The Video Blogger is Dead
Let me make myself clear, I am referring to the traditional video blog style creators, the “talking heads” if you will. I recognize the other great networks and sites out there for serialized shows, film makers, and artists. My point is simply that the world of video blogging has evolved and you must embrace it if you want to move forward. I have finally realized this. Of course this is just my opinion.
Vlog on!
Yeah.
I’m going to post this to the videoblogging group for discussion. If anybody’s still there.
It saddens me that there are now very few people still regularly documenting their life this way, creatively – and that I’ve stopped, too. There was a brief burst of it, and it’s been killed by YouTube and Facebook. It’s not because people are too private – there are a lot of people who photograph and video their lives and put vast unedited photo albums onto Facebook, but only for their friends. YouTube is more open but is too toxic for regular people. Blogs are too geeky and complicated.
We had a very unique community, I think, where people encouraged each other. Conversation flowed.
Perhaps it just didn’t have a clear way forward, consumption methods changed, the viewing figures didn’t follow, and YouTube videos were getting millions of views, so people just lost heart and stopped posting, which had a domino effect on everyone else because half the joy of it is the conversation. I post a video every so often and the silence is disheartening.
A lot of things contributed to it, I guess. But I wonder if the bullet that really shot videoblogging in the heart was the commenting on YouTube. We would all have transitioned to YouTube a lot earlier and maintained our communities there, if YouTube hadn’t actively encouraged the lowest level of anonymous internet hate. Makes me angry to think about it.
I couldnt agree with you any more. Videoblogging *is* dead. Videobloggers are dead. Long live YouTube
To be quite honest, I’ve received more encouragement from YouTubers on my videos than I ever received from anyone or anywhere else. The sense of community there is great. I’m yet to see, at least in the YouTube circle I create in, any competitiveness. It’s a friendly group where people encourage and help each other. Granted, it’s a rather niche group but growing bigger and bigger every day.
Good stuff Mr McGintus
I think some people still want this content and the tools we have aren’t making it easy to keep a group of interested parties together.
@David that’s cool. do you think it’s because of the shared interest, or is there crossover into casual punters? all i’ve seen on youtube in comments on other people’s videos is nastiness and snarkiness and lots of thumbs down on creative videos that aren’t LOL. In comparison, I never saw competitiveness or nastiness in my own blog comments, but among videobloggers there was always tons of encouragement in all directions – even on stuff that i (and others) did that would’ve been mercilessly shredded on youtube. as you know: you were often the first to comment on people’s posts.
I agree with Julian about the tools not being right.
There was a lot of talking in 2005, before YouTube was launched and then before it was obvious how it was going to take over the world, about tools for online video that would make it easy for the community to grow. I was a big fan of ANT (and then FireANT). It had its limitations, but it was the only tool I knew of that focused on the social aspect of the video, rather than the TV aspect, which is YouTube’s model (although that is gradually changing into something else).
I want the kind of content you’re talking about Clintus – personal, small documentaries about people’s lives. That shit blows my mind. I watch it even when I don’t have time to post myself. There is an audience, but it feels dislocated. Watching normal TV while posting to Twitter feels more social.
I like 12seconds a lot, but I think 12 seconds is too short. Their idea of constraints is good, but the constraint is too tight, as though Twitter only gave you 50 characters – the difference between 3 short sentences and 1.
What kind of tool should we make for people who want to make and watch this kind of material? It’s not YouTube, that’s not what YouTube was ever for. It’s not blip either, I don’t think, or Vimeo, as useful as they are for hosting video. Nor is it Miro – that’s a great video player, but like blip, it’s all about watching “shows”, and that’s not what I’m looking for.
It’s NOT TV!
You guys rock. Thank you Rupert for starting the conversation.
I’ve struggled for so long on where to put my videos, where to put my energy, and who to engage. In the end, I want to make money making the videos I want to make. Since my videos will never go viral I have to rely on the random eye balls to get noticed and there are more random eyeballs on YouTube then any other. I’ve applied just a bit of pressure of there the past 3 months and have quadrupled my subscribers.
To Rupert’s point about the nasty comments, I felt the same way for years. Hell I even made a video telling YouTube to fuck off and that I would never upload another video there ever again. And I didn’t for 4 months until I was reminded how powerful youtube is. I haven’t really received any negative comments yet. Yet. But then again I’m not very popular there yet. In looking at some of my friends videos that are getting the 100k+ views, yeah, they’re getting trashed talked. But it’s part of the package I guess.
Thanks again for the discussion.
@deeharvey – “What kind of tool should we make for people who want to make and watch this kind of material?”
just a thought i had even if not totally practical.
youtube + gmail
disable youtube comments.
disable video comments
disable ratings
unlist video
allow embedding and syndication
add the youtube link in your email message. the youtube player will be added/embedded as a media attachment after it is sent.
use a google group or not.
if not looking for an audience outside of those who are members of the list/group, then i am hard pressed to see why this approach would not work
@sull
@sull
I like the idea a lot, but it’s important to me that videos be easily findable. I guess the group would be easy to find, so you could join in, but not really on one-video basis.
Interesting, thanks.
@deeharvey
“but it’s important to me that videos be easily findable”
indeed, that is important to most. and this can also be accomplished. for example, the RSS/ATOM feed from a google group can be parsed on a page or on many pages by multiple people…. and that would be indexable by search engines. also, a google group can be open to public for reading but not posting and that is also indexable. and of course each user can choose to embed thei videos on their own blog/site as they normally would. i dont think findability would be limited by creating this alternate more intimate community in conjunction with the standard practices of online video publishing.
@sull
yes, you’ve convinced me. It’s a great idea. In many ways (spam notwithstanding) e-mail is still the killer social media. If I want to make certain I don’t miss something I have it arrive in my inbox.
[...] was reading a blog post – http://idoitdigital.com/2010/07/15/the-video-blogger-is-dead/ – and commenter deeharvey (http://deeharvey.com/blog) said: I agree with Julian about the [...]