Do video bloggers suck?

The World Hates Video Blogging?

Jim Kukral notes that whenever he writes about it, he gets a ton of comments. He points to a recent TechCrunch post on Magnify.net  that also generated similar comments. Someone noted that Scoble is a "writter" [sic] not a pretty face. I have to agree, Scoble is not one of these artificially tanned, deep-voiced talking heads--not by a long shot. Neither are many of the popular bloggers who are migrating onto online video.

I, for one, think that online video blogging is just now getting started and the possibilities for the bloggers turning into video casters are north of huge.

Media history is filled with the leaders of one media category leading the charge into the next. Journalists became the first radio voices and they now call that the Golden Age of Radio. Then the voices of radio became th first faces of television and we call that the Golden Age of TV. Over time, the marketing teams got more say on who would speak and who would appear and the replacements were smoother and more polished then their predecessor.  They were also dumbed-down and mediocre to make it safe for sponsors who wanted to avoid controversy.

It seems to me that we are not yet into a golden age of video blogging, but we will soon be.The early players are coming in for the most part from text blogging. They are restricted so far by technical issues, time restraints and costs. But those things always fall by the wayside.

Will the Scoble and Makliks fall by the wayside? Maybe. Maybe not.  What's important is that there is something new and eciting and different which is moving into the forefront.  Despite the detractors that Jim points to, the world is interested in Video Blogging, and as the tools get better and innovation refines the tools, I predict a Golden Age of Video Blogging will happen in the next few years.

I only hope that it does not get as mucked up as did the Golden Age of Television, where the people  who were truly entertaining and informative were eroded and replaced by those who were bland but pretty.





Technorati Tags: jim kukral, techcrunch, Scoble

Powered by ScribeFire.

Comments

[Tom Guarriello]

Gotta agree, Shel: north of huge is right. Mobile + geolocation + videoblogging = Lots of opportunity.

PS - follow me on Twitter!

[Andrew Badera]

I think vlogging is yet another example of the potential for democratization brought to us courtesy of the Internet. And I don't mean it's another venue for people to spew their opinions (warranted or not) -- I mean, vlogging brings the face of REAL PEOPLE to other REAL PEOPLE.

I'm not a huge fan of vlogging ... I haven't vlogged myself. But I think it is an excellent opportunity for the average person to access media generated by someone JUST LIKE THEM.

You don't have to have plastic surgery and a makeup team in order to justify broadcasting your opinion in video format. I'd be willing to wager that a large majority of active, meaningful bloggers and vloggers are more intelligent, have more meaning behind their words, than 90% of the talking heads on TV today. I'd rather get honest opinion out of Joe Vlogger than some ABC News script brought to me courtesy of the flavor of the week.

[Mihaela V (prprof_mv)]

Video bloggers don't suck, but you need time to watch all those videos... in the one hour it takes to watch one of Scoble's video interviews, I can speed read half a book or go through my RSS feeds 5 times. So, I prefer media I can scan. I know I can fast forward videos, but I don't know what I'm missing. When I scan written text, I can make quick decisions about what I want to pay attention to... So I think this issue of efficiency will also affect the development of video blogging.

[shel israel]

Mihaela V, I know a startup who is working on technology that would let you speed scan and know what you are skipping. They may fail or they may succeed, but it's an indication of the sort of tools that are coming.

[David Badash]

Shel,
Great point about the "Golden Age" of radio & TV. While you're probably right about video blogging coming into its own soon, there are many (perhaps similar to their predecessors') issues vlogging will have to confront, and not just the technical ones.
But I think my greatest concern, as all these mediums merge and reshape, is the one of truth.
So, I guess my question is, are credibility and veracity tied to, limited by, or even suggestive of the medium used?

[Jim Kukral]

I have the same fear as you Shel. That once the flood gates open on online video, all the "opportunists" are going to ruin it.

Part of that could be the killing of "real" videos, in replacement with "pretty people" and infomercials disguised as viral videos.

Sigh... I suppose there's no way to avoid it. We are indeed in the Golden Age right now.

[shel israel]

Jim, There have always been camp followers of whores, gamblers and hucksters. That goes back to the Roman Legions. But so far, with the possible exception of Facebook, social media has done a pretty good job of staving them off. Not great, but pretty good.

[Jim Kukral]

Yeah Shel, but I think video is different than Facebook and social media in general, because you have to actually create something first, then share it, not just login and poke someone. :o

Sure, there's a social component to YouTube, but it's really secondary to "watching videos" first. That being said, I fear that once everyone finally realizes how much can be made from videos, that the hucksters will hit it hard core.

But yeah, Magnify has the right idea... making it easy to eliminate the hard part, which was making the video and uploading it.

That's a good thing, it levels the playing field.

[Schlomo Rabinowitz]

True, I believe we are not in the golden age of videoblogging; esp as people are still learning things like the codecs and compression (which might as well be trying to learn witchcraft at times).

But without using things like magnify.net, where your video lives with just one company, many of us utilize mulitiple services to reach a varied and larger audience. (also, so we dont have the problem Perez Hilton and others have with companies like YouTube-- they can drop you quick on a moments notice and your videos are gone).

With sites like Freevlog, not only do you learn about how to videoblog sustainably, but it also touches a little on New Media Literacy -- something I teach in my course at bavc.org

Videoblogging is just getting started: the tools and techniques are still getting refined, and the best is just ahead.

[Mike Bonifer]

Ze Frank is a forerunner in the videoblogging arena (www.zefrank.com), and in a number of ways presents the model for what it will take for any videoblogger to find popularity (and commensurate business success) as a videoblogger:

- He's an ENTERTAINER. It takes talent to hold the audience's attention in the hypernoise of ubiquitious online video. Ze is funny, profane, honest, musical -- and great at projecting emotional communication in an entertaining way.

- He has a strong philosophical POINT OF VIEW. Entertaining people, while necessary, is not the primary objective, it's a byproduct of having something worthwhile to say.

- He's MULTI-MODAL. The videoblog anchors the zefrank.com content, but that content also stands on its own as creative, and supportive, and informative. From designs to presentations, to text entries to games, it's all good, informative stuff that promotes and tells the story of the ZeFrank brand.

Other resources I recommend -- in addition to Ze Frank and the BAVC -- for anyone interested in telling their story via video are the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley (www.storycenter.org), the designer Matthew Pyke's site (http://universaleverything.com/recent_activity), and the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at USC(iml.usc.edu).

[Jim Kukral]

I disagree Mike, you don't "have" to be an entertainer to be successful in your niche in a video blog. You can't be dead boring, but the most important thing is good quality content that solves people's problems.

Boring can be averted by good b-roll and being short enough :)