theatre-group concoctions to get recognition for their talent. I can even see the possibility of decent stories being videocast by student actors and geeks with free time. Give it time and the content will get better. Hell, most blogs are terrible, but if a writer wants to get better, we now have dozens of good "how to blog" blogs that ARE making a difference. Why would videocasting be any different?
The step from blogging to podcasting is big and takes time and talent to do properly. The step from podcasting to vidcasting is even bigger and takes even more time and more talent, but you can't dismiss it just because you're afraid that 1 million kids with videophones will clutter up your browser. They won't. You don't like it, you don't access it. There are millions of blogs I don't read, but the 10 or 15 that are well produced I read daily. I listen to 2 or 3 podcasts with regularity (that get better every day). I'll watch vidcasts as well, and the more people that are willing to try it, the more likely we are to see quality productions.
This study just proves the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Talking heads? I would hope for a lot more than that, in an age of video camera phones and video digital cameras heading south of $100. People can now video all sorts of newsworthy and not-so-newsworthy events and post them on their blogs. That's actually a rather exciting development.
I have found some of these audio "podcasts" to be utterly boring and tedious to wade through; unlike with text, it's rather difficult to scan down to the end to see if there's an interesting point in there somewhere, and I have yet to find an audio player that accelerates the sound on the fly (why can't Real and WMP do these simple tasks yet?). Listening to some guy stuttering and umming and ah-ing, no thanks; would rather read a well-written piece than waste my time like that.
But video will be more fun and informative because a video is worth a thousand words, and the patter becomes almost irrelevant. Maybe I'm different, but I find video on the web still to be fresh and exciting while more static presentations are getting to be old hat. Of course there's the inevitable commercials you have to sit through to get to the substance of a video in many cases, and once again the video player won't let you fast forward but I suppose it's a small price for an essentially free service.
Bring on the video podcasts!
Re:This study just proves the obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been speaking with numerous freedom writers about creating a daily podcast (and possibly a weekly vidcast even). I've come up with a simple way to overcome the "is this podcast download-worthy?" question -- just post transcripts. I've been working on a way to make my blogs both readable AND speakable so that people who don't have the desire to read them can also listen to them. One can take a 200 word blog post and make it a decent 10 minute OpEd podcast that extends on the ideas in the blog.
I'm looking forward to the first vidcasts. Knowing what the bottom looks like will give me a good view of what the possibilities are.
Re:This study just proves the obvious (Score:2)
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like you're saying the same thing.
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:2)
It never happened, of course. About the closest thing to it was "Blair Witch Project", and while I happened to think that was a pretty fun movie, it certainly was NOT Stanley Kubrick/David Lynch/insert your favorite arthous
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:3, Interesting)
I see Peter Jackson as the new Lucas - Indie star starts with nothing, gets noticed, build advanced film studio, makes big movies.
BTW, anyone noticed the "ketchup splurt" sound in LOTR2 when the orc loses its head (when the two hobbits are captured)? Definite Jackson meta-homage by the sound crew
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
i agree that he has really done a great job moving forward, but the myth that you can create a movie like el mariachi for $7000 all by yourself has bankrupted many an indy filmmaker since then. haha.
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need blogs for this to happen. This already happens. Some cool, funny, or interesting video on the web has its URL emailed around the globe several times before it dies out. Mirrors/copies of the video spring up everywhere.
I'm sure you've probably seen the video of the Christmas lights blinking on and off to music. Well that guy apparently was one of the "1 in 100,000", since I saw that video on a beer commerical on network TV last night. He didn't need a blog. He needed a video that was worth telling your friends and family about. Blogs aren't going to change the world, or the internet. Its just a new word for people posting things on their website, which has been going on for decades now.
Its not the blog that makes something popular, it is its content. If someone produced a really good video and put it on their blog (that I've never heard of before), someone would still have to point me to that blog to see the video, which again is exactly what has been happening for a long time now. You just use the word 'blog' instead of 'site'.
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:2)
The difference, I guess, is that popular blogs offer consistent updates, consistent viewpoints and consistent quality (whether good or bad). I know the people who come to my gold blog regularly are the ones who want to hear my opinion of gold for the day. The fact that return user numbers are growing (even though my blog is barely a month old) me
Searching will suck. Video standards wars did it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed on content == good. Especially if hot girls are involved ;)
But, videos are going to be a problem in terms of search engines. Unless we get tagging properly implemented at the same time, vidcasts will be essentially lost.
And what about linking? Will vidcasts refer to other vidcasts? What happens then? Will search engines be able to find out how many vidcasts talk about the one, very cool vidcast? Probably not.
So, why not, I wonder? Is it because we can't embed links in videos? Nope. But
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:2)
Exactly. For every Jackass kid doing something stupid and recording it with a cell phone [vobbo.com], there's a dozen legitimate uses like recording a new baby for family across the country [vobbo.com] or sending videos to loved ones in [vobbo.com]
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:2)
You're telling me? I have a radio face (but my wife is hot, so I guess she could vidcast for me).
Basically what I am saying could be summed up in a piece of advice I was given upon entering the office world (which I have found to be true) "If you want people to think that you're smart stay in shape, get your teeth fixed, dress ni
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
If it *is* cool, they will tell their friends
And before you know it you will have another Star Wars Kid [jedimaster.net]
There are many short film festivals arounf the world that already accept public submissions, the panel does the job of the friends and apply their critcal talents to the submissions, here's the one I work on [bangshortf...stival.com].
We've had quite a few success stories (Shame Meadows [shanemeadows.co.uk], Chris Cooke [britfilms.com] to name two) through our doors that were not part of the "film in
Re:Faith in numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? first, it takes more time, more attention. I like blogs, or texts, because I can take a break anytime and go back to it. i don't have to go back, my eyes can fast forward or go backwards very fast... less attention is needed. I don't need to, well, listen.
Also, at work, i can't have a video playing. Too obstrusive! bandwitch, and noisy. It is an open-space. If everybody starts to look at videos, and some do - I hate it, it would become very noisy and unproductive.
even at home. I find it quicker to read something than to listen to a blog. I can read several articles at the same time. I can only listen/watch/pay attention to mostly one video. I do this at home when I am lazy and don't feel like reading.
Talking heads suck? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Talking heads suck? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Talking heads suck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Talking heads suck? (Score:2)
Uh...what about the millions of people out there who have filmed themselves and their significant other, and posted it on the web. You do realize how many people out there get their kicks from doing that right? And yeah, there's lots of ugly people, but there are lots of hot ones as well, and if you know where to look, there are plenty of sites that have these videos for free.
So perhaps you've been burned b
They pay for ugly too (Score:2)
News flash (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:News flash (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. All a blog is is a website that has a series of articles published in reverse-chronological order, optionally with comments. Nothing in that means they must contain authoratitive statements, and nothing in that means that they must be published by non-authorities.
Tim Berners-Lee has a blog - would you consider him to be an authority? Blogs that are nothing more than links to other sources are popular - do you consider them to be making authorative statements?
The word "blog" is almost as general as the word "website". Why are you making such sweeping generalisations?
Re:News flash (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes, the pot and the kettle (Score:2)
I'd say poot_rootbeer has it right. I don't think calling someone on an obviously hypocritical statement is flamebait. After all, isn't stating an opinion as fact in itself an act of vanity? Isn't maintaining an identity in a public forum and posting your opinions essentially the same thing as blogging?
Re:News flash (Score:2)
Video blogging (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Video blogging (Score:2)
Re:Video blogging (Score:2)
To quote Buckaroo Banzai: "Back off man.....I'm a scientist".
Seriously though, perhaps this is your goal, but I am not sure one should aspire to be a "whiz" with the ladies. Perhaps another descriptor would be more appropriate?
Re:Video blogging (Score:2)
Actually, that's Venkman's [imdb.com] quote.
But blogs are already boring enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Add video to that. Wow, now I get to see, hear AND read about someone else's boring day. Because you just *know* they'd still write about what you are seeing.
Re:But blogs are already boring enough (Score:4, Funny)
Because in the blogs I read that someone else is a girl, has larger tits than you, and they post pictures of them...
In defense of personal blogs (Score:5, Interesting)
The first kind of blog is the one you talk about and that you find boring - personal blogs detailing personal experiences, kind of like a public diary. The second kind is blogs dedicated to certain subjects etc.; these are more akin to professional journalistic media such as newspapers etc.
The "rage" about blogs is mostly about the second kind; and FWIW, the second kind are the only ones that are meant to attract readers not otherwise acquainted with the writer, too.
Nobody expects you to find the personal diary of Joe Average to be interesting; but then, the *purpose* of blogs of the first kind is not to attract you (or others), anyway, but rather to allow the writer to keep their own circle of friends informed about the going-ons in their life. Think of it as some kind of multicast communication - instead of telling the same stories over and over again to everyone who asks "how was your day?" (be it in an email, IM, on the phone, in person, or whatever), Joe Average just writes these things down in a central place *once* for everyone to read.
There's advantages for the reader, too: they typically will be able to read the blogs of many of their friends in an aggregate fashion, by means of an RSS aggregator or on a social networking site such as MySpace or Livejournal or so; and what's more, they can also decide when to catch up, and - when they do catch up - what to read in depth, what to gloss over, and what to skip completely.
So, yes, most blogs of the first kind *are* boring, but complaining about that just shows that you misunderstood their purpose: they're not *meant* to be interesting or to attract readers. That's the second kind you're thinking of there.
As for video blogs, those don't seem to make much sense to me with either kind - it seems that it's more of a combination of buzzwords, a marketing ploy or PR gag without any real value. Not that there aren't situations where video feeds could be interesting, of course, but I do predict that text-based blogs will remain in the majority for now - and probably for quite a long time, too, simply because they distract the reader/viewer less and do not force them to focus their attention as much as video does.
Re:But blogs are already boring enough (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno. Why would you assume that all blogs are just boring people writing about their boring days?
In fact, why would you read, hear, or watch ANY media of any kind? It's just people talking about or doing stuff. Boring.
Re:But blogs are already boring enough (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, I don't get what the rage is about blogs. Why would I?
A random selection of things I've learned from blogs this month:
Re:But telegraphs are already boring enough (Score:2, Insightful)
Add voice to that. Wow, now I get to HEAR about someone else's boring day. Because you just *know* they'd still send a telegram.
Of course they will suck (Score:5, Funny)
On the bright side of course we can expect some pretty creative and funny videos being passed about. I can't wait until the product-placement folks start getting involved. This is gonna rock.
Um not exactly (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Um not exactly (Score:2)
Re:Um not exactly (Score:2)
Let's go to the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: A vlog is a weblog which uses video as its primary presentation format. It is primarily a medium for distributing video content. Vlog posts are usually accompanied by text, image, and additional meta data to provide a context or overview for the video.
You can easily interchange the obnoxious word "vlog" with "video podcast", and they both seem to come out as pretty much the same thing.
Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Why Video Blogs Really Suck (Score:5, Funny)
90% of video blogs will suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:90% of video blogs will suck (Score:4, Informative)
However, audio blogs somehow defy Sturgeon's Law and 98% of those are crap. I expect video blogs to be even worse.
Audio blogs are such a jarring disturbance to the way I work in front of a computer, I can't listen to them at all. I pretty much have to stop everything else I'm doing and listen. That blows up multitasking for me. And there is no-one online interesting enough to have 100% of my undivided attention for the length of a blog entry.
Re:90% of video blogs will suck (Score:2, Funny)
Vlogs are ok... (Score:5, Informative)
Then there is Chasing Windmills [blogspot.com], another Minneapolis based "vlog" which IMHO is really more of a running series than a "blog".
I don't particuarly care for them (or videocasts) right now, but they are a fledgling arena. I'm sure they will improve with time though. We'll see.
A picture is worth 1000 words. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A picture is worth 1000 words. (Score:2)
Re:A picture is worth 1000 words. (Score:2)
Boost the word count!? You obviously didn't apply to enough colleges.
no way (Score:4, Insightful)
Distracting elements (Score:5, Funny)
ob. Coupling reference (Score:2)
in keeping w/ talking tits:
--Jeff, from Coupling, "The Girl with Two Breasts"
Not all trends are good (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that everyone needs to get off their respective bandwagons and think from a perspective of actual utility to end-users. This goes for videos, people on MySpace with MP3's playing in the background, sites that seemingly all want to throw in AJAX even where it is 100% unnecessary, and so forth.
Re:Not all trends are good (Score:2)
Sure, most people could still make time for a video, but if everyone started to make video blogs, people would simply track less blogs. I suspect that many vid
Counter Opinion (Score:4, Informative)
The ones that fail as talking heads are the same ones that fail as audio-only material. The secret is to be brief and get to the content straight away. I'm betting I'm not alone in having dropped otherwise-good podcasts and video podcasts just because they had a 10 second intro I had to sit through every episode, or because they ran more than a few minutes and padded things out with too much personal noise. One of the worst is when an otherwise great podcast or video blog has crap audio that keeps getting louder and quieter like the speaker couldn't stay close to the microphone. It hurts to drop those, but it also hurts to listen.
Remember Sesame Street? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am often suprised that the Sesame Street experiments aren't mentioned more often when people talk about Video on the web, and even more suprised when people begin to compromise those lessons learned because they intend to save bandwidth by reducing movement. It comes as no suprise to me that the focus was on a sign (which provided something to read in an active field of view) and the other technology in use around it. The Web is an active and interactive medium that people want to be constantly DOING something with. Multitasking is a requirement in a multimedia environment like that.
What's more is, why expect someone will spend 24 seconds watching the same screen when the audio is there and they can listen instead because the activity isn't crucial to watch? No movement, it's just not that important. Toss a burning building in the background, a few people screaming.. now that you'll watch. Sad but true.
Re:Remember Sesame Street? (Score:2)
Care to cite a reference for this claim?
When I was watch
Re:Remember Sesame Street? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getAr ticle.cfm?id=1900 [psychologicalscience.org]
It speaks of a study by 1970's graduate student Barbara Bragg about children's attention patterns. It wasn't just about Sesame Street, but the Electric Company as well. I urge you to read this, it's a great place to begin. I will find the original study and provide you a source though. I have it arou
MOST will suck ... SOME will be great! (Score:4, Informative)
Of course the vast majority of video blogs will suck. The vast majority of standard blogs suck, the vast majority of podcasts suck and the vast majority of web pages suck. When anyone can create content, the majority of said content won't be very good. Some minority, however, like Rocket Boom [rocketboom.com] will be pretty good to great. As far as I'm concerend the more content available the better. The real issue will be sorting through alll of the crap to find video blogs with content you're interested in. iTunes is doing a respectible and Google ... are you paying attention?
It's the content, stupid! (Score:4, Insightful)
It all comes back to the content. That is, the writing.
If the writing is bad, it doesn't make any difference if there is video or not. All too often the temptation is to do video because you can. I have been involved in distance learning, and the -first- thing that most professors want to do is video. And yes, talking heads (mostly) make for boring video.
No matter what, it comes back to the fact that it is all about the message and not at all about the medium. Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't make it any prettier...
Another missive from CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
[Affordable Desktop Publishing] will lead to mostly sucky [newsletters].
[Affordable DVD production] will lead to mostly sucky [DVDs].
[Affordable video production] etc...
Having said that, his point about talking heads is worthy. Some of my favorite podcasts have a video component, but they don't try to make the visuals interesting enough to make it worth the download. Diggnation is a perfect example of this. On audio, it's funny, funny. But when you download the video, it's two guys looking mostly at their computer screens and reading with the occasional graphic to show something they reference. I appreciate the effort, but it doesn't make the video a worthwhile download.
Seasoned (or even lightly-seasoned) television producers know this type of video would not go over well today. Can you imagine an entire news broadcast with one announcer, reading a teleprompter out of the shot and away from the camera with no breaks for stories? Even regular news broadcasts get their announcers to swivel the chair from time-to-time.
Re:Another missive from CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!!! (Score:2)
Yes. If the broadcaster is a woman.
And she's pretty.
And parts are showing.
I believe this has actually been done. Was "Naked News" successful?
oh why thank you internet (Score:5, Funny)
No wait, it's just home movies with meta tags wow.
If they are worried about (Score:2)
watch an episode of Battle Star Galactica.
There you can get all the shakey-cam you like.
Hey! That's an idea! I'm going to sell BSG Shakey-WEBcams(tm).
Put a little lopsided motor in the base to shake the camera for you!
This out to be a huge hit with the under 30 crowd!
The difference between TV and video blogs (Score:2)
so, according to Jakob Nielsen.. (Score:2)
UGH YUCK YUCK YUCK (Score:2)
With video or audio blogs you either have to find out from other people the ones worth viewing/listening to, but you have to have extra time to watch or listen to them. Notice how books
Anonymity (Score:2)
The sound of reality knocking on the door (Score:2, Interesting)
Data density too low (Score:2)
and I am supposed to stop all of that and more, so I can watch some person slowly pronounce some words?
Why? I am literate, I can read. If I wanted to watch TV I would go and watch TV, I love the web because it is mostly a textual medium, the density of data on it is much higher.
Occasionally Channel9 has SOME good video blogs, but even then that is only when I am very
Mod parent up (Score:2)
It's like watching other people's vacation videos, only worse.
There's this place in San Francisco called Artists' Television Access, which has video gear and an editing suite so that artists can produce videos. Of course, they have video showings. The stuff they show is crap, and that's the better stuff. It's like watching auditions of garage bands.
There really aren't that many people who can do good video. It's not a technology problem.
Jakob Neilson is WRONG (Score:2)
Ok I'll bite... (Score:2)
So I say: I know it's hard to find subjects to talk about Jakob, but it'll be better if you acknolwdged innovation for what it is from time to time and not hold us back in stone age because of vague usability issues.
If people hate video blogs, they'll just not pick up. No study can beat the natural process of separating the winners from the losers here.
maybe he should watch some video blogs (Score:2)
And as usual, Nielsen overinterprets the data. Eye tracking data mainly just tells you about what people don't look at at all; most other interpretations beyond that are handwaving.
Um, yeah... (Score:2)
I stopped reading after this:
Why This Site Has Almost No Graphics
Download times rule the Web, and since most users have access speeds on the order of 28.8 kbps, Web pages can be no more than 3 KB if they are to download in one second which is the required response time for hypertext navigation. Users do not keep their attention on the page if downloading exceeds 10 seconds, corresponding to 30 KB
Re:Um, yeah... (Score:2)
I would love to get broadband, but it just isn't available where I live at. There are an awful lot of people in the same situation as I am.
28.8? (Score:2)
Distractions (Score:2)
One of Nielson's caveats: 'keep distracting elements out of the frame of your shots.
This can't be right...the major networks have elevated the element of distraction to an artform. If not a scrolling banner across the bottom, then all manner of "cute" little animated junk (some even with sound effects). If not that, and you can almost certainly sit and stare at a crappy station ID logo (except for commercials, when you're faced with another form of distraction entirely). All of this to "enhance" your viewin
What's this about The Talking Heads? (Score:3, Funny)
On the contrary. I rather think that if The Talking Heads had a video blog it would be quite interesting.
Overreaction on Slashdot? (Score:2)
Is this there a use for this chap? (Score:2)
I guess any hints and tips are welcome, though for the truly talented such rules are also there to be broken. As for things like "keep it short" and "keep distracting elements out of the frame of your shots" these are old chestnuts that can be found in any how-to book on the subject and even, for all I know, on the back o
Acting is a skill most don't have (Score:2)
Remember, people blog because they don't have enough social skill to keep their lives full otherwise. I'm going to watch no video blogs. Not even Paris Hilton's.
Eat at Joe's (Score:2)
Better yet, replace the road sign with advertising.
Because... (Score:2)
This is an age of multitasking. Videos and sounds are extra and won't be mainstream on the internet for quite some time.
Good Vlog Example (Score:2)
it sounds better than it looks (Score:2)
Pffft! (Score:2)
Video can communicate "subtle" well (Score:2)
And how does this compare with television? (Score:2)
2d fighters (Score:2, Funny)
Speaker's Corner - Already video blogging! (Score:2)
The producers screen the tapes and eventually broadcast on a weekly basis. It's quite successful at what it does, and for the most part it is rather entertaining and informative (I suppose aft
Re:Video blogs? (Score:2)
Re:Video blogs? (Score:2)
It's just the continuation of the dumbing down of language because people would rather be monosyllabic zombies than learn pronunciation and vocabulary. Why did it need to be "blog?" Was "web log" too hard to say? And "vlog?" Let's not go there. I won't even start on "podcast"...
A minority of blogs I find actually noteworthy, very few of them on non-commecial sites. Of course I don't consider them "blogs"; they're opinion pieces more
Re:Video blogs? (Score:2)
> people would rather be monosyllabic zombies than learn pronunciation and vocabulary. Why did it need to be "blog?" Was "web log" too hard to say?
What's wrong with efficiency?
In the time it takes to utter "pentasyllabic eruditism" I can utter 8 or 9 one-syllable words. The nine words, if well-chosen, can communicate vastly more information than the two, because the relationship between words can be just as informative as the words themselves. Think about the difference between English and German, fo
Re:Video blogs? (Score:2)
No, you meant to say
Re:Video blogs? (Score:3, Funny)
Thts nt wh i mnt at ll.
Re:Video blogs? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Video blogs? (Score:2)
You're right, they should be called "flogs", to post one is "flogcasting" and the general practice is "flogging"
Re:Video blogs? (Score:2)
(try pronouncing them with the i as used in him, it always amused me as there is a womens hair remover called Immac)
How do you pronounce Vladivostock, or Vladimir ?
Americans pronounce Z as zee, so why not vee-log ?