Published: January 12, 2009
Category: Work
Comments: 0
Tags: content, text, video Views: 241
Steve Rubel touches on a number of points I can relate to regarding text vs. video for online content. For me, the bottom line is that my content consumption patterns lean very heavily towards text but there are certain cases where short-form video is a more appropriate format.
My friend Robert Scoble has a problem. He produces terrific videos on technology companies for Fast Company. They’re a little long sometimes, but they’re almost always interesting.
So what’s Scoble’s problem? Well a lot. The videos don’t generate a lot of in-bound links from bloggers, conversations on Twitter or mentions on aggregators like Techmeme. “None of my 1,000+ videos has ever made it to Techmeme,” Scoble said.
He’s right. A quick analysis reveals some get no links, others get a couple. However, when he surrounds them with text, it’s a different story. Why? Text! It provides context and I suspect for many it’s a proxy for the video.
I am starting to believe that despite all the hype around online video, text remains King of the Web. Why text? There are at least five reasons…
It’s scannable - according to Jakob Nielsen users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average site visit and 20% is more likely
Three letters: SEO - For all that Google Universal Search has done to elevate video, search results are still largely made up of text and everyone wants better SEO
The workplace - It’s much easier for cube-based workers to read text on the screen and get away with it vs. watching long videos. Watching videos (even work related vids) screams “slacker”
Mobile Devices - Yes, of course you can put a video on an iPhone. But it’s work and requires planning. Text is easier to pull up in a nanosecond
Distribution - Nothing flies like text. It’s so easy to cut and paste it and send it somewhere or to clip and re-syndicate it via email, RSS or social networks
I don’t know about you but I love text. Now I have always been a reader. Today I am a scanner. So for me it comes natural.
Still, think about just how much of what you consume and share online remains text-based. Twitter - it’s all text. Friendfeed - mostly text, but augmented by images. Facebook - a mix but certainly a ton of text. Even what makes YouTube hot is the metadata and commentary around the vids. So I don’t see any big threat to King Text.
So what does this mean? Well, if you’re creating video you better pay attention to the text you put around it. Without text, you’re dead. You won’t be found. Further, if you want to influence you must have a command of the English language and know how to write for the web in sound bites. More on that in a subsequent post. I believe marketers and PR pros are well positioned to succeed.
Back in March, YouTube released a video analytics tool called YouTube Insight. It lets anyone with a YouTube account view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload including how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, how popular they are relative to all videos, and many other statistics.
I hadn’t bothered to check my stats until now because I rarely upload videos to my account.
Logging in yesterday though proves what I’ve known all along…
Published: June 20, 2008
Category: Work
Comments: 1
Tags: media, tubemogul, video Views: 378
Interesting report from TubeMogul.com regarding the time sensitivity of video online. Definitely worth reading, especially if you’re…oh I don’t know…working on an enterprise level video asset management system and the question of “how long should we store videos?” keeps coming up.
It looks like Microsoft is finally giving up on its Live Expo classified ad service. They close the doors on July 31st of this year. I wrote about the launch back in March ‘06 and had this to say:
It’s a run of the mill classified site with a pinch of social networking thrown in for good measure - because you know…social apps are cool.
Microsoft has the same problem every other classified newcomer has ... gaining momentum. I just ran a search on “Events” within a 50 mile radius of Washington DC. Surely I’d expect to find something listed - but no. Nothing going on in the sleepy little area around the beltway.
This is where newspapers and companies like Oodle really leverage their strengths. They can launch a classified listing service right out of the gate complete with ads and therefore provide a good experience for the first time user of the service.
Companies like Craigslist, Oodle, Yahoo!, eBay continue to dominate the classifieds market. Microsoft (once again) came in too late with too little.
[linklove for videoisnow.com. Thanks for pointing me to that site Liz!]
Between my job and personal interests, I have my head stuck so far up the internet that I often forget that many people never see some of the online video news memes that make the rounds.
Family and friends routinely email videos weeks or months after they appears online and I have to politely acknowledge that “yes, indeed…that’s funny - thanks for sending that (even though I saw that 2 weeks ago)”.
I stumbled across TurnHere in June of ‘06 and immediately connected with the high-quality production values of the local, local, local content. TurnHere offers more than just an online video ad - they present a picture of the business - the story behind the sales. And because it’s a story about a business in the community (and not some faceless corporation hawking goods) people are more willing to listen.
It seems that some of the major players in the industry have recognized the same.
The plan is to leverage the Superpages sales force to upsell clients to the video packages, and the clips will appear alongside directory listings. Recently, Yellow Book and CitySearch have begun similar video efforts.
He goes on to say…
local TV stations aren’t players despite long track records of innovation in video advertising. And in some cases, it may already be too late. Why? Stations haven’t invested in building innovative local directory/search products that have succeeded in achieving a large enough audience.
Last week, I met with a former co-worker who now heads up the interactive media group at a television station in Richmond. One of the topics we discussed was the failure of local television (and most of the media outlets in town for that matter) to honestly engage the online community in storytelling.
By not finding and sharing the stories important to the community, they’re doing a disservice to their next generation of audience, they’re leaving a lot of money on the table and they’re opening the door for low-cost, high-return competition.
It’s time for TV to innovate or die with regard to their online operations. Tossing up a couple of paragraphs related to the broadcast and links to weather doesn’t cut it anymore. People can and do get that content elsewhere. Short-form video storytelling is an art though - one that’s been practiced for decades by the TV reporters. It’s time to leverage those strengths and engage the local online community—before Superpages or anyone else does.
