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My Web is Text Based

marksonland.com

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Re: My Web is Text Based

#21

Post by brandnewlow »

mixmax wrote: post #17

Video is primarily for entertainment, text is for conveying information. At least on the net. Newspapers don't seem to understand this - a lot of them are starting to have videoclips on their sites, apparently to grab marketshare from TV. It's much more expensive than writing an article, and it doesn't work. There are, of course exceptions: "nipslips", catastrophes and such call for video, but most news don't.

A-men! U.S. j-schools are obsessed with turning everyone into multimedia reporters...when people still just want great text stories.

The original post is great. I'm sending it to all my journalism buddies.

Re: My Web is Text Based

#22

Post by jibiki »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #15
andylei wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most people probably would be illiterate without a mandatory government education

please don't upvote such ahistorical nonsense. Even the most casual examination of historical records reveals this to be false. In the early 1800s, Pierre Samuel Dupont, an influential French citizen who helped Thomas Jefferson negotiate for the Louisiana Purchase, came to America and surveyed education here. He found that most young Americans could read, write, and "cipher" (do arithmetic), and that Americans of all…

Certainly we had public education in the 1800s(?) What is the difference between public education (like we had then) and "nanny state" education? (I'm asking this seriously...) What particular legislation would you point to as causing a change?

Re: My Web is Text Based

#23

Post by sachinag »

jfornear wrote: post #13
antiismist wrote: post #6

I feel the same way about ESPN. I like reading interesting articles about sports but it is actually not that easy to find good content - there is no hacker news for sports (yet!).

I was throwing together a Techmeme for sports, and while compiling a list of sources, I ran into this same problem. As far as I know, there isn't enough sports content out there, which makes sense if you think about it.

You're insane. The TrueHoop network alone has enough good content to fill eight hours a day, and that's just U.S. NBA basketball.

The issue with sports is that there's a ton of re-blogged information, so the issue is finding the original source algorithmically.

What you should do, if you're serious, is rank articles by the length. It's a brute force measure, and it won't be accurate, but it's a good place to start.

Then, figure out a way for people do isolate it to their teams. The Southern Illinoisan newspaper is probably going to be the best source for news about the SIU Salukis, but I never remember to go there, so I get excited when I see a snippet on ESPN.com. You find a way to get me the best news about my Cubs, Salukis, White Sox, Bulls, Illini, Bears, Fire, Arsenal, Blackhawks, and so forth down my ladder and you'll mint money.

Re: My Web is Text Based

#24

Post by antiismist »

jfornear wrote: post #13
antiismist wrote: post #6

I feel the same way about ESPN. I like reading interesting articles about sports but it is actually not that easy to find good content - there is no hacker news for sports (yet!).

I was throwing together a Techmeme for sports, and while compiling a list of sources, I ran into this same problem. As far as I know, there isn't enough sports content out there, which makes sense if you think about it.

True. I had something small deployed for a while but it ran into that same issue.

Re: My Web is Text Based

#25

Post by patio11 »

jibiki wrote: post #22
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please don't upvote such ahistorical nonsense. Even the most casual examination of historical records reveals this to be false. In the early 1800s, Pierre Samuel Dupont, an influential French citizen who helped Thomas Jefferson negotiate for the Louisiana Purchase, came to America and surveyed education here. He found that most young Americans could read, write, and "cipher" (do arithmetic), and that Americans of all…

Certainly we had public education in the 1800s(?) What is the difference between public education (like we had then) and "nanny state" education? (I'm asking this seriously...) What particular legislation would you point to as causing a change?

At the time he visited, public education was rare and voluntary. The first US law mandating attendance at school was introduced in 1852 by Massachusetts, sometime after the reported 90%+ literacy rates were achieved. (I have significant skepticism that it was actually 99.96%, but 90% sufficient to read and write at what we'd consider a grade school level these days, sure.)

Re: My Web is Text Based

#26

Post by nazgulnarsil »

jibiki wrote: post #22
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please don't upvote such ahistorical nonsense. Even the most casual examination of historical records reveals this to be false. In the early 1800s, Pierre Samuel Dupont, an influential French citizen who helped Thomas Jefferson negotiate for the Louisiana Purchase, came to America and surveyed education here. He found that most young Americans could read, write, and "cipher" (do arithmetic), and that Americans of all…

Certainly we had public education in the 1800s(?) What is the difference between public education (like we had then) and "nanny state" education? (I'm asking this seriously...) What particular legislation would you point to as causing a change?

There was no public education on any sort of large scale until at least the 1840's, and not really widespread until the reconstruction era government.

Re: My Web is Text Based

#27

Post by joubert »

wenbert wrote: post #14
sqs wrote: post #11

Also, I often can't watch video content without unplugging my speakers and putting my headphones in so I don't disturb other people. Oh, and my laptop fan starts going like crazy and my CPU goes to 100% with FLV.

God I hate Flash on Mac. Burns up my CPU for watching a 3 minute video...

I use ClickToFlash http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash/tree/master

Re: My Web is Text Based

#28

Post by jibiki »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #26
jibiki wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly we had public education in the 1800s(?) What is the difference between public education (like we had then) and "nanny state" education? (I'm asking this seriously...) What particular legislation would you point to as causing a change?

There was no public education on any sort of large scale until at least the 1840's, and not really widespread until the reconstruction era government.

That's fascinating. What I was taught about education in that era involved the whole "1 room schoolhouse" thing (which probably says a lot about the quality of the public education I received.)

Re: My Web is Text Based

#29

Post by jacquesm »

unalone wrote: post #2

This shift over to primarily video content irritates me: I like reading text, and video is difficult with my college's slow Internet.

I think the main reason why we're seeing such a shift is that in the long run it is easier to ram advertising down people's throats over a video link than it is to get them to click on ads in textual content. The CPM's paid for delivered video ads reflect that, they count those much higher than delivered (but not clicked) text or graphics (even flash) ads.

Re: My Web is Text Based

#30

Post by jacquesm »

KaiP wrote: post #8

The main problem I have with video over text is that it takes much longer to convey the same information. I can read about 5 times faster (450-500 wpm) than most video (90-100 wpm). So other than special cases where video is crucial, I much prefer text.

My response to video links is to simply ignore them (which is quite ironic, given my background).

If you can't find the time to at least accompany your video with a textual representation then I'm not interested, I think the choice of medium should lie with the recipient, not with the producer.

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