Why are user created videos not being viewed by the community?

Hi Mark,

I recently done a roadtest which included both a review and a teardown on a Keithley 2110 meter and I used video. Here are the videos and the view stats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdqtuHaiVIQ - 1,684 views

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI8s4hignaI - 1,442 views 

Now I have a pretty active blog related video channel so that does count for the majority of the views.  I did get some feedback (and do from time to time for other videos) that some people don't like video content, they prefer to read text and high resolution images and that would appear to be the case on element14 right now.

Another problem might be related to uploading video using elemnt14's own video streaming feature - I guess built into Jive Community (which is what powers element14), I prefer youttube for coverage but I can understand why element14 might like to have the content self-contained.

In summary, there are some things you can do on video that you simply cannot re-create using text and pictures so you need to pick the format that best suites your content and the intended audience. Not an easy task - you cant please everyone sadly.

Not sure thats of any help but its my understanding

Gerry

Hi Mark,

I recently done a roadtest which included both a review and a teardown on a Keithley 2110 meter and I used video. Here are the videos and the view stats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdqtuHaiVIQ - 1,684 views

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI8s4hignaI - 1,442 views 

Now I have a pretty active blog related video channel so that does count for the majority of the views.  I did get some feedback (and do from time to time for other videos) that some people don't like video content, they prefer to read text and high resolution images and that would appear to be the case on element14 right now.

Another problem might be related to uploading video using elemnt14's own video streaming feature - I guess built into Jive Community (which is what powers element14), I prefer youttube for coverage but I can understand why element14 might like to have the content self-contained.

In summary, there are some things you can do on video that you simply cannot re-create using text and pictures so you need to pick the format that best suites your content and the intended audience. Not an easy task - you cant please everyone sadly.

Not sure thats of any help but its my understanding

Gerry

I've commented on my dislike of videos before and I hope Gerry will forgive me for using his an an illustration .

The two that Gerry links to above are 25 minutes and 33 minutes long - in round numbers that's an hour. I was a little interested in the meter so I skimmed the two - spending perhaps 5 minutes on the pair. For me to spend an hour on something it's got to be important (or paid for).

I would much rather look at several short reviews than one long one. If a review is text and pictures it can be skimmed or searched much more effectively.

If there is something which can ONLY be illustrated by video (can't think of an example other than perhaps Dave the EEV Blog man's bouncing batteries) then by all means include a SHORT video.

In more general terms the other issue is that many review videos are of poor quality - scripting, acting, making and editing  a video is a serious skill and usually requires a team of people to make a good one.

MK

MK,

No problem, gald to be of assistance - even if its to demonstrate what you don't like. I chose to use video because the the medium I prefer myself and actually I enjoy making them and improving on them over time.  Not to everyones liking I know.

Gerry

Gerry,

Very interesting.  The same two videos that have been viewed well over a thousand times each on You Tube have only been viewed twice (in one case) and zero times (in the other) on the Element14 Road Test site.  Could one factor affecting low viewership be where the videos are located?

Mark

Michael,

I tend to agree with your suggestion that video be restricted to those situations where it is truly necessary.  I have said in the past, if it doesn't move, beep, blink, or blow up, it shouldn't be in a video.

I also agree that quality is a concern.   There is a good reason why the credit roll at the end of a movie is so long - it takes a lot of talented people to make a good video production.  Obviously community memebers are not likely to have access to that kind of talent pool, but there could be some guidleines on what to incliude, and not include, in a road test video.

Keeping duration down to a minute or two might be a good suggestion, for example.  Any others?

Mark

Hi Mark,

I amn not sure how element14 would keep track of the views on an embedded youtube video so I don;t know.  I suspect that is the case, more people have viewed them but Jive is not keeping track of that fact. How did you see the number of views?

Gerry

Gerry,

To see the view counter for videos on the Road Test site, I clicked on the Videos tab within Road Test.  See the screen capture below:

Hi Mark,

Thanks, I see how you found that now. It would appear that it counts video views on the page you showed, I just tried viewing it from that page and it bumped the counter.  When I tried viewing the other one of mine from the actual roadtest review it appeared not to bump the counter of that one so I guess it does not work so well from a view count tracking point of view - it seems poorly implemented.

Gerry

Hi Gerry,

Son of a gun, you are right!  I just tried the same experiment on one of my videos.  Views from within the Road Test don't seem to update the counter in the Videos tab view.

So, although several members have contributed their opinions about Roaf Test video content in this discussion, it looks like I can't depend on the video count values to get a real sense of how often videos within Road Test reviews are actually being watched.

This is a problem that I think the web site administrators need to look into.

Mark

Hi Mark,

Element14 have built their community site using a product called "Jive" which apart from anything else is probably an enterprise on-premise software deployment, I suspect its a product issue so I would not hold out too much hope of a fix any time soon….

Gerry

Gerry Sweeney

http://gerrysweeney.com/

Good Question Gerry, not seen your blog before much as you've probably not seen mine

I think that blog entries not put in to popular places like the Raspberry Pi section etc inevitably  get less views.

However that's not where you are going even in popular posts the viewing of videos is very low and I can agree to that from my own blog metrics..Why don't know but maybe they are indeed been blocked  but I think also that there's an element of laziness which is basically  that even that 2 min video you have spent time on is too much for me to watch .... Don't know would actually be interesting to do a study to see if people would watch them if they were able to and were interested in them..

By the way Gerry the average viewing time of a video on Youtube is 2Mins ( again this is held up by my personal metrics on my site) so don't expect too much.....

Good luck with your blog John A