Videoblog ? No, thanks

It seems that everyone (Alec, Andy, Jeff, Ken, Mathew, Marc, and others) in the blogsphere is wondering wether to videoblog or not. This discussion started from a specific invitation by Dina Kaplan from Blip.tv, who challenged many bloggers to start a videoblog.

I’ll be very clear: to me, videoblog is useless. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I like watching at user-produced videos on the internet, but videoblogging is pretty different. It would be useful if it would add more information to the whole story, but it doesn’t.

When you read a blog post,, it takes time to get the whole story, but 99% it worths the time you spend.
If you listen to a podcast telling the same story, it takes less time and sometimes you can catch more details than reading the written version.

But, if you watch at a videoblog post, what more do you get ? Taking Andy’s videoblog as an instance, what more have I got ? I just had the opportunity to see Andy’s face, tired after a long working day at VON, together with his bed’s pillows behind him. Hey, very nice! But, a podcast would have been good as well. Or, in this case, since the “information” was very simple, I would have got it by just reading a few lines of a “normal” blog post.

To be honest, I would say that it depends from the topics you cover. A video would be useful to show in detail how a new gadget works, for instance. But in the VoIP world, you usually tell stories and comment news, you offer your view to your readers, and almost always video doesn’t really add more information. Text plus photos is enough, to me.

What do you think ?

Technorati Tags: alec saunders, andy abramson, jeff pulver, ken camp, luca filigheddu, mathew ingram, marc evans, videoblog