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July 26, 2006Lessons Learned from Video Product ReviewsUpdate: this post attracted one of the best comments ever added to this blog. Nice! + + + Inspired by ShopWiki, I decided to try and make a video product review. My beagle has been wanting to make video product reviews for some time... she must have been wondering why it took so long. But I'm a relative latecomer to camcorders, and have only dabbled with Adobe Premiere, so I had no idea what to expect. How long would it take? Would I even be able to do it? I had no idea, but it was a chance for video-editing experience, so why not. The subject: Busy Buddy Twist-N-Treat. (I am not sure if there are any dogs yet on ShopWiki, but who else is qualified to review a dog toy?) In this case, with the unpredictability, the review cannot be done in one take. First, the video must be edited for time constraints. Next, the audio must be planned around the edited video. I probably spent a couple hours trying to produce 3 minutes of video. Even if it was just me talking about a tech gadget, still cannot image doing everything in one take. It would take more extensive planning and at least a good outline. Still, if you are not used to doing audio-video, knowing what you want to do, and actually doing it, are two very different things. Allowances must be made for outtakes and outright bloopers. But enough about production. Even if everything went flawlessly (ha!) there is still the issue of the end-user experience. After watching several of the other video product reviews, I do not think it makes sense to try and make video reviews stand alone. They are terribly inefficient. Reviewers can only cram so much info in several minutes of video. Readers cannot easily skim to save time, which limits the amount of reviews they can consume, and thus the amount of unique perspectives they are able to consider. I think, the ideal scenario may be to make the text reviews & video reviews complementary. Use video only for the parts that are uniquely suited to video, and link to it from a more complete text-based review. No need to cram a full review into video. Dunno... can you see yourself watching video product reviews in the near future? Why or why not? And if yes, what types of products do you think are best suited to the medium? Inquiring minds want to know... + + + As for my little "vReview"... By the time it was completed, I figured it probably did not conform to the guidelines of ShopWiki, so I opted to host it on Google Video and promote my wife's first website, which might come alive after her Master's is done. Lucy Beagle reviews Busy Buddy Twist 'n' Tread from Premier Pet. p.s. - anyone reading this have beagles? p.p.s. - dogster is the product of genius.
Lessons Learned from Video Product Reviews
CommentsThe best kind of product videos are those that: - show a product in action that I didn't know much about, e.g. an electric fence for dogs - show a product that required some degree of "know how" to use, e.g. demands a "how to" manual, such as the TVs they sprinkle around Home Depot that show you products you can do in a weekend. - show a product that helps me figure out which model to buy, e.g. should I buy roomba model x vs model y -- which one really picks up dog hairs? real users who tell me why to pay more for model y. If you were to bother to build 1000s of product videos, I think videos would be really well suited to answer the "which one should I get?" and "how do I use this?" questions. Using videos as just an ad -- answering "why should I think about buying this?" -- that is less compelling -- I'm not going to go out of my way to click 'play' on those. That's well done with text/pic stuff. Posted by s niyogi at July 29, 2006 2:47 AM |
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