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Why Most Video Blogs Suck - Problems with Video Blogs and Video
Bloggers
by Solomon Rothman
Published on this site: May 27th, 2006 - See
more articles from this month
By now everyone knows about blogs. The crazy online journals complete
with spelling mistakes and gorilla news . I still remember the special
on the Katrina blogger who broke the "in the water" stories
and was interviewed live on CNN. Currently most blogs consist of
text and pictures with the occasional audio clip, but with the popularity
of broad band and increased storage capacities, video blogs are the new rage, and why not? Who
wants to scan through pages and pages of small text if you don't
have to right? Unfortunately there are some serious problems with
most video blogs making them almost unwatchable.
No cohesive script
While writing lends itself well to a bunch of unrelated tid bits
for the user to jump around on and search between, video does not.
You can't easily skip through all the different postings and in
general the user will watch everything in chronological order. There
aren't video hyperlinks. I'm disregarding flash here, but you understand
my point. The average video blog jump all over the place doesn't
have any specific purpose. I don't have time for that and neither do you.
They don't use a teleprompter
Um.. ahh... daaa.... That's what happens if you don't have a teleprompter.
An average video blogger says Ahhh, more times then Jenna Jameson
in her last movie. Ok that was a bad joke, but you catch my drift.
Even though video blogs are produced mostly by amateurs, you have
to use a teleprompter. Professional journalists use them, The president
uses one. On camera, very few people can recite a script from memory
or improv without stumbling all over themselves.
Most people can't act.
Everybody wants to be famous. In a world with billions of people,
it's understandable, but please face it, most people can't act,
as soon as the camera is turned on, here comes captain monotone.
Non variation of camera shots or subject matter.
Video needs variation to be interesting. Video needs variation to
be interesting. Video needs variation to be interesting.Should I
go on? Don't use a single framed tripoded shot for a 10minutes broadcast,
it's boring.
Most people are boring
Do you want to watch regular looking person sitting on a couch
looking back at you holding a remote and drinking a beer when you
watch TV? I have a hard time understanding what makes people think
creating a video blog with their ugly mug shot, in a tight frame,
with low light, as they sweat and talk about golf clubs was a good
idea. Video bloggers should try to put themsevles in our shoes,
would you want to sit through that?
There are a lot more things I could go off about, but I think I'll
stop here. As long as the average video blogger falls victim to
these short comings, I wouldn't expect video blogs to replace or
even compete with normal text and image based blogs.
Solomon Rothman - Solomon
Rothman is a web designer, filmmaker, and writer. See blog for latest news and watch
the free movie Boy Who Never Slept written & directed by Solomon
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