Saturday, February 24, 2007

Emotional When Skimming vLogs



Jay Krieger observed that skimming blogs is not the same as skimming vlogs. Jay explains that sometimes we have emotional triggers when trying to cut off or rush a vlog. Jay closes with four suggestions on how to set up your vlog so that it can be skimmed easier.

Note: oops, my vlog is 4:43 long, sorree ;-)

16 comments:

... said...

I agree with some of the things you said. I just tried to make a vlog of myself. I used iMovie to capture and compress, then transferred to YouTube and it was successfully uploaded. Yahoo. Then on my blog I couldn't control the scroller without it buffering. The time code goes down (6:52) to 0:00. How do I do it the way you do it? I like your vLog format.

Jana Bielfeldt said...

I agree. You're right about our culture .. eye to eye contact and we tend to stay and watch till the end. Im learning about that myself.
To attract the viewers, to make a short and impressive topic. You're something else! I enjoy your vlogs. Keep it going!

Jay said...

To ...,

I went through many video hosts and found VideoEgg.com to be the best, at least for me.

I do acknowledge Jared Evans' concerns (see here) about using smaller Video Hosts, but I found great benefits of using VideoEgg.

VideoEgg has all these features I just explained in this vLog. The best thing I liked about VideoEgg is that it takes so much less time to upload/process. See more info about VideoEgg at my other vLog vLoggers: Video Hosts

Anonymous said...

Just keep them short, accessible, and sweet...

Anonymous said...

Your vlog is way past two minutes. Please practice what you preach.

Jay said...

Anonymous 12:00pm,

Notice my note at bottom of my vLog -- gave you my "oops" warning. Also, if you watched the whole thing, then I got you hooked, so...

Todd said...

I'll admit to the cardinal sin of cutting off vlogs, especially if I see they are 4 minutes or longer! I do make exceptions for high quality vlogs such as Joey Baer's site or Davilia's vlogs, though.

As you said, I kinda feel bad about this, but then again, my time is valuable and vlogs take up inordinately more time than reading (skimming) blogs.

One interesting take; What do you think about CC in this equation? Would the CC presentation be sufficient to 'disconnect' this eye contact phenomenon inherent in Deaf culture? Would a Deafie feel more comfortable in 'reading' the CC info longer than if ASL were exclusively used? Or, would it easily enbolden the viewer to shut off the vlog prematurely?

At any rate, I do try to keep my vlogs short. That, and I have to produce a couple! I like participating in other blogs than creating content for others to digest, though! :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Jay: first, I want to say I always enjoy your vlogs. Why? because you always have a point, and stick to the point. Your thoughts are always logical and relevant. You don't wander off point. Yet, I often don't watch your vlogs all the way through. Why? because you tend to talk about common-sense stuff I already know. This vlog here is a good example of that, BUT because I so enjoy your clear signing and rational dialogue, I watched all 4 minutes of it! :)

I agree that eye contact is so important and if it's not there, I will hit the X-box early. But you forgot two other really important things: the clarity of the video and the clarity of the signs and the point.

If the video is blurry, I won't waste time trying to figure it out. And if the vlogger is not clear in setting out the whole story, I cut off early.

One final beef: if all the vlogger has to say is, "I agree with you!" then it's yawn, hasta la vista, baby, and click the X box. DeafRead human editors really need to get on top of that junk. Hello?

The answer? Some vloggers really need to rehearse a few times and preview their vlogs before posting.

Please keep up the good work. You're doing everything right.

IamMine said...

:D

Dang it, I knew I'd get a slap on this! Hehehe.

Same goes for the length of my comments.

I never was good at summarizing my thoughts or points. I tend to go off the track.

Ha. But yes, very good points.

I always watch the entire vlog (see, I watched all of yours!) whether they are 20 minutes or 20 seconds.

Well…scroll away! :)

Anonymous said...

IamMine, just because you're not natural at getting to the point doesn't mean you cannot learn. It just takes practice. Like regular blogging, you get better at discourse the more you do it. Same as with vlogging. Don't expect to be perfect right off the bat the first time. Learn to evaluate yourself and improve a weak vlog. Viewers must also give the vloggers specific and helpful feedback. Otherwise they will not improve and do better next time.

Anonymous said...

Well said, Jay! I can't speak for others, for me I would want to watch the main point within 2 or 3 minutes. However, it depends on interesting topic itself, i.e., Year 2200: Deafness goes Extinct; but ASL Survives on your vlog.

K. Fleez!

Toby Welch said...

Hey Jay! You are one of several vloggers that I regularly view. I really enjoyed your vlogs. This one is most funny and I laughed hard. I don't know other. But you had a very good points. That is why I have to make it short rather than more than 5 mins. Just think what people want to see it at their pleasure of time frame. Thank you for giving us 4 tips to do with vlogs.

Anonymous said...

(The answer? Some vloggers really need to rehearse a few times and preview their vlogs before posting.)

I don't agree. deaf bloggers should be made welcome no matter how 'perfect' or not their blog is, no-one starts off as speilberg..... If you complain they aren't up to standard (Look at youtube ! see how many there are !), they may get discouraged and stop, we don't want that.

We all make mistakes until we can get it right, we can't all be A1 every time like you perhaps...

Jay said...

All,

I guess my remark about "2 minutes" touched some nerves. It was merely MY personal opinion, and simply used as an example for discussion. I apologize if it appeared that I was pushing this on others.

Sure, many of my vLogs exceed 2 minutes. The x number of minutes was more of an attempt to present a point for us to ponder and debate on. I was not trying to make this a cardinal rule.

The Internet is FREE; feel free to express anything you want, really. That should never be taken away from you. If you dont want to watch past x minutes, just close the vlog and move on.

Anonymous said...

Jay...I agreed with you about the skimming part difference between vlog and blog. But there's one certain thing that influence me about it.

Not only that we can't cut off the vlog early is cuz of the eye contact issues. We can't see the beginning to the end on the vlog. They don't have any transcript that you can skim and that's the one reason why I don't cut off early in vlog.

In blog, they have the transcript on it already from the beginning to the end. you can view the top part or skim to the middle part or even at the end and decide it's not good for you and you cut off immediately. In vlog, you can't..you have to drag the scroll on the bar to find the good part to see. Kind of wasting your time to search and find the good part in the middle or at the end part of the vlog to find out if it's good for you or not.

todos la vie said...

sorry, I'm just now reading your vlogs. also while watching vlogs, I have to say the background is distracting if I see your walls need to be painted. Just kidding. Smart critique about reading vlogs, but I'm not sure about being emotional. I'm a "low context" person that rely on direct communication and get anxious when I don't see the explicit message or the goal right away. I wonder if it depends on the ethnic/ nationality of the person on their communication pattern.