The Unbearable Linearity Of Video
People keep sending me videos (mostly YouTube) and links to podcasts, videoblogs, all that stuff. And I almost never post them. Why not?
Because they are so inexorably linear. I love the internet because the data flows at my speed. I can skimread, jump around, consume the bits I like and move on (next!) when I’ve got boring bits in my face. For that, I need text. Audio and video, compelling as they are, require me to slow down, focus on one thing on one of my three computer screens, and wait for the information to flow at whatever glacial pace the creator chose. That’s fine for porn clips, but for pretty much anything else, I’ve already got 180 channels of narrowcast video programming on a big screen eight feet away that I never watch.
Some people say that my distaste for audio and video blogging makes me a crusty old fart who just doesn’t “get” the cool new thing. Me, I say I’m a hypermodern info consumer, moving too fast for linear data modes of the old twentieth century. I’ve been known to argue that audio and video blogging are reactionary trends, vain attempts to rescue the doomed and tired viewer/listener audience model. Whatever, maybe I am just an old fart. Doesn’t matter. Vlogs and podcasts are dead to me, I just don’t have the patience to sit through ’em.
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=1931
You mean… you don’t listen to podcasts in on the bus, train, car, doctor’s waiting rooms? *grieves*
Adele, I *hate* commutes, and so I’ve arranged my life not to have any. I’m also one of these people who can’t stand to be in public wearing headphones, because it messes up my situational awareness; it feels (and is) unsafe because I can’t hear who is sneaking up on me, can’t hear the announcements over the loudspeaker, can’t hear whatever noisy hazards might be around me.
That means the only “dead time” in my life for listening to audio is when I’m taking a shower, and I’ve got a shower radio for that. I don’t have a waterproof iPod.
I’m with you Bacchus.
Stuff that isn’t text? Generally too freakin’ sloooooow and quite irritatingly non-random access.
I’m also zero commute, but even when I wasn’t, or when I still have to fly somewhere, my killer essential mobile device was, and remains, ye goode ole paperback book.
But then again it was all public transport, so I didn’t need hands and eyes free for other stuff like attempting to control a moving vehicle on a public highway. I guess I can sorta see it if you have to drive, even if I wouldn’t be comfortable splitting my attention that way if I was driving (but driving tends to freak me anyway).
I’m so bad on the needing text front, that even for something I’d normally be really really interested in, “I talk about/interview it, in my latest podcast!” is a deal-breaker for me. I don’t particular want it to be, given that everyone seems to put their stuff in that format these days, but experience shows that even if I download the thing I’ll never get around to actually listening to it regardless of my intentions.
vlogs? I’m currently in denial of the existence of such mind-boggling wrongness :) :)
Yeah, I’m with you guys, Skapusniak and Bacchus. Enough so that people who have wanted me to do podcasts of my novel have gotten a bit of short-shrift from me. I can enjoy a good book being read in some situations, but the written word is so much less limiting – it allows the reader to put more of themselves into the book if they get into it. I see that as an advantage for most kinds of fiction, particulalry erotica. And for non-fiction, it allows for quicker searching and access than either vid or spoken content.
I’m addicted to podcasts because then I can listen and do something else at the same time. It’s the perfect input level for my brain.
I have little patience for video, though, because of the reasons you mention. Unless it’s a really compelling topic or by fascinating people, meh, I let my short attention span take over.
Totally with you on this. Video/audio is so much slower than I can parse info in text; anything that links to video on major news sites, I almost alwats click over. I don’t want video; give me text and if applicable, still frames. Information is, and always has been, better tranmitted in words than in pictures or sound.
Sure; there are exceptions. But as a rule, text is simply better.
I’m not much into podcasts and certainly don’t watch them on my i-pod. WAY too small a screen, I’d go blind.
But, I giggled, Bacchus, at your comment about wearing headphones while commuting and not being able to hear the announcements over the loudspeaker. In NYC, it’s so hit or miss if you can hear them anyway, most riders never take their headphones off and listen.
Eve
I agree – i read way more blogs than watch vlogs for the same reason. While cable/sat tv IS narrowcasting the ability of the web to go even narrower is intriguing though.
We’re going to see a lot more well produced video content on every subject you can think of… and not so well produced come to think of it.
Hm, I never thought of podcasts that way…linear. I like them for the radio programs I can catch during the day from NPR.
It was so great to watch it and see what nice things they said about Sexoteric! It made me quite happy.
Flattery? So THAT’S what it takes? :) I’ll be sure to put you in the next Ropecast…
Well, obviously I’m not quite with you there – I think that the only superiority of any medium lies in its ability to get the message across. And there is certainly some visceral enjoyment in hearing or seeing someone rather than simply reading them – though perhaps the most fun is someone like Violet Blue, who combines all three.
I would have to disagree with the “linear” comment, especially in regard to podcasts. POD stands for “Portable On-Demand”: in other words, I listen to it when I want. Kind of like skipping around your site, I can skip from Fetish Flame to Left, Right, and Center depending on my mood, and come back to or leave it as may be. The audio is my companion as I do dishes, cook, ride my bike…and saying that it’s only linear, but text isn’t, is kind of like saying that matter order words doesn’t in what your.
And besides, we all like flattery. I had one Master tell me that he used my podcast to put his sub to sleep every night…what higher praise could I ask for?
I’m glad you wrote this post. I have been thinking the same thing about video and audio on the web.
I especially dislike audio and video that starts playing before I have the option to choose whether I want to see it or hear it.
I don’t mind video or audio, I would just prefer a link to the source rather than an embedded flash player. Then I can choose to follow the link if I feel there is a compelling reason.
I agree also that I don’t want to wait for an entire 4 minute or 45 minute segment to play. If you could “deep link” to get right to the salient bits, that would be really cool.
My experience with audio and video is largely this: If it’s flash or if it streams I will tend to skip it. Still too many drop-outs and issues with the quality of the stream. Digital cable even suffers from this. If I can download it, I do. But then the download gets filed somewhere until some imaginary time in the future when I can watch or listen to the entire thing–which never seems to arrive because I’m downloading new stuff continually.