why don’t you vlog?

I’ve been signed up to youtube for almost 5 years now but it’s very rare that i upload videos of any kind… why is that? why haven’t i vlogged up until now? why do so few of us vlog?…

The old way of thinking

Part of the reason for that is because i don’t tend to shoot video much. This is due to an old, defensive way of thinking on my part. With older cameras & phones, it was much quicker to take pictures than to start recording video plus the quality was much better in a picture than in a video. So i always feared missing out on something if i took video, or not so much missing out on it (because video captures everything), but missing out on the quality and resolution a nice crisp image gives you.

photo credit: Ame Otoko

Comfort

I’m also much more comfortable writing than i am talking on camera or presenting but that’s simply because i have such huge experience writing and everything i write tends to be well thought out and edited before it gets published.

That said, as the word count here has grown, the content has tended to flow much easier. So if you were to ask me my opinion on something now both face to face and in written form, you’d get very different answers because i don’t have the time to think and edit my thoughts in live speech like i do with written text.

photo credit: mwphillips75

However, if you were to go back 4 years and ask for my opinion on something in written form, again you’d get a very different response than you would today. These days my writing tends to flow and read better than it did back then. I use headings more, i use images, i try to keep text looking pretty and easy to read. Is my spelling perfect? No. Grammar? No. Reasonable arguments? No. Nothing is perfect but it doesn’t have to be…

Practice

So you’d assume that if i were to sit in front of a camera every day and talk for 4 years i’d become much more comfortable doing that. Well, i’d assume that anyway. Again, no video or vlog will be perfect, but it’s the thought and creativity that counts. The volume of thought and creativity too.

Although it’s not easy to write a blog post or vlog (in fact the first post is probably the hardest), it is easy to just let things go stale and fade away in to history. It’s very easy to do that. And that’s because ideas tend to become scarce and the novelty of new technology wears off.

photo credit: suburbanbloke

That’s where self motivation and a bit of hard work comes in. All of a sudden posts don’t make themselves like they used to and it dawns on you suddenly that you have to ‘create’ them. From a blank canvas. That can be very tough and i think that’s why most people go missing after the first few tweets or posts or vlogs or anything online… constantly creating content might look easy and fun, and it is, but not all the time. It can be difficult too because it involves constant creativity.

Let’s get personal

I keep saying that for the web to grow and become more useful, we need to keep uploading and publishing more personal information. Personal information is the most valuable kind. It benefits business and more importantly it benefits other people.

photo credit: e_monk

On facebook we want to know what somebody is doing, what they’re thinking, who they’re dating, where they work, places they’ve been… to be blunt, it’s a legal form of stalking or spying which we all love and can’t live without. Dress it up how you want 😉

What makes it so interesting is the juicy, personal information. As humans we can’t help but take interest in other people, cut us off from other humans and we’re bored or struggle to find meaning in life. Someone talking on video or even talking about themselves on video is the ultimate way to communicate with people. It doesn’t get any more personal. Writing can get more deep and inside people’s heads but without being able to put face and voice to writing it kind of lacks that personal stamp.

And then you might ask, well why am i writing this blog post and not vlogging it? The answer to that is writing, at this moment in time, is more convenient for me. I already had this post half-written (from weeks ago) so i thought i’d finish it and publish it. Don’t worry, i’ll have more videos on the way. I’d imagine i’ll use video quite a bit in fact once i’m back at college in just over a weeks time because it can get pretty tough trying to set aside time to write. Vlogging might be an easier option when my time is more scarce.