Yesterday morning the web's largest web tech blog added video comments courtesy of of live video startup Seesmic. About 24 hours later, video comments had turned into a mini-trend with another 80 blogs installing them. While adding them at TechCrunch was a smart move by founder Michael Arrington -- who is also an investor in Seesmic -- because they've clearly already paid small dividends in spreading the product, I wonder if they're really adding to the conversation. Below are 5 reasons why I don't particularly care for video comments out of the gate.
Edit: We've added a poll. Please vote below.
Especially for larger blogs -- like say, TechCrunch -- that often get hundreds of comments per post, reading can become more like scanning. It's easy to scan over a hundred comments looking for text responses that are compelling, but video requires you to stop and fully engage in each comment to see if it is worth your time. A comment that might take 10 seconds to scan in text form, might take 45 seconds in video form. And if you want to rewatch it, it will take the same amount of time, whereas a text comment will theoretically take less time to read on the second pass.
Says erickhill on Hacker News, "You can't 'scan' the content of video comments like you can, say, this comment. It's an interesting idea, but seems to disrupt the flow of communication."
For the same reason that they're harder to scan, they're also harder to moderate. A video comment must be watched, start to finish, before you can determine if the content is offensive, inappropriate, or spam. That means one of two things: either you put more time into moderating your comments, or you let your community do the moderation for you. There are implicationson the user end, as well, because now you might invest time watching a comment that is totally not worth your time, when it is easy to spot text comments to skip with a quick scan.
Video, especially user generated video, is very hard to make accessible. In order to make video accessible, you need to add captioning -- which is probably not something you'll see on Seesmic anytime. That's fine -- it's a sad fact that not everything in the world can or will be accessible to everyone else -- but large blogs that add and encourage video comments also alienate a portion of their readership who can enjoy the textual part of a post, but are then cut out of part of the resulting discussion.
One of the best things to come out of comment threads are links people leave to related resources. We often find things we never knew existed through links in comments that people leave on this blog (spam excluded, of course). Videos don't have links. So you're left with basically two options -- say the URL out loud in the video reply, which is clumsy and annoying for the watcher to follow up on, or leave a second comment with your link sources, which is also clumsy and adds a bit of noise.
Whether you watch the video or not, the player is one more rich media element that the browser has to load. Video comments tend to be small and the Seesmic player is light weight, but that still has an effect on load time. The particular implementation that prompted this post is also a third party service -- so one more call off site that increases load time. As web sites get more and more overloaded with third party widgets, they tend to start to slow down and the user experience degrades.
Video comments are a relatively new thing, and now that TechCrunch has started a mini-trend, they's something we'll probably see more of. They've only been live at TechCrunch for a day, so it is too early to make an verdict about them. But so far, they seem more of a disruptive force -- one that I'll be inclined to generally ignore -- than something that adds to the flow of conversation.
Certainly there are some blogs that they make sense for. A blog like Beet.tv, for example, which posts in video format, might do well to let users respond in kind. But for most blogs, I think they generally don't make a lot of sense. What's your opinion of video comments on blogs? Please let us know in the comments and vote in our poll.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Video Comments? No Thanks - 5 Reasons They Don't Work.
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I very much agree with everything you've just written.
I shall now, in perfectly good text, add a couple of thoughts.
I can see where they would have their use, such as when you're explaining or demonstrating how to do something, but for the most part, they seem like a lot of hot air and wasted bandwidth.
I think it also makes it harder for readers to interact with one another. You can easily go back and quote something that someone wrote 10 comments ago and remark on it, but that's harder to do if the comment is a video.
Watching video comment, after video comment, after video comment requires a lot of extra mouse clicks and a lot of extra time. The less work a user has to do and the more quickly they can get to the information, the more likely they are to stick around and participate in the discussion.
Posted by: Kelli | April 24, 2008 1:59 PMThank you!!
I'm not a fan of video for purposes of serious content consumption and conversation. When it comes down to it, I (we) can read much faster than listen/watch video. Friction is bad.
So cheers to you.
Posted by: Luke Groesbeck | April 24, 2008 2:36 PMMost people are just not that well spoken on camera and it seems to be even worse with a webcam...if I have to see some "um, ah...this is. um, ah...." comment on a blog post again, I think I may loose it. Besides, as a site owner, you are missing out on any potential SEO love from the text of the comments.
Posted by: David | April 24, 2008 2:46 PM@David: Nice point on the SEO, I hadn't thought of that. Videos aren't crawlable, so that's content that no one will ever find through Google -- unless you can get commenters to tag their video responses with meta data. But that's more work for them, which is probably a bad thing.
Posted by: Josh CatoneI think the killer reason against video comment is the fact that you can't scan them. But actually do you really think people can easily scan 100 text comments?
Maybe the answer is in managing comments in a brand new way. Not based on rating like they used to be but rather based on topics and arguments defended.
Commentag (http://www.commentag.com) proposes a wordpress plugin to sort comments that way. It is really a new way of thinking blog comments. Combined with seesmic video comments, you may be able to easily filter the comments which interest you and the inability to scan them blow away.
Posted by: xavier | April 24, 2008 2:59 PMAlthough I like the idea of seesmic; I'm not sure I care much for video comments; my main reasons are that you can't scan or go through them quickly, plus the fact they're not crawlable by search engines is quite a minus.
So nope, no video comments on my blog anytime soon.
Posted by: Mohamed Marwen Meddah | April 24, 2008 3:14 PMit would be alright if there was just one video with all the comments.
I just don't view them and I don't see them catching on.
its just like audio comments.
Posted by: Darren | April 24, 2008 3:17 PMThe world needs to stop accommodating illiterates.
Posted by: Michael O'Shaughnessy | April 24, 2008 3:56 PMYou can't scan them.....nothing else needs to be said.
Live From Las Vegas
Posted by: The Masked Millionaire | April 24, 2008 4:03 PMThe Masked Millionaire
Great article Catone! You really highlighted how much of a waste of time this would be at the end of the day. Followed up with my own thoughts here: http://shegeeks.net/video-comments-would-be-a-waste-of-time/
Posted by: Corvida | April 24, 2008 4:06 PMI'm glad you picked up on the accessibility issue of video comments.
12 years ago when I first accessed the net, suddenly I had access to conversations, information, and could interact like I had not done before. I fear that accessibility was a decade short lived and as multimedia dominates the web, we almost come a full circle as far as interaction goes for deaf people. Podcasts and video, almost no-one can be bothered to provide a transcript.
On another note, for sign language users it does raise some interesting possibilities since sign language cannot be written. Whilst it provides scope as with other minority languages, the same issue over access is there. One assumes most of the world has access to English.
Posted by: Alison | April 24, 2008 4:43 PMAll good, valid points - it's the extra effort needed to moderate them that worries me the most, not so big a deal with a small blog, but it wouldn't take long before it got out of hand.
As for the SEO factors pointed out in comment #3, it works both ways. If you've got a post with lots of comments, unless you go through and do a bit of editing, it's likely all that additional text will dillute your main keyword terms (although I'm sure they'll add a lot of extra long tail keywords in the process). Video comments will help to remove a lot of those dillution effects (which could be good if you're aiming for a specific term and get some decent initial rankings).
From a marketing point of view though, it makes good sense to leave video comments on other blogs... I think it could be useful to follow it up with a text comment that lists your main points and provide links for anything you've mentioned etc. (takes care of the scanning problem to some extent).
I've written more on that aspect of it here:
Posted by: Martin Jamieson | April 24, 2008 5:29 PMhttp://marketing-seo.com/blog-promotion/promote-your-blog-via-video-comments.html
I completely agree. You will not find video comments on either of my blogs.
Chris Mancini
Posted by: Chris Mancini | April 24, 2008 5:39 PMhttp://www.propertystampede.com
I think the video comments would be cool for certain blogs
doesnt work for TechCrunch though
agreed with most of what you wrote
Posted by: Adam Singer | April 24, 2008 5:45 PMand you cant quote'em.
Chris, you say: "I completely agree. You will not find video comments on either of my blogs." Same here.
Posted by: PG | April 24, 2008 6:07 PMthanks for these facts, otherwise i am also going to use this video comment on my blog.
Posted by: Ajay | April 24, 2008 6:32 PMWe don't care for them but people on sites like TMZ and other high-traffic destinations are going to go CRAZY over video comments. The only question is when.
Posted by: David Evans | April 24, 2008 6:52 PMWell given the thoughtful commentary we seen on huge blogs, maybe scanning text isn't a good idea either. /smirk
That said, if you saw a few video comment thumbnails and the name of the person was with it: geekho69 vs. Richard McManus vs. Those FASCINATING Loren Feldmen puppets, could you make a decision on which to watch and which won't waste your time?
Anyway, back to the television I go.
Posted by: Eric Rice | April 24, 2008 7:03 PMMaybe I'm just becoming a contrarian in my old age, but I was moved to write a somewhat cheekily-titled response to this piece called Video Comments: 5 reasons they DO work. You can check it here: http://tinyurl.com/5zwvz8.
Posted by: Eric Berlin | April 24, 2008 7:40 PMI suppose I have to agree since everyone else before me has, but there something rather interesting about video comments that I can't quite type out. If only I could tell you.
Posted by: Keith Shepard | April 24, 2008 8:52 PM100% agreed on all points.
Posted by: Warren Benedetto | April 24, 2008 9:39 PMRight! Until we'll be able to transcript all videos next to it... SpinVox?
Posted by: Benjamin Gauthey | April 24, 2008 11:48 PMIf all the comments were merged into one feed with a skip button they wouldnt be too bad. I dont know how you prevent someone showing their junk at :45 though.
Posted by: John | April 25, 2008 12:49 AMSome good comments above, but I think the worst downfall is the reader's inability quickly suck up whatever is being said in the comment.
It's the same reason podcasts and vlogging don't work for me. I'm innundated with so much content that I don't have the luxury watching someone spending 5 minutes umming and ahhing before I find out if there's any real contribution to the conversation
Posted by: Owen Cutajar | April 25, 2008 1:02 AMI've read the Techcrunch article...and I watched some video-comments...and here is my take on this.
I believe that sometime, for a non-native of a language from some video-comments, it will be hard to understand and follow what they are saying...
Let's say I'm from a foreign country (which I am actually :) but I'm living in US) and I speak, write and read english fairy well.
And I see a video-comments of somebody from Texas or Alabama (no offense to anyone), or of somebody from India (again, no offense), or somebody from France (no offense here either :) )...all in english.
Now, I would have some hard time to understand what they are saying, not because they don't know english but because of the accent. And I'm sure that somebody else would have some hard time trying to understand me, for example (I do have an accent).
I would have to listen very carefully and maybe listen again the video-comments to fully understand what's happening.
In the case of text that doesn't happen...because if the writing isn't great at least you can understand what they are trying to say without reading and reading again. You wouldn't waste too much time on text as you would do on video...
Techcrunch is a well-known website...it has large audince from ALL OVER the world...but I bet the video-comments will be watched and listened mostly by the people from the same country as the commenteer.
Most of the people will still prefer the text...maybe there's a future in video-comments...but I guess it has to be in specific niches.
Posted by: Mircea | April 25, 2008 2:08 AMHi,
i totally agree! As an additional point: it is much easier for visitors from other countries to understand what they READ instead of listening to a person you would hardly understand in your own language. Also in a written comment i can use translation tools that show me the translation of a highlighted word.
All the best!
Thomas (from Germany)
Posted by: Thomas | April 25, 2008 2:14 AMI agree completely with this article.
Posted by: Valer | April 25, 2008 3:37 AMWhile writing a comment, one may analyze what has been written, by re-reading. Whereas with video - just talk. I presume the value is much lower in case of video comments.
Hi Josh-
Before you wrote this post, I did my own post with similar thoughts. Basically, I think this could be huge... or a flop. We'll see how it pans out:
http://www.techconsumer.com/2008/04/23/video-comments-are-here-this-could-be-huge-or-a-flop/
But as someone already mentioned here, there should be technology in place that automatically transcribes what people say in their video comments. That's when I think it would be useful. If I see a good "transcribed comment," I would find it fascinating to check out the context ala the "live" version. But I'm not about to blindly watch video comments all day along.
Posted by: Bob Caswell | April 25, 2008 5:56 AMvideo comments seem to work on youtube just fine.
Posted by: Stefan Hayden | April 25, 2008 6:18 AMAs long as the interface is clean and doesn't create a jungle of flash on every page (use JavaScript to load flash players and then wipe them from the page) I don't have a problem with them. Also, if you use JavaScript to load them when needed (use a thumbnail as a placeholder, if JavaScript is not enabled it should just be a link to the video), the loading time issue becomes a moot point.
Seesmic isn't the only game in town for this either, Viddler has been offering a Wordpress plugin for this as well. Which has the added plus of being a superior service IMHO.
Video comments are more time consuming to moderate, which is why some publishers may decide against it, although I think it will do well on sites that already feature video.
Posted by: Daniel Andrlik | April 25, 2008 6:42 AMA totally useless feature. I just came from reading a TechCrunch post, and every video comment I just skipped, even one by Michael. (Though I will give points to the first person to wear a troll mask for a video comment.)
Posted by: LH | April 25, 2008 6:58 AMThere's a few more reasons to add to the list:
6) Many people can't figure out how to make video comments, or can't be bothered to hunt down their Seesmic logon information, reattach the webcam to the laptop, and prepare an outline of what they are going to say.
7) Most people aren't nearly as articulate on camera as they are with a keyboard, even after lots of practice. For instance, Scoble is pretty good getting rid of the "ahs" and "ums" when he talks on camera, but he also looses a lot of his spark, compared to his Scobleizer posts.
Posted by: Ian Lamont | April 25, 2008 7:06 AMI left a comment on Tech Crunch last night just to see how it worked. Immediately I came up with a couple of negatives you hadn't mentioned:
1)I was laying in bed with the flu when I made the comment, and I looked like shit. I would never do this again -- it was a one-time experiment.
2)I wonder if anyone will "read" my comment if they don't already know me and care a LOT about what I have to say
That being said, I had the same high from making the video that I do from Seesmic. Video conversations are fun. I love video chat, and making it asynchronous is helpful.
I guess it has a limited use. I remember when video phones failed.
Posted by: francine hardaway | April 25, 2008 7:43 AMYour points are all very good and spot on. As the Internet gets more cluttered it's is increasingly more important to be able to glance things. That being said, I still do like the video comments. There is a whole other dimension that is brought to life with the addition of video. I do think video comments should be used sparingly. If everything were a video comment, I don't think it would be as useful.
Posted by: David Jacobs | April 25, 2008 8:54 AMAs with anything, video comments should be applied where they are appropriate.
I don't think they were appropriate for TechCrunch, probably more of a business deal or favour between Arrington and Le Meur. It created huge buzz quickly - job well done.
There are some really cool possibilities here though. Guitar blogs exchanging riffs in comments, cooking blogs, how to tips, screencasts.. used properly, video comments bring youtube style content out into the open, organized and threaded.
Posted by: Ryan | April 25, 2008 11:41 AMSometimes it's useful!
Posted by: Hans | April 25, 2008 9:31 PMe.g. The video comments of celebrity or Authority.
I disagree completely with your arguments.
Scanning or moderating videos is easy. You just need a button to let users mark the video as "offensive". You can automate the process with a ood algorithme so offensive videos are automaticly deleted.
Inaccessibility is not that bad of an issue. Visually disabled people can still hear the voice comment on the video. The voice comment constitute 90% of a video comment anyway, it countains the bulk of its content.
For links, we can imagine an hybrid text/video comment system where the user can post links and references to ressources they cite. (In other words, it is not a problem with video comment itself. It is a problem with how techcrunch implemented it.)
Load time is not an issue for today's fast computers imho.
I would be receptive to video comments. Especially if a rating system similar to slashdot comments rating is implemented. You would just watch the highly rated comments, or those of the category you prefer. (Say, funny video comments.)
Posted by: Salah Naoum | April 25, 2008 10:30 PMScan this:
"How Video Comments Can Help Save The World"
Posted by: Casey Cuddy | April 26, 2008 1:42 AMI agree and I think that #1 is enough for not buying them. Videocomments are shifting the pain from the producer (think before you write) to the consumer (watch every second of all replies), and this may be enough for them to be just a fad.
Posted by: george tziralis | April 26, 2008 5:03 AMI really like Viddler's video comment plugin for wordpress. It links to your viddler account so your video comments are in your video stream; or you can choose a video you already have made as a comment. Plus, with viddler you can leave comments, tags, and links in the video. So no matter where it's embeded you see them. You can see it in action on my site and get more info on it here:
http://wiki.developers.viddler.com/index.php/WPViddlerVideoComments
Posted by: Clintus | April 27, 2008 12:16 PMPersonally, I found video comments interesting when Seesmic.com came out with the feature, and I fully understand these 5 reasons they don't work mentioned here. As Web technology's evolving into the stage that people use & enjoy Web without understanding any complicated tech deep inside its services, there could be some ways to enhance or solve the issues in some way here: e.g. 1. Voice/Speech Recognition to retrieve textual information from video comments users left, and making them into tags for the comment. 2. Moving Tags (Links) on main object(s) in the video comments. (like the one from Asterpix.com or other services using the tech)
Posted by: Rick Choi | April 27, 2008 4:58 PMMACHINE UNDERSTANDING DATA ??? - semantic stuff ??
Josh said...
Videos aren't crawlable, so that's content that no one will ever find through Google
Josh, I believe (although not 100% sure) that Google and others are working on computer vision application (computer programs that sees & understands images) for video archiving and video search, perhaps Google is targeting such application to be deployed at YouTube. Searching & archiving by video content is already available , although still primitive (ie, still high error rate of classification).
The reason I suspect that Google and others (competitors or Google such as Yahoo, Microsoft, etc,...) are researching & developing video search & archiving application is that I see lots of peer review computing research papers in digital signal processing & machine learning that mentioned research personnels from Google , Microsoft & others quoting the technology indirectly.
Once this technology is matured, then video & image contents would be become possible to index & search via the net, but it is still early as I say. For those who are interested in the technology, the following paper (freely downloadable in PDF) might be useful, which describes the application of wavelets & independent component analysis (ICA).
An Automated Video Object Extraction System Based on Spatiotemporal Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Multi-scale Segmentation
Posted by: Falafulu Fisi | April 28, 2008 2:33 AM