Morning Coffee Videocast: Experiments with Video

In which I drink my morning coffee, and turn into an enormous bandwidth hog...

Morning Coffee Videocast: Experiments with Video

Comments

[AA]

But video includes audio, and hearing the voice has more of an impact on subsequent reading than seeing the face.

[BroD]

Well, ok, I'm game. An 8am ECON class made me realize I do my best economic thinking in the morning before I'm fully awake. But can your server handle it? Your site's been irregularly accessible for the last several months as it is.

[Zack]

Brad, you musn't forget to blink. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to the next installment.

[Max Renn]

Wow, your living room (if that's what that is) looks just like the living room of my old friend John Buxbaum's house on Russell Street. Wild.

[dubblblind]

Brad, you're gulping air between sentences as if you were trolling for plankton. Chill dude. Also, the coffee and cup are supposed to be props which should barely and briefly touch your lips. Are we really supposed to be interested in seeing you suck down your morning brew? (Hint: Slam it down before you start the camera rolling or maybe start an IV drip.)

;-)

[Charles Kinbote]

You might get more than 120 words per minute if you have your coffee before you record your video.

[Linkmeister]

Is that a quart-sized cup? ;)

[dcb]

Bravo! Very interesting and quite enjoyable. I hope you'll continue.

From my point of view as a fan of your blog it's especially interesting to put a face and voice to the words. This is one advantage to the video format. Another is that it's easier to convey an emotional context when you're speaking than in cold text. It's harder to dismiss someone outright when you can see they're sincere and thoughtful (though I may be inclined to view you that way because I generally agree with you...)

Are you considering posting transcript, or the text of your remarks somewhere?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing more.

(An aside: BroD, re your connection troubles try http://delong.typepad.com - I find it more reliable than the other URL.)

[dilbert dogbert]

Prof DeLong,
Maybe by use of video, and reviewing same before posting, you won't write/video as many "clinker" posts, where out of anger or too quick posting and not enough introspection/thinking, you would like to use a retroactive "delete" button.
Good practice for any future TV appearances.

[Drew]

In response to your weariness:

1. 120 words per minute: Words are not the primary purpose of video. A picture can hold a million words. At 15 frames per second, thats more than all the words in all languages in just a few seconds.

2. There are other ways to use video besides staring into the camera or not staring into the camera. The powerful medium can be used to show all kinds of things beyond this.

3. Searching in video via audio and motion tracking will soon be pervasive (e.g. see http://www.podzinger.com/results.jsp?q=Brad+DeLong&col=allpods ).

The challenge with video is exactly the culmination of all of these points, in my opinion: How can you use the medium to do more than stare at the camera and say words?

[dan]

The big downside of video is i have to turn off my music to take in the information.

[scribo]

Is that your house? I hate you. Was that coffee from Peet's?

[L]

Brad looks a lot better in the video than in the picture on his home page.

I'm not sure what the difference is. Maybe the camera angle? The obvious difference is that the video is head-on, while the picture on web page is 3/4. But I don't think that's it. Also, I think the video is shot from below.

[divF]

Your performance brought to mind the "talking pictures demonstration" in Singin' in the Rain:

"Hello! This is a demonstration of a talking picture. Notice, it is a picture of me and I am talking. Note my mouth with the words issuing from them in perfect unison..."

On the other hand, I don't think it is feasible for you do be the Dancing Cavalier - there isn't enough economics that is set to music (although a plumed hat would be good) ...

[modus potus]

Jeesh. Everyone's a critic.

I didn't come here to watch the news.

[Jacob]

Your voice is just like Frank Easterbrook's...

[Lee A. Arnold]

Very nice background frame composition! Can you fade-to-black at the end?

[Winston]

So that WAS you at Thai House a few weeks ago!

We were the loud obnoxious grad students in the center of the room making too much noise.

[Filter]

Oh, now I want to see you say the impeach him phrase. Please do it soon.

[T.R. Elliott]

Brad: Very informative. But you need to take a few hints from Fox news. I was watching it the other night (a necessary evil) and was again amazed at the onslaught of non-essential images and sounds that accost the viewer. Shifting backgrounds, twisting graphics, waving flags, explosive transitions--all as subtle as a detached jet's engine crashing through my living room ceiling.

With a few small additions like this, you're morning video blog will be killer. Thanks for doing your part to increase the information content of the internet.

PS: A few shots of cleavage or women in bikinis also seems to increase Fox news ratings. You might throw some of that in. And maybe, one of these mornings, you can incorporate a segment about a missing white girl. Always a crowd pleaser.

[Michael Carroll]

What kind of camera did Brad Use?

[Rabelais]

I kinda liked it.

[Bruce Wilder]

I don't know about the face and voice thing. I know that lectures, in person, sometimes manage to convey things you never quite pick up in a book, despite all the other problems of lectures, the not least of which is shared with video -- the passivity of the viewer.

I wonder if animation might work. I'm not thinking of cartoon characters so much as animated versions of complex diagrams and charts.