Video is killing the blogging star?
This is in response to a post by Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine.com. Jeff is highlighting that some are pondering the death of text, and the rise of video as the preferred way to consume content. I am posting below what I posted as a comment on that site, but it was so long and somewhat thought out, I felt it would have value here as well to highlight the conversation. Let me know what YOU think.
Commencing comment below:
Indeed, there are several points to recognize here. The speed at which you can consume the medium. The detail a given subject requires. The medium used in context.
The speed. I don’t have much time to listen to podcasts, be it audio or video. However when I do have some time, I consume my feed reader, which leads me to reading blogs. I often skip over blogs after a quick glance, or skip sections of the post that I can’t make the time to consume in full, but would rather take that same time to 1/2 consume more blogs, thus pulling in more information for my time given. If a subject presents itself that it required a more in depth review, then I do just that. Which is part of my second point.
The detail given. Details are more difficult outside of text. Clearly some things are best discussed in video and you can have visual references which can greatly enhance the spoken word behind the video. Just like graphics can greatly enhance the words written down. That is also part of the context of the medium. But many things excel as text. They can read slowly, reread, referenced, hyperlinked, skipped over if necessary, or however you need to handle that text. Much more flexible in that regards then audio or video.
The medium used in context is also an advantage of each medium. If I’m driving, I love to listen to audio podcasts. If I’m sitting at my computer, I love to consume text as well as watch video. I rarely listen to audio while at my computer unless it is in the background and I’m doing other things… which means I’m not getting the full value I could from it. Video forces my attention, just as text does. Something like Seesmic is fantastic as it is a conversation in video. But in my mind, the video format of Seesmic enhances the text. What I mean by that is I know a lot of the people on Seesmic from their blogs, from Second Life, from Twitter, from listening to their podcasts, or from Facebook or who knows where else. But when I see them in video, I get a much deeper understanding of who they are, how they talk, how they move their hands, how and who they are. It is much more personal then text. But it ends up enhancing the text. Many others have said it, and I agree, after Seesmic, I hear twitters in peoples voice. I visualize them cocking their head as they said that smarmy comment. I get jokes that I missed before.
So it all has its place. Nobody disagrees with that. But for some reason some people want to prophesy the end of text. Text isn’t going anywhere. It is only getting consumed more and more and in new formats.
[And thanks again to Mark Forman for pointing me in the direction of this post]
Tags: Jeff Gomez, Jeff Jarvis, Jeremy Vaught, Robert Feinman, seesmic