Seen and not heard
Even today, I still don’t have a podcast or a YouTube channel:
As late as this morning, I was contemplating the idea of adding audio clips to this site as an Additional Gee-Whiz Feature, because, after all, I am a guy and I take Gee-Whiz (well, Whiz anyway) very, very seriously.
Bad idea, Andrea Harris had said back then:
[P]rint is a faster and more efficient way of getting a message across than voice or video. Think about how long it takes to sit and listen to or watch a monologue, and then go read a passage of text containing about the same amount of words. Which was faster?
And it’s worse if you’re looking for the single money quote in a long clip, says Bill Quick:
Does anybody but me find it irritating to be forced to watch two, or three, or ten minutes worth of video in order to get two or three sentences worth of information?
Instapundit links to a Bill Whittle video that is almost ten minutes long. Now, I do usually enjoy Whittle’s thoughts, but I’d much rather read them than watch him spout them. First, I can read them faster, and understand them better. Second, the video itself is distracting from the content.
Imagine how much worse it would be if you had to deal with someone whose delivery was nowhere close to being as polished as Whittle’s — mine, for instance.
The Webcam stays in the box.
Cary »
12 August 2009 · 5:26 pm
Well let me know if you need any help
with You Tube or Moviemaker.
I’m not trying to brag but I have made
quite a few videos now and while some
are better than others, after you get
the seconds thing adjusted you kind of
start to get into a groove.
My First Video
McGehee »
12 August 2009 · 5:30 pm
As I once commented on a post about podcasting and vlogging: they’re the wave of the past.
Not that reading text displayed on a more-or-less flat surface is exactly a major mass-communication revolution, mind, but it does provide the random-access capability we digital-age types cherish, and as Bill Quick notes, sound bites and video clips don’t have that.
Cary »
12 August 2009 · 6:11 pm
I just gave Dustbury a One Grecian Urn Award
even though he doesn’t have any videos.
Thank God.
Cary »
12 August 2009 · 6:13 pm
One Grecian Urn Award
fillyjonk »
13 August 2009 · 8:28 am
Not to mention that some of us may be reading on breaks at work, and may not necessarily want sound.
I tend to click away from anything where there’s a 10 minute plus video trying to make some kind of point (Well, unless it’s Mike Rowe…). I read faster than people can talk, anyway.
Tom »
13 August 2009 · 10:27 am
“Now in the next slide of my PowerPoint presentation, the first bullet reads…”