Just because you can create a video doesn’t mean it’s the best way to present the info. Simple how-tos, lists of features – text works fine. Better, in fact.
Wankers.
Well, as long as the frigging is consensual …
Harrumph.
Amen brother. I don’t want to sit and watch a video. I read a lot faster than someone can talk.
However, non simple instructions (like anything involving with, say, a hairstyle) needs pictures. With the text. But not a video because then when I need to look at it again I have to rewind the damn thing.
So you’d rather suffer death by PowerPoint?
I’m with you, twickster.
I also think you can do good things with PowerPoint. But not if you have ever used any “slide layout” other than “blank slide”. Not if you have ever used any font besides Arial, New Courier, Times New Roman, or Symbol. Not if you have ever used a single special effect like entities moving around, or slides fading. Not if you have ever used a “color theme”. Not if the slightest notion of using stock “clip art” has so much as drifted over the transom of your mind.
In the case of the “content generator”, it depends. If you have done something like feed it the Gettysburg Address to create a wry mockery of Microsoft, all well and good. But if you think you might use it in earnest, please leave the SDMB.
I agree with you.
I’m sure there are lots of people who assimilate information more readily if presented to them in video form. I’m not one of them. I hate it when I click on some interesting link on a news site and it turns out to be a video. I don’t like getting my information that way. I would far rather read it, which I can do at my own pace while concentrating on the useful and skipping the uninteresting information by my own criteria, rather than being forced to absorb the information at the rate it’s given.
I also don’t like multimedia displays in museums. Show me the artifact and give me something to read about it.
This is it for me too, word for word. The people at my company are all hot on video and vlogs (gag) as a way to update the employees and keep us connected. It’s just a huge waste of time - I can read a whole lot faster than they can talk. Then there’s the issue of downloading the data: 3 seconds of video followed by 30 seconds of load, followed by 2 seconds of video, followed by 18 seconds of load . . .
It’s one thing when it’s the cute puppy playing with the ball, but when some senior exec is telling me about the new performance review process, it’s just stupid and I hate it. Hell, they write out a script before they make these videos, why don’t they just send that out in an email for pete’s sake? Did I say this is a huge waste of time?
Yes! Yes!
People who teach marketing are telling those of us who need to learn marketing that in “today’s world” you must include video because “No one absorbs information from text or still photos anymore.” I’m supposed to put a TV screen in my shop window with a streaming video. I’m supposed to add animation and video to my website.
I won’t though. I don’t want to make you watch a frigging video any more than you want to watch one.
Thank you.
Count me in as another who doesn’t even bother to watch news stories as videos. I want summary text and a picture.
Trying to find good tutorials with screen shots is hard anymore. Every time I need to find out how to do something in Photoshop, there are always tons of videos and rarely a good text walkthrough.
And another thing…I don’t want to follow an obfuscated link to find out more. This is a trending thing with Twitter. People post 3-word quips (“This is funny!”) followed by a link like http://bit.ly/123454 and I really don’t want to follow that link to figure out what they’re trying to say. I suppose it works great if you’re following Twitter on Twitter itself, but if your friend’s tweets go to your non-smartphone or your Facebook feed, it’s awful annoying.
Good lord NO!
One of my professors used PowerPoint for EVERYTHING. Our first research project was to be PowerPoint. I am so glad I decided to drop that class. What’s wrong with a nice simple research paper? I would so much rather type out a 10 page, single spaced paper than do 6 PP slides.
In particular I hate that the Internet news sites mix their video articles in with their text articles, so if I’m not paying attention (and somethimes even when I am) I click on a story that sounds interesting and get a video. They tend to tee up their most interesting stories this way (well, judging from the headlines – I don’t know how interesting the actual stories are). In addition to the fact that I prefer to read information over hearing it, there are other offensive things about this:
– To get to the video article, you have to sit through a commercial (which of course is the reason they do it).
– If I’m reading the news at work, I don’t want to disturb my neighbors
– Videos are virtually fact-free. They spend way more time getting opinions from random people on the scene than presenting actual information. (I’m making this judgement based on TV news; presumably Internet video is no different.)
I’m not totally anti-video though. There’s really no better medium for watching a cat playing ping pong.
I, too, hate getting a video clip for a news story instead of an article. Fuck a duck, people, I’m at work. I don’t have headphones that I can plug into the computer, and I sure as hell don’t want other people hearing what I’m watching, even if it IS just a news story. Besides, the computers are public; anyone can use them. So it’s not like it’s MY personal work computer.
Usually I catch this before it finishes loading…I see the “video” window pop up, mutter an expletive under my breath, and hit the back button.
I disagree in one important matter. Safety videos have the potential to be the greatest form of entertainment since The Mikado. The Navy had a lot of good ones, like the one about rope snapback where they played up a scenario until the rope snapped and cut about a half dozen mannequins in Navy dungarees in half.
There was also a series of European forklift safety videos that needed no translation I remember seeing recently.
Agreed. I’ve noticed a trend towards replacing tutorials with videos online. Damnit, one of the big advantages of having a tutorial or manual on a computer is that I can search it. I can’t search a friggin video! I also can’t print out a page from it and make notes on it or hang it on the wall. :mad:
Maybe it’s somewhat generational. I’m 27, and I prefer written presentation of information over video in most cases. But I often hear my students, (mostly 18-22-year olds) wishing that they didn’t have to read the textbook and could watch a video instead. They also, incidentally, seem to like PowerPoint notes.
Text is nice because you can skim it.
I agree on video downloads. I’m going to get more information faster from text. Plus, text allows me to go at my own pace, especially when I’m being instructed.
I love multimedia in museums. It has to be done well, of course. But when there’s well done text combined with supplemental audio on specific pieces, I’m happy (if the audio is necessary, someone has made some bad decisions.)