Facebook is wrong, text is deathless • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#171

Post by mark_l_watson » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 1:49 AM UTC

I don't agree with the article. As others have already said here, text is random access and easy to process and retain information.

I am going to drift off topic: the future is AI that understands what we say, recognizes our facial expressions, and generally "gets us." While there are obvious potential downsides, the upsides involve getting notified of things in the order of most useful and entertaining first. AIs will use text, still photos, and videos to show us what we want to know and experience. This whole idea creeps me out a bit, but it is probably the future. At some point in time, effective computer to human neural I/O connectors will be invented, and the effect of civilization will be interesting. So, video -> direct neural implants.

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#172

Post by bzbarsky » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 5:14 AM UTC

tremon wrote: post #150

rwmj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I did a few " in 60 seconds" videos and the two lessons I learned from that? (1) They take hours and hours and hours of work to make. (2) Your script for the video must not contain more than 50 words, so you can say very little. (The above comment is 49 words)

I read the above comment in less than ten seconds.

Not surprising: According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_(process)#Assessment reading for comprehension normally falls in the 200-400wpm range. 10 seconds to read 49 words is 294wpm, which is smack in the middle of that range.

For comparison, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Speech_and_li... claims that 250wpm is the speed auctioneers speak at and that normal speech is 150-160wpm.

Getting words spoken at you is terribly inefficient compared to reading them.

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#173

Post by nathan_long » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

sklogic wrote: post #108

> "It conveys so much more information in a much quicker period." What a pathetic load of hogwash. Video is the slowest possible way of conveying any meaningful information.

Came here to comment on same. It depends. No amount of text can give you the feel of an event like a short video. On the other hand, imagine TV news as "read the entire NY Times" - it would take all night. Print has way more information, AND it's easy to skim.

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#174

Post by nathan_long » Mon, Jun 20, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

hacksonx wrote: post #83

Am I the only one who stops reading an informative English article when the word "because" is used to begin a sentence? Maybe text does deserve to die.

Because of your insightful commentary, the site has decided to close.

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#175

Post by jsloss » Wed, Jun 22, 2016, 9:21 PM UTC

astazangasta wrote: post #98

jsloss wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, one app that is changing this paradigm for video is snapchat. Publishing content in a short series of clips that are skip-able with one tap is an enjoyable user experience.

Please, god, no. What are we maximizing across, clickability or contribution to civil political discourse?

Neither. Optimizing for user experience. Like it or not there's a new category of video content, short, casual videos. From the cooking shorts that are taking over facebook feeds to the the jealousy inducing short clips from my friends BBQ last night, this content category is growing.

Snapchat has the best UX for this type of content.

The simple idea of "tapping" to skip is the equivalent to the tab key when you're using excel. Life is better with it, and you miss it when you can't use it in other apps.