Everybody Loves Short Videos Date: 2008-01-03 11:11:32
People absolutely love their content-neutral blurry one-minute clips. The king of short video is of course still YouTube. Ah, the joy of clicking through a 15-part series of meaningless 50-second webisodes!
Not me though. Google Video may live on borrowed time, but I totally dig both the ">20 minutes" search option and the fact that there are lots of very cool long videos that are hosted on the doomed service itself. I guess that means I'm finally getting old and have completely lost touch with trends and reality. Or maybe I'm the last person on earth who hasn't either succumbed to catastrophic ADD or lost all interest in content that can't be boiled down to a 50 second tabloid soundbite?
Not me though. Google Video may live on borrowed time, but I totally dig both the ">20 minutes" search option and the fact that there are lots of very cool long videos that are hosted on the doomed service itself. I guess that means I'm finally getting old and have completely lost touch with trends and reality. Or maybe I'm the last person on earth who hasn't either succumbed to catastrophic ADD or lost all interest in content that can't be boiled down to a 50 second tabloid soundbite?
Comments
Udo says
(2008-01-04 16:29:19)
Angela, sorry, but the assumption that I'm primarily watching "entertainment" videos is frankly a little insulting and just as fallacious as the implication that somehow this type of content is the only one that merits long presentations.
But you're absolutely correct when you say that I already made the time commitment to watch lengthy stuff. And you know what? People browsing shorties on YouTube or Newsvideographer.com make significant time commitments, too - they just split it up over more videos.
When it comes right down to it, news ARE really just collections of short soundbites with minimal actual information in them, and that's just the point I'm trying to make here. Sure, news programmes are an important syndication mechanism. But let's not forget the source of its content lies in actual journalism such as documentaries, real interviews and discussions, research, and event reporting. News makers in turn get to pick, reduce and then comment on the stuff they present.
I for one want more, for the same reason why I've been fed up with TV news for ten years now, and if I'm willing to commit time to getting in-depth information instead of just "some info" then that's got to count as a valid choice. Though I realize that at 32 years I'm already a dinosaur here.
That doesn't mean I want your site to fail, and it doesn't mean I wanted to imply you're doing a bad job. And your post about video length obviously hits the Zeitgeist dead on. It's just not for me...
But you're absolutely correct when you say that I already made the time commitment to watch lengthy stuff. And you know what? People browsing shorties on YouTube or Newsvideographer.com make significant time commitments, too - they just split it up over more videos.
When it comes right down to it, news ARE really just collections of short soundbites with minimal actual information in them, and that's just the point I'm trying to make here. Sure, news programmes are an important syndication mechanism. But let's not forget the source of its content lies in actual journalism such as documentaries, real interviews and discussions, research, and event reporting. News makers in turn get to pick, reduce and then comment on the stuff they present.
I for one want more, for the same reason why I've been fed up with TV news for ten years now, and if I'm willing to commit time to getting in-depth information instead of just "some info" then that's got to count as a valid choice. Though I realize that at 32 years I'm already a dinosaur here.
That doesn't mean I want your site to fail, and it doesn't mean I wanted to imply you're doing a bad job. And your post about video length obviously hits the Zeitgeist dead on. It's just not for me...
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If you're actually searching for videos like that, you obviously have already made the time commitment to watch them.
But people who go to news web sites are generally going there for something different -- NEWS. They want some info. They haven't committed an hour to getting it. They may see a video there and click on it, but they probably don't want to spend forever watching it.