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With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

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Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#111
post #88

One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. It was bad enough with this wave of YouTube “guides” that take eight minutes to explain something which could have been done in a paragraph. Videos are also the worst searchable medium, really looking forward to having to scan through hours of content to find “that thing I saw six months ago”. Who in their right mind would think that video could be a pro…

Ads and subscriptions seems easier on sites for video than text. Nobody ever made significant money with blogs or other online text form, while some people make a very decent living just producing YouTube videos.

Indeed. There are almost no rich poets, but more than a few rich songwriters.

Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#112
post #88

One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. It was bad enough with this wave of YouTube “guides” that take eight minutes to explain something which could have been done in a paragraph. Videos are also the worst searchable medium, really looking forward to having to scan through hours of content to find “that thing I saw six months ago”. Who in their right mind would think that video could be a pro…

As someone that hates email and text messages I'd totally trade my time spent in meetings and writing or reading emails for watching and making videos.

Searching within videos is a solved problem for Google.

Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#114
post #93
post #88

One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. It was bad enough with this wave of YouTube “guides” that take eight minutes to explain something which could have been done in a paragraph. Videos are also the worst searchable medium, really looking forward to having to scan through hours of content to find “that thing I saw six months ago”. Who in their right mind would think that video could be a pro…

> One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. I mean videos can be great for educational content. But the putting out a video takes significantly longer than watching it. And theoretically you could make it just as searchable as anything else. The problem is that people suck at communicating clearly and concisely already, add to that a narcissist guy who likes to see himself talk and you got a rec…

flock to this like moths to a lightbulb

In that sense it may act as a filter to help remove low-effort content from other channels I actually use (ie. not video).

Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#115
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before any of that happens it will be renamed and branded so somebody can get promoted, closely followed with canceled to make way for the next big thing.

Cynicism is generally warranted, but they have a pretty good track record with Workplace/GSuite products geared towards paying enterprises.

They killed Postini to get there and lost me as a paying customer.

Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#116
post #5

Loom is one of the best tools for remote work. If this is free and in Google Docs, I won't need Loom anymore. Loom should be terrified. This will probably also be added to YouTube, so CapCut and the like are about to be checkmated too. The biggest worry for this product is that it's from Google and we know how they are about products.

it's from Google and we know how they are about products

Does the company just not care about it's reputation in regards to this?

Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#117

I've always been skeptical of generative AI being used to make slides. I like the idea of it, and maybe someday we will get there. But right now, they all feel like they are trying to fully automate the process where what I really want them to do is automate the tedious parts, co-piloting with me. Because what ends up happening is I need a high degree of precision and I have a very concrete idea of what I need to pre…

I tried Copilot on PowerPoint once and I swear I'll never use it again. (Or at least not until it is 10x better.) I asked it to generate slides on a technical topic. I wasn't expecting it to fill in a lot of details, but what I got was 10 slides of stock photos next to some very high-level ideas that almost mean nothing. Think of those presentations that take half an hour but really only has 5 minutes of content. I ended up throwing away the entire thing and start over, creating slides myself.

Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#118
post #88

One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. It was bad enough with this wave of YouTube “guides” that take eight minutes to explain something which could have been done in a paragraph. Videos are also the worst searchable medium, really looking forward to having to scan through hours of content to find “that thing I saw six months ago”. Who in their right mind would think that video could be a pro…

What a "get off my lawn" take. I think you are entirely undervaluing having access to video tutorials on virtually any subject.

A paragraph on the internet doesn't show you step by step visually how to do something.

Short form video, if you haven't noticed, is absolutely dominating social media and google has good reason to bundle and theme it for the workplace.

Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#119
post #88

One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. It was bad enough with this wave of YouTube “guides” that take eight minutes to explain something which could have been done in a paragraph. Videos are also the worst searchable medium, really looking forward to having to scan through hours of content to find “that thing I saw six months ago”. Who in their right mind would think that video could be a pro…

What a "get off my lawn" take. I think you are entirely undervaluing having access to video tutorials on virtually any subject. A paragraph on the internet doesn't show you step by step visually how to do something. Short form video, if you haven't noticed, is absolutely dominating social media and google has good reason to bundle and theme it for the workplace.

It is entirely unsearchable though

Re: With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work

#120
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a "get off my lawn" take. I think you are entirely undervaluing having access to video tutorials on virtually any subject. A paragraph on the internet doesn't show you step by step visually how to do something. Short form video, if you haven't noticed, is absolutely dominating social media and google has good reason to bundle and theme it for the workplace.

It is entirely unsearchable though

Definitely not "entirely" because there are ways that one can search in a video, it's just not widely available and not as useful as it could be where it is. One way to search in videos is to use Kagi search with the AI assistant. You can ask it questions about a video, and it will answer (generally pretty well). I think ideally it would should the timestamp(s) of where the information came from though.
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