Watching this 24 hours later: the "um" count on this two and a half minute video is seventeen! Outrageous! If anything, these videos will help with my feeble public speaking abilities. Maybe.
Get really creative... yes, ask us to share a video. Yes, tell us in real time what you think (risky is transparent, and transparent is good). But also, get us themes to work with... what's changing, and can you SHOW it? I'm doing some fun stuff at http://www.www.MaydenChronicles.com with video. Just trying out ideas, getting images, telling a better more engaging story. Why not you guys? Above all, don't bore us. Video isn't better unless its...better.
Taylor
You nailed it: "Video isn't better unless its...better."
My trepidation with using video is that we'll tread into a new medium (for this blog) just for the sake of pressing record.
One thing that might work well would be a blogging heads type of conversation: http://bloggingheads.tv/
Those are generally pretty long; ours would be short and sweet. Since Jarred and I are on separate coasts, it would be a neat way to feature both voices on a specific topic. I think that would also be a cool way to draw in readers who (despite our pleas) haven't gotten around to guest posting. In some ways, video is more intimidating than writing but the time investment (once you've got a good set-up) can be significantly less.
Might be interesting to try the Bloggingheads-style thing. Thing is, I'd probably get pwned by Mr. Machiavelli over there, but whatevs. Depends on what we were debating, I suppose.
Yeah, I wouldn't imagine having a video much over 5 minutes, and that's pushing it. In fact, I recorded the video above a dozen different times trying to cut it down, because I'm a rambler by nature once I get talking.
I agree that video is probably mostly better when it is, in fact, "better." But I'm really not suggesting that this substitute our regular posting. I think it would be a nice addition in addition to our written content, and in that sense, it would be better because it was "more" and "different."
Another thing we could do with video is use it for our reviews of sites and gadgets. I think there are cheap (or maybe even free?) screencasting programs, and then when Taylor gets his Kindle, for example, he can give us a video tour and review. I think it would be cool to make our reviews of sites and hardware more regular anyway.
Also, I've enabled video comments for all posts using Seesmic, so we'll see if people are interested in that aspect as well.
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- "Geocultural Sensitivity and The Art of Video Games", posted by Jarred on March 25, 2009
- "All your (virtual) base are belong to us!", posted by Jarred on February 7, 2008
- "We Will Soon Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Blogging", posted by Taylor on March 24, 2008
- "“We are prophets of a future that is not our own”", posted by Taylor on October 15, 2008
- "People Send Us Things, Part I: The World Wide Web Foundation", posted by Jarred on October 9, 2008