Videos (and podcasts) suck sometimes
So I already commented on the whole Scoble thing, but I was commenting in general about how linking is usually better than not linking. I think everyone gets that.
But there’s another discussion going on that’s almost as interesting. Paul M. Watson got me thinking with his comment on my original post, which of course, led to me reading his blog. Specifically, his blog entry about how he doesn’t like video. It’s not too hard to find other opinions in like vein, such as Mathew Ingram’s post about video being Scoble’s achilles heel. Just take a peek over at Techmeme and Tailrank and you’ll see there are quite a few discussions, including this one, bubbling up.
I don’t really agree with the specific details (some don’t think his coverage of Intel was that great, others just think video isn’t that great, etc), but I agree partially in spirit. I watch the occasional ScobleShow episode or listen to the occasional podcast – but not often, and not religiously. I read his blog (and dozens of others) almost daily, though. So what’s the difference?
Blogs are massively easier to consume. You can skim them, you get headlines, you have hyperlinks to follow an extra interesting story around the web, etc. The list goes on and on – but what it comes down to, for me, is time. If I’m going to watch a 20 minute video or listen to a 30 minute podcast, I basically can’t do anything else during that time. I also can’t “skip to the good bits” easily.
With text (blogs, articles, reviews, interviews, whatever), those things don’t apply. I can consume blogs in 1-minute chunks of time I have between tasks. I can explore the web to find out more. I can easily find the stuff I’m really interested in.
Don’t get me wrong – I love certain videos and podcasts a great deal. But the signal-to-noise ratio has to be sky-high to get me to invest my time.
Now I’m just gonna sit back and see if any other interesting discussions come up over this furor… I’m sure there will be.
Grab some popcorn, enjoy the show.
