Video Comments Would Be A Waste Of Time
Apr 24 2008 
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Josh Catone has an awesomesauce post about the cons of integrating video comments into a sites commenting section and a poll asking whether or not you’d like to see it incorporated on ReadWriteWeb. I won’t rehash Catone’s posts, but he outlines some very big cons to adding video comments. TechCrunch was the first to make the move to add video comments and of course it has been imitated and duplicated. I understand that TechCrunch is only doing it to promote Seesmic. That’s fine and more power to them. It’s an interesting marketing strategy, but who’s going to fall for it? Here are three reasons why some won’t.
Not Enough Time
Video comments are, in general, a major time waster because of our hectic schedules. Recording it, uploading it, and then having to sit there and view it; do you notice how much time that’s taking up? You might as well just type your comment out and save readers the trouble. Readers barely have enough time to read an entire blog post, let alone sit and watch a video with a response that could’ve been typed out for scanning purposes.
Seesmic Decline
Video blogging, or vlogging, has yet to become a hit. This is not to be confused with Youtube videos that are uploaded by users of the service. As it pertains to Seesmic, this is a company that made headlines when it first launched, but has since died off. I fear that this is why TechCrunch has made the move to add video comments. While active users of Seesmic may find it to be a nice addition, I can’t help but ask, how many of you still actively use Seesmic?
Not For The Average User
If you think it’s for the average user, I’ll step on your big toe.
- The average user is not a visitor of TechCrunch.
- The average user is not going to leave a video comment.
- The average user would not be excited about this.
Not Revolutionary
If TechCrunch is trying to change the game, or become revolutionary with this addition, I don’t see it happening. If you plan on jumping on the bandwagon, I don’t recommend you do it unless your blog pertains to video blogging. I don’t own a webcam, so you won’t have to worry about seeing me participate. What do you think?
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You know how I read this post? I scanned and read the headers first. Then I went back and read the sections that most stuck out to me first.
The first part of the post I actually ended up reading was the bit entitled “Seesmic Decline,” because that was a point I hadn't heard before or considered. If this were a video, I wouldn't have been able to scan that way, and would have had to watch the entire thing. Say I didn't like your first point and ducked out, I may never have gotten to the second point. The same applies to comments.
Video certainly has a place — even video responses. But blog comments are not generally one of those places, in my opinion.
Anyway, thanks for the compliments on the post.
fyi – viddler had their video commenting pluging for a few months now and mashable included it from the beginning – tc was the first to install the seesmic plugin tho.
I watched a few of the video comments on the TC announcement. The big thing that stuck out for me is that most people have no clue how to create a compelling video. Plus they are almost all too long.
I'll stick to writing comments, but if I was going to apply some basic rules to creating a 'good' video comment it would be these:
1. Be someone who has done many videos, or makes a living in front of a camera. There's no substitute for experience.
2. Make the video as short as possible. If you are one of 25 video comments, unless you are first, people are going to be so annoyed when they get to yours that they won't watch the whole thing anyway.
3. Be really hot. Let's be honest, if you are attractive, people will watch longer. Or will be tempted to click on the video thumbnail in the first place.
I'm not experienced or hot. I could probably be terse. Not enough to even want to try.
No webcam for me either. Maybe these tech forward blogs are trying to push to the future. Technically, I watch more video on my Ipod than on tv, so I can see the video comments being slightly popular in the far future imo…
For some reason, your comment gave me an idea. If viddler somehow figured out how to automatically remove all the 'dead air' from a video, and cut it down so that it had more of a 'testimonial' editing style.. that might be interesting for, oh, perhaps 3 videos.
I doubt I'll be adding video comments to my blog in the near future either, but I do think it's worth leaving them on blogs that do… I suggest leaving two comments though, your video comment and follow that up with a regular text one that highlights your main points and adds any links you reference.
But yes, being experienced and/or attractive will help… I'll be struggling on both of those points too :)
I wrote more about it here:
http://marketing-seo.com/blog-promotion/promote...
Now the follow up with text idea might be a nice, but it's still a lot of time. I would prefer that though, if I were to think of watching someone's video comment. Still, that's more time being wasted when you could've simply wrote a comment.
That could help.
I had to laugh at #3 lol. These are good tips though. Post about them!
I dont think video is necessarily a waste of time for everyone, but I think Josh's point about the inability to scan through videos is a major problem. I dont want to click on each video and then find out its a waste of my time.
I must admit though, that I am yet to click on a single video on the TC comments, and I'm yet to leave a single video comment. I would guess most others are like me in this regard. That says something I guess.
What if there was a way to do a, say, css or javascript rollover that gave your a 5-second animated thumbnail, and you could click for more?
It would help, but I still wouldn't watch. I would still have to wait for
context/content to load. If they mention a product or site that I have no
clue about, I still have to manually fetch the site. Usually my day is
simply too time sensitive. Also, Josh Catone's posts outlines some other
reasons why I'm not biting the bait and a major one that I agree with is the
increase in page load times. That's a huge drawback for me also.
If you're thinking of making a script that does such, I whole heartedly
encourage you to do so. I think quite a few people would find it beneficial.
Who knows? It may even change my mind. I'm just a tad stubborn about this.
I just had another thought. What if, say after the novelty wears off, and there's only one video comment? It would suddenly have a much higher profile.
Oh wait, that's already happening.
lmao ok you're done with this conversation :D
What if there was a way to do a, say, css or javascript rollover that gave your a 5-second animated thumbnail, and you could click for more?
It would help, but I still wouldn't watch. I would still have to wait for
context/content to load. If they mention a product or site that I have no
clue about, I still have to manually fetch the site. Usually my day is
simply too time sensitive. Also, Josh Catone's posts outlines some other
reasons why I'm not biting the bait and a major one that I agree with is the
increase in page load times. That's a huge drawback for me also.
If you're thinking of making a script that does such, I whole heartedly
encourage you to do so. I think quite a few people would find it beneficial.
Who knows? It may even change my mind. I'm just a tad stubborn about this.
I just had another thought. What if, say after the novelty wears off, and there's only one video comment? It would suddenly have a much higher profile.
Oh wait, that's already happening.
lmao ok you're done with this conversation :D
I just had another thought. What if, say after the novelty wears off, and there's only one video comment? It would suddenly have a much higher profile.
Oh wait, that's already happening.
lmao ok you're done with this conversation :D
Video comments, That’s fine and extra might to them. It’s an enjoyable marketing scheme