The Critique of Pure Vlogging

My family was celebrating an early passover (so much more convenient to just do it on the weekend) today and somehow my little brother got to talking smack about video-blogging. "Tell it to the camera," I said. And so we did -- Web 2.0 rules:

Apologies for the lack of hoodie. Congratulations to Ohio State.

3/31/07 10:32PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

the kid screaming in the background was funny.

re: vlogging

1) the data transmission rate is potentially faster as is the processing (i.e., you can listen faster than you can read)

2) sometimes the chix are cute

re: #1, there is a lot of variance between vloggers. some of them have their shit together, and the payoff re: data acquisition and transmission is superior to them just writing a post. on the other hand, as little yglesias said, a lot of people don't have their stuff and just do the "uhm, uhm, i can't remember where i read this...." also, i think one-person vlogging isn't as good as diavlogging cuz the latter involves real time conversation and exchange and analysis of ideas. vlogging a lot of the time does end up to be the same as a text post, just read out loud.

Posted by: razib on March 31, 2007 10:41 PM

I'm with the younger Yglesias on this one. I read way faster than anybody talks. I almost never watch vlogs.

Posted by: Kalkin on March 31, 2007 10:46 PM

Dude, Yglesias the Younger is totally right on this one. Painfully awkward, indeed. And so much harder to get away with at work.

Posted by: greebsnarf on March 31, 2007 10:49 PM

"2) sometimes the chix are cute"

Who? Althouse probably does more bloggingheads than any woman there. She looks like a big in a dress and wig, kinda like in "Pigs Before Swine" from a couple of days ago.

Posted by: Reality Man on March 31, 2007 10:58 PM

Oh, God. There's two.

And, he's right.

Posted by: Sam L. on March 31, 2007 11:03 PM

nick, great blogospheric debut.

i'd like to be the first to point out the fairly obvious irony of critiquing a medium on that medium itself. but of course that tells you something - ordinarily blogless nick couldn't have made his critique directly to the world were it not for video. Similarly, I would never read Ann Althouse's or Dan Drezner's blog normally, but I like watching them debate matt, for instance, on bloggingheads.

Posted by: mitch on March 31, 2007 11:03 PM

Another point for regular blogging - I have no idea how to spell that phrase you suggested we google.

Posted by: Anon on March 31, 2007 11:14 PM

Anon: Afikomen.

Posted by: Sam L. on March 31, 2007 11:19 PM

"Congratulations to Ohio State." THAT'S RIGHT! Go Buckeyes!

Sorry, the mere fact that a college team, even one from a super-awesome school like Ohio State, received recogntion from this blog merits an outburst.

Posted by: Matthew Struhar on March 31, 2007 11:36 PM

So I don't get bloggingheads (first I agree with whomever that it needs to be renamed bloggerheads asap).

All the bloggers make fun of the TV Talking Heads telling us crap. So what is bloggingheads if not ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny?

Posted by: jerry on March 31, 2007 11:42 PM

Anybody else think that it's kind of eerie how much Nick sounds like Matt? And I'm not talking about the tone/pitch of the voices, but rather the pattern of speaking, the words emphasized, etc...although, come to think of it, lots of people used to have trouble telling my brother and I apart on the phone. Still.

Posted by: El Caballo de Sangre on March 31, 2007 11:47 PM

Oh, and I forgot to thank Matt for congratulating my Buckeyes. He should get ready to do so again on Monday.

Another prediction: Durant and Oden will be wearing burnt orange and scarlet and gray, respectively, again next year.

Posted by: El Caballo de Sangre on March 31, 2007 11:49 PM

Anybody else think that it's kind of eerie how much Nick sounds like Matt?

yeah, that was freaky.

re: hot. well, garance doesn't look bad. also, how do you think rocketboom got big? congdon might not be a 10, but she's well above 5.

Posted by: razib on March 31, 2007 11:57 PM

Vlogging is slow (to DL for moi, because I live in Hell) and annoying. And it really doesn't add anything, unless somehow people admit on camera something they won't say on a blog. In that sense, it might be less extreme. I almost never watch blogging heads, even when I download it; it's too much commitment for the guaranteed return, in a way that a post with a pointer to a 20,000 word document isn't.

I'd also like to say that here is an excellent moment to sound the call for specialization: if there's going to be a member of the Yglesias family vblogging, Nick should probably be the one doing it. He has (proto-)rad anchorman skillz. I mean, you were all bouncing up and down, but you missed doing the obvious 'Blogger Frankenstein' joke in the middle of the piece.

Yes: Nick Yglesias as family vlogger.

m, you should probably donate the beard too

Posted by: max on April 1, 2007 12:05 AM

Kind of a loss to humanity that the smart one isn't the blogger.

Posted by: jerry on April 1, 2007 12:15 AM

If I bribed Nick with a handful of gorp, do you think he'd start his own Vlog?

Posted by: Boom House on April 1, 2007 12:21 AM

Oy vey - The Afikomen is a stashed piece of unleavened bread. Jewish kids look for it like gentile children search for easter eggs.

(We did our Seder last evening, Matt. Can you believe 5767 is half gone?)

Posted by: Blue Girl, Red State on April 1, 2007 12:28 AM

Ah, but you can't find such wondrous meltdowns like the Althouse (with Franke-Ruta) video, without video, eh?

I mean, in text, she'd have had a chance to reconsider her words. And we'd all be the poorer.

Posted by: Gastromancer on April 1, 2007 12:37 AM

One reason I like video and audio blogging, is that I can listen to the comments while doing something else at the same time (like read another blog).

That's one reason why I think I spend more time listening to NPR than reading any of the major newspapers. (That and NPR is far superior).

Posted by: Jeff on April 1, 2007 01:10 AM

I think that it is a an underappreciated fact of written language that it allows us to take in information at a rate that far exceeds that of spoken language. On the other hand, I doubt that many people can write coherently as fast as they can speak. So vlogging pushes the work and inconvenience from the blogger to the audience. Podcasting at least has the advantage that you can listen to it while commuting.

Posted by: DonBoy on April 1, 2007 01:24 AM

So vlogging pushes the work and inconvenience from the blogger to the audience.

We have a winner!
I can read matthewyglesias.com at work; I can skim some of it, get distracted, and come back and catch up; I can even read it during conference calls. Vlogging? Not so much. So when I see somebody reference a bloggingheads spot, I nod, solemnly remind myself tol view it when I get home, and then.. forget it entirely. Give me the convenience of plain old text, and I'm okay with Matt's suffering for my convenience. (Especially because that way Matt gets a chance to edit and clarify his thinking, even if he does have a moral objection to spell- or grammar-checking.)

Posted by: Dave Pooser on April 1, 2007 02:16 AM

DonBoy - good point on "pushing the work to the audience". I too would have thought that reading was significantly faster than listening. But then we have this:

"Estimates of maximum information transfer rates involving language reception and transmission in various modalities have been presented by Reed and Durlach (1994). The results indicate that maximum rates for reading English (vision), listening to spoken English (hearing), and observing the signs in American Sign Language are all roughly the same and lie in the range 60-70 bits/s." http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4761&page=96

which is so counterintuitive that I want to check out the original paper (do the bits of information include detailed info on the gender/age/health of the speaker?). But even if true, it ignores the advantages of text blogging, which is generally and for obvious reasons much more carefully edited and sourced. Also, I tend to buy the Neil Postman "Amusing ourselves to death" critique that text is intrinsically more friendly to logic and small-d democratic political mechanisms (which for my money explains the right-wing talk radio / liberalish blogging influence split, but then that may just show *my* politics).

Posted by: fizz on April 1, 2007 02:36 AM

The Kant reference doesn't really work for such a postmodern gesture as using a medium to critique it. Baudrillard might be more appropriate. Welcome to the Desert of the Vlog.

I generally agree with Nick-- homemade TV punditry is a cute novelty act, but I'd rather just read the blog. It's less distracting, and I can do it on the sly in the office. Plus, most bloggers are far more thoughtful and professional in writing, not to mention easier on the eyes.

Bloggingheads was interesting just to see what everyone looks and sounds like, but I've never been able to sit and watch more than 5 minutes of any episode... except for the Ackerman/McArdle cook-off, which was must-see TV.

Posted by: LaFollette Progressive on April 1, 2007 03:30 AM

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- vlogging is harder to absorb, quote, and respond to. Text is far more shapeable (by authors and audience alike) than video. If, when blogging, you write a confusing sentence, I assume you'll go back and fix it, whereas in most vlogging, people seem to spew it out and hope for the best.

Now, there are a few people (*cough* *cough* Ze Frank *cough*) who make some innovative use of the video format and try to do things that you can't with mere text, and that's great. But unless you're willing to put in the time and effort to make use of the format, you're really doing your ideas a disservice by vlogging them.

In other words, bloggingheads is pretty pointless except on the rare occasions that you have Althouse freaking out on camera.

Posted by: Royko on April 1, 2007 03:46 AM

Your brother is adorable, and correct. There's a poetic sense in which it's great to see non-professionals-at-talking talking about things, and you wish that news programs had anchors as knowledgeable as bloggers, and it's true that if it weren't bloggers vlogging politics no one would pay attention, but the practical limits of online video make it not worth the commitment, so far.

There is a future, of course. I especially like the trend toward links to key points in the conversation, and extensive post-summary in blog form.

Posted by: Mike on April 1, 2007 04:14 AM

Like a lot of folks here, I read considerably faster than most people talk. Not to mention, if you're reading a blog entry and you're not sure there's a point being made, you can skim ahead and see. With a Vlog, not so much.

So except when the Vlog has some value added over a blog, it's kinda useless IMHO.

But one potential bit of added value is interaction. Many commenters have mentioned the Franke-Ruta/Althouse bit, and during the Scooter trial, I greatly enjoyed the daily summations that Jane Hamsher, Marcy Wheeler, and (depending on the day) Christy Hardin Smith or Jeralyn Merritt would do together. But it was the back-and-forth that made their videos worth watching; if each of them had done separate, disconnected Vlogs about the trial, I wouldn't have bothered watching.

Posted by: RT on April 1, 2007 07:20 AM

I agree with your brother. I almost never watch videos online. I've for example read ever word but not watched any videos at Robert Reich's blog. I tried to watch the Althouse thing but got boired and gave up after five seconds. As your brother says, hardly anyone except professional actors and politicians are telegenic enough or scripted enough to be anything but painful. Anyway, I read books and sit in front a monitor because I love reading. I wouldn't have learned to love reading so much if I enjoyed listening to people talk.

Posted by: Gary Sugar on April 1, 2007 08:02 AM

Measure of age: the first team that I ever rooted for was the Ohio St basketball team that featured Jerry Lucas, John Havilcek, and Larry Siegfried. An also-ran on that team: Bob Knight.

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on April 1, 2007 08:28 AM

What is the very last thing that Matthew says in the video? It sounds like "Welcome from Marx into mime" but that can't be right. Can it?

Have a good Passover!

Posted by: Sumana Harihareswara on April 1, 2007 08:55 AM

Actually, the Yglesias family secret I want to know is how the hero of "Fearless" gets his shoes back so that he can walk away from the plane crash.

Posted by: John Haber on April 1, 2007 09:06 AM

This point has been made by some already, but clearly missed by others:

While it may be true that people can listen as fast as they read, it is certainly true that people do not talk as fast as they read.

If you were to read a transcription of that video, I bet you'd be done in less that half the time.

If MY vlogged at the rate of the legal disclaimer guy at the end of car dealership radio commercials there might comparable efficiency.

That not being the case, I have to agree with "So vlogging pushes the work and inconvenience from the blogger to the audience."

Posted by: Ziggy on April 1, 2007 10:48 AM

if you're reading a blog entry and you're not sure there's a point being made, you can skim ahead and see.

And you can quickly go back and review a point that wasn't clear on first reading.

A blog entry is there all at once, all of it easily accessible from anywhere in the post, whereas a video unfolds in time, and only the present instant is accessible without a lot of hit-or-miss fiddling with the controls.

Plus which, the visual information in a video can be distracting.

Posted by: Swift Loris on April 1, 2007 11:06 AM

This one seems pretty easy to me. If you've just got a brilliant insight into the machinations of the Bush administration or the latest news from the Fed, the regular blog is your man every time. If you have a small talent for smart-ass remarks, a video blog may actually make your point in a more entertaining and telling way. But unless you're John Stewart's younger brother, you'd probably best stick to blogging.

Posted by: JHM on April 1, 2007 11:22 AM

is that legal, celebrating passover early? is god down with that? and do you have a good recipe for charoset?

on point, ive found political vlogging woefully lacking (i wasnt impressed at all with garance pre or post althouses meltdown) although it does allow for some insight into personality which might inform the reader. im mean, who could respect that chickenhawk twerp ramesh ponnuru after seeing him on tv. dont know if thats a good thing but it cant be entirely dismissed.

Posted by: alias on April 1, 2007 11:43 AM

Chix cute? Heck, Nick's cute.

Posted by: Ben on April 1, 2007 02:11 PM

Video blogging has a terrible disadvantage not mentioned by either you or your kid brother. If one runs into a word one doesn't know (like Afeecoolman or whatever) in a text blog one can cut and paste it to google or the wikipedia. However, to learn what the hell an afidconan is I would have to spend about an hour guessing how it's spelled.

Is this a psychopharaeceutical useful in treating the tendency to run off at the mouth (if so every single person who knows me wants to know its generic name) or is it something to do with passover ? Or both ? or neither ?

Posted by: Robert Waldmann on April 1, 2007 02:30 PM

Yeah, I've never understood why someone would sit there and watch a bloggingheads.tv epsidoe when they can listen on their IPod.

Posted by: Different Mike on April 1, 2007 02:48 PM

I mean, you were all bouncing up and down, but you missed doing the obvious 'Blogger Frankenstein' joke in the middle of the piece.

Was I the only one whose Spidey Sense totally started tingling right around the 50-second mark when Matthew creeps up directly behind Nick? Based on years of observing older-younger brother interactions, I was totally expecting Matthew to punch the unsuspecting Nick in the back or put him in the sleeper hold. But maybe they're too old for that kind of thing.

Posted by: JP on April 1, 2007 04:23 PM

Afikoman

Two requests for Nick's next vlog:

1) matching hoodies
2) I'd like to hear Nick's thoughts on Gilbert Arenas' shooting precentage.

Posted by: Thlayli on April 1, 2007 07:24 PM

Little bro is totally correct. Watching those idiot video pieces is painful painful painful, and you get about 1/4 the information per minute despite the fact that it takes twice the amount of energy/attention.

Posted by: Notaname on April 2, 2007 04:49 AM

For me at least, the inefficiency of bloggingheads (for example) is a virtue. I'm not trying to shove information into my head, I'm trying to relax and waste an hour or so.

Posted by: Mike Bruce on April 2, 2007 11:01 AM

The good thing about Bloggingheads is that you can listen to it while doing chores. You don't need to watch it, obviously. I do occasionally glance at the screen, if only to observe the looks of irritation when Matt keeps interrupting people.

Posted by: Jim W on April 2, 2007 11:48 AM

would you all watch a live, 24/7 video feed?

Posted by: judson on April 2, 2007 03:46 PM

The younger Yglesias is right. He's also really, really cute.

Posted by: lemuel pitkin on April 2, 2007 05:05 PM

Chix cute? Heck, Nick's cute.

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