Video is sexy - but Audio can be more effective

An interesting thing that I run into very often is people who want all kinds of video content, esp. long form items.  And sometimes, it really works and is good.

However, there are a lot of times where audio outperforms video by factors of anywhere from 2-4 to one.  Long format content, especially when there aren’t a lot of supporting visuals, is suited perfectly for audio.  Although the “in” thing is video on the ‘net, the reality seems to be that people prefer to take with them audio.

Why?  Well, despite what some advertising agency people will lead you to believe (because you do make more money producing video; way more money, as the project is larger and the agency’s cut is larger) it’s because people don’t want to be interrupted - they may want to learn your content or be entertained but they have other things to do.

There are a couple exceptions to this - when the long form content has a live community around it (a beautiful example of this is TWiT Live - but they still don’t offer video podcasts versions of their content, and I don’t know if they should) but it works because there are a couple thousand people who are becoming friends chatting in real time about what’s going on.

The second is if the long form content requires lots of visuals, like powerpoints and such that keep things moving, entertaining, and informative.  It’s key that these visuals are resized and edited directly into the program as just shooting a powerpoint screen with a camera is unprofessional and very hard to read.

What are your thoughts on the future of online video?