February 5th, 2008 Video on a magazine’s website
The push to Web 2.0 is on everywhere, and at our company, a lot of people are hot for Web video. Everyone wants to design pages to accommodate video, we have people hunting down video applications, but not many people are stopping to ask where all these videos are going to come from.
Personally, and I hope my opinion does change someday, I’m not too hot for video. We’re having enough trouble meeting quotas for copy. I don’t think readers want to tune in to hear me drone on about something just to meet some Web standard. Plus, I don’t want to be on camera.
Sure, we could interview people/readers for our Web video, but our company isn’t set up with the budget, personnel or training for this type of work.
And I don’t watch too much online video, anyway. I find video players have compatibility issues about 60 percent of the time. I’d much rather just read than have to watch. Unless it’s the talking baby commercial from Super Bowl Sunday.
on February 6th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I’m with you. I can’t see the readers of our magazine (who we KNOW are pressed for time) sitting down to watch a 5-minute video when they could just scan a 500-word (or shorter) article and get the same info. I don’t have the patience to use video players on websites, so I’m not sure if our readers will, either. But, for some reason, it’s definitely the next big thing. I can see audio clips being more beneficial than video (since you can listen while you do other things), but I haven’t seen as much of that.
on February 6th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I think they have to be more than just your basic droner talking head or boring Q&A, unless your readership is very old-school. To get people to actually watch them, these clips should be YouTube-worthy video blogs that are entertaining as well as educational.
Like it or not, for multimedia to be effective (or at least watched), it has to stand up to what the amateurs are doing, and they’re doing some great stuff.
on February 6th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
As a reader of business trade press magazines in the software industry, I would not find video content to be helpful or efficient. If your readers are in a professional setting, by the time you dig out the headphones and get setup to watch the video, you may get sidetracked. I also get annoyed on sites like CNN, where some of the stories you may want to read are only links to video’s, and I’d much rather read it.
I would suggest if management is not giving up on having video’s, that you consider providing alternative means to getting the content, such as a short summary or transcript.
on February 6th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Leah, I think you’re right about audio. Of all the fancy-pants web stuff, I think that’s the only one that might work. Maybe.
Sue, you’re so right about amateurs being the new professionals. It’s a great turning of the tables. That’s what I love about blogs. Anyone can be a “pro writer” now.
Kevin, I feel the same way about watching video at work. I hate when videos pop up unsolicited and I hate when the only way I can get the story is with a video.