Written versus Video blogs

Great point! Sometimes I feel like I should join this century and move into video blogging too, but you’re right. I think writing and vlogging are such different mediums and vlogging (while making you feel like you know someone) can be very limiting, especially if you don’t know how to edit!

I don’t know if vlogging is actually a step up from regular blogging, it’s just different. I can’t read a vlog on a train, read a vlog in an office with the sound off, etc.

Perhaps one out of every five or so posts can be video, but please, for the love of god, write a script or edit yourself!

Okay… with a slight inspiration from seeing just the TITLE of this post, I tried to video blog. I mean, I have a mac. I’m recording myself. Should be easy, right? Yeah… one blog post read outloud (with ad-lib) (BEFORE) editing was 18 minutes. Even if you’re a professional public speaker, I don’t have that attention span. I’m an Obamaphile and I want to follow this presidency closely, but I don’t watch all of his youtube videos.

I started to edit and realized quickly that it would still be a long video. I stopped. Sometimes it is good to let readers have the option of skimming. And it’s almost always good to break up a long string of thoughts with a picture or two.

Anyway, I’m on a new adventure with a new blog in the new year. Wish me luck! I’m lovin’ reading your blog and your thought processes. And let me know next time you’re in Seattle! (The holidays were too busy… I saw your “what to do in Seattle” update and already had plans)

Here’s to 2009!

Noelle-
Nice work! The best advice I ever received from a podcaster (he does both audio and video) was not how LONG could it be, but how short could you make it and still get to the point of what you’re talking about.

Simply put, vlogging is not for everyone. You have to be pretty dynamic, great on camera, insanely popular or just lucky to be good at it without tons of practice. The pro vlogs I see out there (done by ESPN and others) aren’t even that good, and they have scripts and editors!

Maybe you need to edit your blog.

I concur. While it’s “accepted” that many video blogs (hell, many podcasts) should be of the “record and release” variety… that’s not for me. I’m sorry, but editing is a part of the process. Skipping it — for me, anyhow — simply isn’t an option. Hell, I even edit my Tweets! Unless it’s NYE and Sunny dares me to post something.

Bryan-
Maybe you need to STFU before I come up there and whup you.

Video and textual blogs are really very different beasts. To say that video is lazy is too broad a statement. What you’re getting at is that the unedited video is poor… well yeah… so is the unedited text. Editing video CAN take longer than editing text (depending on your level of performance in each), but both are essential to making a decent end product.

On the front end, people can work on becoming better speakers (Toastmasters is cheap and effective, folks) to remove those ums & ahs. This point is one fraction of the fact that you need to be at least somewhat interesting and charismatic to be successful on the blog.

As you note, Tyler, the purposes are different – you can experience audio (and sometimes video) when working on other things, but reading takes a larger amount of your attention. However, the benefit of skimming is not unique to any one medium. One can “skim” (or scan) in text, audio, or video.

What the video adds is that humanness – voice intonation, facial expression, gesture, etc., which is lacking in the written word. This is huge! However, if it is merely “record and release,” that is a specific situation it is satisfying, one that is striving for the more natural, conversational tone, not unlike the way we use Seesmic, viddler, 12seconds, etc. But, I fully concur; if you want a decent (semi-)professional vlog or podcast, edit that baby, just as as you would the textual one.

Time-
You are correct. What I’m referring to is people recording what is basically their blog, not editing it, and posting it.
If you’re going to do video, do it right, Script it, play the part, ham it up when you need and, most importantly, don’t make it sound like you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Too often people see vlogging as the next step beyond blogging, when it really, really isn’t. It’s a whole ‘nother world.
This is why when you see azcentral’s print reporters do their ‘what’s hot this weekend’ segment, it sucks. It sucks real bad.
Some people aren’t meant to be on camera. Others aren’t meant to write. Some can do both. People need to practice either to be good.

The blog in all of its iterations – textual, audio, video, … – is very peculiar in that it represents the first true blurring of the private and the public sphere. During the pre-Social Media era, a relatively clear boundary existed between public and private documents (e.g. legal/biz/marketing docs and personal letters), and with that also in ppls’ consciousness. The blog has transcended that. Of course there were certain personal journals (Anne Frank) that were later published. However, their initial purpose was private reflection, not intended for other eyes. I don’t consider that a blurring of public and private b/c it was clearly private.

Now however, in blogs and micro-blogs, companies let employees blog on their behalf with the clear intention of establishing a personal connection which in turn might help to sell their product. Politicians, professional athletes, etc., do it all the time now – @obama, @lancearmstrong. They are selling their profession in part by revealing their private life.

Coming to the point (sry about the tangent), this blurring of purposes which actually represents a whole new unique purpose results in a wide spectrum of manifestations in vlog posts. And while that is okay, I have to concur with others that the intended audience should NEVER be ignored (picking up on ‘admin’s’ point above). If the audience is failed, the thing sucks and will soon loose any audience. So, while an unedited, um’d, hm’d, video blog post might be cute for aunts and uncles, it’s a turnoff for everyone else and reflects poorly on the author and his/her credibility/ethos.

Personally, I have somewhat of a threshold with video, probably b/c of aforementioned performance issues, including the fear of making a fool of myself. Others do a fab job improvising. One should just not lose sight of one’s own abilities which in the online world is often easily forgotten along with the fact that nothing one puts online will remain private.