In Why Video Blog? Because We’re Visual Paul Kapustka adds his view to the conversation around videoblogging. Paul provides a view which basically says “use the appropriate media”.Â
And Brad Templeton, in Please Don’t Vlog, offers a very interesting take on readers versus viewers. Perhaps his best suggestion is this:
There is one potential technological answer to some of these questions. Anybody doing an audio or video cast should provide a transcript. That’s writer-unfriendly but very reader friendly. Let me decide how I want to consume it. Let me mix and match by clicking on the transcript and going right to the video snippet.
With the right tools, this could be easy for the vlogger to do. Vlogger/podcaster tools should all come with trained speech recognition software which can reliably transcribe the host, and with a little bit of work, even the guest. Then a little writer-work to clean up the transcript and add notes about things shown but not spoken. Now we have something truly friendly for the reader. In fact, speaker-independent speech recognition is starting to almost get good enough for this but it’s still obviously the best solution to have the producer make the transcript. Even if the transcript is full of recognition errors. At least I can search it and quickly click to the good parts, or hear the mis-transcribed words.
Right on! Which vlogger tool provider is going to take Brad up on his challenge?Â
This is fun! What’s your view? Join the conversation.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Alec,
I couldn’t help responding in video form to your post about why you weren’t going to vlog. It’s calledWhy Alec Saunders Should Vlog.
It’s slightly tongue in cheek, but kind of serious too. I know vlogging is not for everyone, but I love it, and actually feel like it’s quite an effective way to commuinicate certain types of things. Anyway, fun conversation. And maybe I’ll see you on the vlogosphere before too long…
Such a tool would certainly solve some of the clunkiness i described in my last post about “skimming” a vlog for information.
There are lots of podcasts out there that this do the transcript already. Security Now with Steve Gibson is a good example.