Comments on: Attention span for Web video

By: Are we wasting time and resources on online video? « News Frontier

Are we wasting time and resources on online video? « News Frontier — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:13:46 +0000

[...] with other content offered. It also means that the video is longer and we need to remember the YouTube effect. Very few viewers will stay with a long video until the end, most will sample short snippets from [...]

By: Link wrap: the demise or otherwise of NY Times, iTunes for news and free Al Jazeera footage | The Evolving Newsroom

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:56:56 +0000

[...] McAdams offers some tips on keeping news video short, tight and fascinating, and on designing sites to better allow people to sample and [...]

By: Brian Cubbison

Brian Cubbison — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:09:05 +0000

This is like the famous quote, attributed to Pascal and others, that “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.”

But it seems to me that there’s more than an either-or option here.

Do only short, snappy videos that the most amount of people will watch the whole way. But if a handful of people want to see a much longer piece, why deny them?

Do a long video, and let people get as much as they want from it before leaving. But if they leave at a point when they’re bored, maybe they won’t remember being satisfied.

Do the short, focused video, but also provide a longer, background, reference video for people who want to see everything.

By: peter

peter — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:44:55 +0000

It is largely the net that has created video as a commodity.

Try convincing the suit with the checkbook that your 2 minute video clip is worth as much as the other guy’s multimedia showpiece.

By: Strange Attractor » Blog Archive » links for 2009-01-09

Strange Attractor » Blog Archive » links for 2009-01-09 — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:30:32 +0000

[...] Teaching Online Journalism » Attention span for Web video Kevin: Mindy McAdams, cutting edge multimedia journalism professor. has these observations about video based on a recent study: 1. A shorter, extremely tight and fascinating video has more chance of being watched; it is more likely to succeed in communicating its message, because more people would finish watching it. 2. News sites need to put more effort into facilitation of this sampling behavior, and production of long items (videos or text) is counterproductive to that effort. (tags: methods metrics online video) [...]

By: katie

katie — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:01:59 +0000

Hi Mindy, love your posting. I completely agree.

I was advised a few years ago that video was hot on the web and I should try to get as much as possible for my website, but as I began looking at various competing video from news wires, I found few passed my own personal boredom threshold. I really wondered what people were talking about. In the end, I’ve come to realize what’s always true in journalism … if the content isn’t compelling, don’t waste your resources. And with visual media, image quality always matters.

For example, I’ve found that a lot of video lacks compelling images or a compelling story. Here in Japan is a good example. News video is very popular here, especially on mobile phones. But the most popular video is always something that screams to be viewed. Raw footage of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination or raw footage of a Japanese photography shot in Myanmar. Voiced reports of some offbeat relevant and original news story, story telling enhanced by the images. Or, entertainment and celebrity gossip.

My conclusion: a successful video should be surprising and compelling enough to make you sit forward and forget you are sitting at a computer. It should make you, perhaps sit back and take your finger off your mouse. …

just my opinion.

katie ratcliffe

By: Robb Montgomery

Robb Montgomery — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:26:43 +0000

Yep, it takes a lot more craft, discipline and talent to produce a compelling story in 2:20 versus 6-plus minutes.

Just ask John Lennon and Paul McCartney – many of their compelling compositions cover a lot of ground in a short span of time.

Once you master the technique of building your story arcs in a tighter time frame then your longer form work can get better.

Robb Montgomery
- Visual Editors

By: Jessica

Jessica — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:26:25 +0000

me toooo! by the way, i’ve read and reread your video that means something post many times–and incorporated the links into my workshops. it is definitely a keeper!

By: Mindy McAdams

Mindy McAdams — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:07:34 +0000

@Jessica – Re: mwesch:

http://www.macloo.com/syllabi/dem/mwesch_assignment.htm

And also:

http://mindymcadams.com/tojou/2007/video-that-means-something/

So, yeah, I love mwesch!

By: Jessica

Jessica — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:48:38 +0000

Even though I live in a place where I often can’t stream and have to wait for whole videos to download in my cache, I’m so grateful for the ones that can sustain my interest, long or short. I’m not teaching at the moment, but when I start up again, I’ll be showing Michael Wesch’s video about the anthropology of YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU). Maybe you’ve already posted about it; I didn’t do my due diligence. It’s what I want every presentation I do from here on out to be. It’s 50+ minutes long. And it’s all about people who spend hours rooting around for video on the Web and why they do it. It works not because it’s long but because it tells a story. I’d say that still counts as the best criteria for whether someone will pay attention to what we write or create.