Teach42

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Ok, I really shouldn’t get into this one because I know I’m going to wind up on a soap box, but Dean’s post about videoblogging has forced me to comment. He’s actually responding to a post of Alan’s, so you can get all the background you might need!

My two cents on video blogging: It’s cool as all heck, but it ain’t in the form it needs to be yet.

Let me step back to podcasting. We’ve had internet radio for a while. The trouble with it was that nobody wanted to sit at their computer and listen to radio all day. They wanted to hear it in their car or jogging. Same thing with audioblogs. Great idea, but no easy way to take it with you. However, now that everyone has MP3 players and podcatchers have made it easy to subscribe to podcasts, they’ve taken off in popularity. Whether it has staying power is still up in the air, but nobody can deny that there isn’t a ton of potential there. The key is, the right format met up with the right software and the right hardware.

With video blogging, we’re getting the right format, we’re getting the right hardware. But I do not believe the software is there yet. Before you get the wrong idea, let me clarify the hardware comment though. I’m NOT talking about the video iPod or personal media player. Dean is right, “Podcasting is naturally mobile. That is its main advantage. It also allows for multi-tasking.” Videlocasting is NOT naturally mobile. Most of the time, people watch video at home. On the sofa. In front of the TV. And that’s where videocasting has to go.

The right hardware is the DVR, aka Tivo. The right place is the family room. The right software is a versoin of Tivo that allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds that contain video’s in them. The Tivo needs to become a Vid-Catcher. I want to see Dave Warlick’s videocasts right next to my episodes of Seinfeld. I want to see the room 202 Videocast listed right next to Sportscenter or Emeril. If I have 10 minutes free, I can see what those crazy kids are up to. I want my children’s ‘newsletter’ to be a news cast that is created quickly, easily and weekly. I want to SEE the drama activity that they did instead of reading about it or hearing them describing it.

See where I’m going with this? So before you denounce videocasting, think of it as an alpha. Version 0.15a. And consider where it might be able to go. We certainly aren’t there yet, but we’re getting there.