On Slashdot Video, We Hear You Loud and Clear

You complained; we heard you. We're making some adjustments to our ongoing experiment with video on Slashdot, and are trying to get it right. Some of the videos just haven't gelled, to put it lightly, and we know it. We're feeling out just what kinds of videos make sense here: it's a steep learning curve. So far, though, besides a few videos that nearly everyone hated, we've also seen some wacky, impressive, fun technology, and we're going to keep bringing more of it, but in what we intend to be smarter doses, here on the Slashdot home page. (A larger selection will be available on tv.slashdot.org.) We're also planning to start finding and documenting some creative means of destruction for naughty hardware; suggestions welcome. We have also heard you when it comes to improving the core Slashdot site experience and fixing bugs on site. We're working on these items, too. As always, suggestions are welcome, too, for other things worth getting on camera or publishing on Slashdot.

Comments

Too late!

[Anonymous Coward]

No saving slashtv. Just add a checkbox for it under the "exclusions" tab and call it a day.

Mark Advertisements as Such

[Eponymous Coward]

I'd like you to be honest with ads. I don't particularly have a problem with ads, but I think you could be more transparent when a story has been paid for. I really don't see any good reason to try to pretend that a story is organic when it isn't.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[Soulskill]

Believe it or not (and many won't), none of the videos were paid for. The thought process behind most of them has been somebody saying, "Hey, I know so-and-so at [X tech company], let's make a video about it," or "Let's send timothy to such-and-such convention."

But we understand it's hard to tell that when it's just a video about some company you may or may not have heard of. Now, is the solution to never reference any particular company in a video? People have been accusing us of slashvertising for years -- it generally just makes us chuckle, since it's so far removed from reality. If some random company -- or some person who happens to work for a company -- is doing something legitimately cool, would you want to hear about it? What about reviews? (Serious question -- a lot of people get angry when we review something, assuming it's an endorsement. Really, we're just tech nerds who like playing with new gadgets/reading new books/playing new games.)

In the meantime, we're going to try to get some science/maker videos into the mix and see how those go.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[CAIMLAS]

This. I've been irritated by the idiotic and poorly disguised 'slashvertisements' to the point of possibly not coming back.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[MarkGriz]

If some random company -- or some person who happens to work for a company -- is doing something legitimately cool, would you want to hear about it?

Then why not cover several companies doing similar technologies in the the same video? That would go along way toward making it seem less like an ad.

And it really doesnt matter if it's paid or not, the coverage benefits both slashdot and the company being spotlighted.
Though OTOH, judging by the recent backlash, maybe the opposite is true.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[BigT]

If you didn't get paid for that Plantronics video, you got ripped off. If we're going from a company about their products, we want to hear from techies about the inner workings of the products. Not from a PR/Marketing flack about how their "products make our lives easier". That's pretty much the definition of an ad, not news for nerds.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[LMacG]

How could anybody have looked at the Plantronics video and NOT thought it would come across as an advertisement? Paid or not, there was nothing in there but promotion.

I'd have thought the days or "hey, I just got a video camera, I'm going to shoot videos of everything that crosses my path" would have come and gone in the late 20th century.

Slashdot TV is not a hammer, and everything you see in the viewfinder is not a nail.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[Sepultura]

If you're going to do reviews, follow the example of sites like Anandtech and review the fucking product!. Give specifics, detailed data that's more than we can get off of the product website or box. And include the positives and negatives.

So far, all the "reviews" I've seen have been saccharinely positive, even when the product has obvious issues that are evident even to those with the most basic familiarity with the technology. And most read like they've been written by professional P.R. writers. So do you really not understand how readers would view these as paid-for ads?

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[Soulskill]

Several companies... that's an interesting idea, and not something we really thought about. Though then perhaps people will just think we're getting paid by each of those companies. Thanks for the suggestion.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[kiwimate]

I'm guessing that anyone on Slashdot's staff who isn't totally out of touch with reality would be able to go back and take a look at that Plantronics video and say "yes, I can see how someone might come away with the impression it's a purchased spot".

People have been accusing us of slashvertising for years -- it generally just makes us chuckle, since it's so far removed from reality.

Rather than being condescending, how about taking a step back and saying, "gee, maybe there's a point here, even if it's based on a false premise"?

If some random company -- or some person who happens to work for a company -- is doing something legitimately cool, would you want to hear about it?

Well, yes. No question. Occasionally, that still happens within these hallowed pages. Not as often as it used to, but it does come across.

But that Plantronics video? I'm having a very difficult time seeing how that qualifies as legitimately cool, new, ground breaking, innovative, or, well, anything that could fairly be described as "news for nerds, stuff that matters". The summary describes the interviewee as a Plantronics PR person. Heck, read the transcript - can you seriously say there's anything of substance there? That one is just lame.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[NighthawkFoo]

Deep geeky stuff please. This is News for Nerds. If you can't get into details here, then where can you?

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[porksauce]

The problem with the Plantronics video is there was no news, no interesting thought-provoking topic to discuss or debate. And no obvious warning that would be the case beforehand. With your text articles, usually there's something new and interesting or it doesn't get posted. Maybe if you had the same selection process from many submitted videos and were picking only the best ones, applying the same criteria which should basically be: "Are our readers going to find this interesting?" Maybe you're trying too hard to post videos so you're not being choosy enough about what gets posted?

It is surprising that you weren't paid for the Plantronics video, because why else would you do it?

Here are some video suggestions:
1. Interview Darl McBride and ask him what his deal is.
2. Interview rms on any number of subjects.
3. When a version of Unity or Gnome shell comes out, do a quick video demo of it followed by comments from someone on the dev team explaining the rationale, and also someone who hates it venting about how much it sucks.
4. Interview former senator Dodd about the future of copyright
5. Interview some scientists about the Higgs boson.
6. Interview Sergei Brin about privacy.
7. Robots fighting.
8. Bruce Schneier about TSA

I think you have a strong enough readership of an influential community to get those folks to talk to you. Do a bunch of them and don't post the ones that suck. I bet the Google people read this site and would like the opportunity to talk about privacy.

Actually, thinking about it, you could stage debates and make it a very big deal. Like invite people from Canonical, GNOME team, and some XFCE zealots to fight it out. That sort of stuff video is great because there's a lot of passion and controversy. And I'm sure people here would give you lots of other great ideas for topics if you did a poll.

Another idea is to run a contest for best video on a specific topic. Like the next time the old question of how best to destroy old drives comes up, give away a prize to the best video submitted and then post it.

Anyway, have fun. And worst case if you find yourself posting another video like the Plantronics one, please ask them for at least a little money so it makes more sense.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we can't rate posts higher than +5, I'm going to post another one backing it up just so it can also get a +5 (anonymously to avoid being accused of trolling for karma). You can read that as a +10.

When showing cool, new tech, think Nova, not Extreme Machines. Science, not gadget porn.

Re:Mark Advertisements as Such

[morethanapapercert]

Speaking only for myself, the only time I ever want to hear Product X does Y is when it is some unique and new gadget. If it's been around for awhile, or has competitors, I don't want anything like that. No; not even comparative reviews of Product X versus it's competitors A, B and C. I get enough of that elsewhere thank you. The Plantronics video is an a, pure and simple. Maybe /. didn't get paid, but it is exactly the kind of useless puff piece I hate. Many of us here have the engineering mindset, being exposed to a sales pitch in any media is usually boring at best, possibly torturous at worst. For a shallow piece, I want to know the product specs and I'm quite comfortable with a plain, unadorned table of raw numbers. For a more in depth piece, I want to know how it was made, what new principles or problems the engineers dealt with to make it. (examples below)

1) Current hard drives are using perpendicular magnetic domains, something I think Samsung was the key researcher in developing. All the major major hard drive companies are doing it now, so it really isn't a trade secret. Get me an interview with the engineering team that figured out how to lay down the media on the disk substrate in such a way to create those perpendicular domains.

2) Interview the guy who runs the computer system(s) at some observatory. Palomar, Mauna Kea, W.R. Keck, some place like that. I want to know how he got the job, how much data a typical nights viewing produces, how many Universities get that data, what about his job *he* thinks is cool, that sort of thing. 3) I hear James Cameron is sponsoring a dive to some new record depths. Don't do a piece on him! Do a piece on the submarine he and his team will be using, For the tour guide, use the guy who built it, someone who drives it. Pretty much anyone directly involved, knows what they are talking about, but are not someone who would usually appear on camera in some run-of-the-mill documentary.

4) if you cover a gathering, convention or conference, at the end include links to the people and organizations involved.

5) For that matter, maybe /. can do a table at a con or sponsor a con. (It'd be great to see /. sponsoring some Maker Faires or RapFab meets)

6) I'd like to see a video tour of the facilities well known websites are hosted at.

7) Once you have arranged to record some video with someone or somewhere, do what you do with the text based interviews. Ask us what parts we want to see, what questions we might like to ask. Use our input to help shape the direction and depth of the piece.

Frankly, when it comes to consumer products, all I really care about it the kind of stuff the PR, Marketing and Legal departments probably don't want me to see.

Ooyala Player?

[milbournosphere]

Since this is /., and since there was a recent news bit about Adobe releasing its last version of Flash for Linux, could you please dump the one-off flash player and switch to something supported by HTML5? Also, I'd rather not have to deal with a noScript shit-fit in order to watch these "amazing" videos.

Haven't watched them.

[cpu6502]

No interest in the videos; would rather read about technology vs. watching it.

Re:Haven't watched them.

[mcgrew]

Agreed, unless there is some demonstration, like this. talking heads are for illiterates.

Re:Haven't watched them.

[asylumx]

They asked for feedback, and the GP gave it. Why do you have such a problem with that?

Re:Haven't watched them.

[Roblimo]

I've suggested to The Honchos that all videos on Slashdot should have a "video" topic marker, so that those who don't want to watch any videos, period, will be able to completely ignore them.

Here's how you fix it

[Ihmhi]

1) Don't post advertisements. Or, if you're going to, at least say they are outright. Don't try to disguise it as a story. This isn't Huffpost or Fox News, most of your readership actually has a pretty large amount of still-functioning brain cells. We can tell when you're bullshitting us.

2) I joined Slashdot... hoo, 5 years ago. Maybe longer. How is it that Slashdot actually runs slower now? Doesn't anyone consider efficiency in coding as being important anymore?

3) Add proper UTF-8 support. Add support for loads of characters. What if I want to type in Japanese or use symbols? And on that note, remove the "junk characters" filter. ASCII art is a part of Slashdot's history. Sure, people used it to make goatse, but by that same logic why not remove hyperlinking since people still link to it today? The trolls will be modded down as always. Let us have some opportunity for creativity again.

4) Lastly, take a look at your functionality. When a *free* forum suite like PHPBB - hell, when free shit like *Wordpress* has more functionality in their comment system, something is very wrong. You're a tech site. If anything you should be on the forefront on this kind of shit, not lagging behind.

Re:Here's how you fix it

[spire3661]

Ascii art is not conversation, its mostly used to troll and annoy. We can remove it without removing the bulk of discussions, thats why its not allowed.

Mod parent up!

[khasim]

I'd go further, though.

Tag all the "slashvertisements" as such and allow them to be blocked.

When is video good? Only when text is not better.

[qubezz]

Many websites have started steering people to video versions of news stories. This is quite irritating, because the video content is mostly irrelevant b-roll footage, and the narrator ploddingly reads two paragraphs in three minutes. Three minutes for a news story that I could have read and comprehended in 10 seconds.

Unless there are mentos and soda, video is not needed.

Good job, Slashdot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for always thinking of improving your service and not charging a penny.

Sincerely,
Everyone.

Transcripts

[eternaldoctorwho]

Someone else already (albeit rudely) suggested the idea of allowing for excluding SlashdotTV items from the main page. I am all for new content and features, but be sure to make them opt-in. That way, everyone can have what they want.

That said, I will repeat a previous suggestion when SlashdotTV launched. Please include full transcripts of all videos when posted either on tv.slashdot.org or on the main page as a story. Not everyone can listen to the audio, because of technical issues or hearing issues. Or like me, we are at work and cannot stop to listen to a video in an office environment.

Other than that, keep up the great job, Slashdot! And thanks for being free!

why at all?

[Tom]

Have you considered that maybe the majority of /. readers simply doesn't want videos?

We came a long way with the Internet. The medium has the convenience of multimedia with the control of books. The best part of it is that I control how I consume. I can have /. open in a window to the side, or in the background. I can tab over there when something is compiling or rendering or uploading, check a story or a few comments and switch back to whatever I'm really doing at the time.

More importantly, I can ready carefully or skim over stuff. Most stories get but a glance to see if there's anything that stands out as interesting.

Videos don't work that way. They take a lot of control out of my hands. I'm a quick reader, but I can't speed up the video. I can't really skim over it the way I can with text. While I can pause and rewind, it's more work than on a written text.

Really, online videos are a step backwards in most cases. Most of the stuff on youtube doesn't really deserve a video. Two screenshots and three sentences would cover it just as well. But grabbing your smartphone camera and uploading the crap without any editing is much easier, isn't it?

You want to improve /. or move it forward? How about you listen to the criticism of the fans first and shelve any cute ideas until you have the basics covered? The editing quality on /. is as horrible as ever. Pay a couple good editors. 10 times the benefit of moving pictures.

Meh

[discord5]

Some of the videos just haven't gelled, to put it lightly

You mean the slashvertisments? Yeah, those are terrible. I understand that you guys want to generate additional revenue from the site, but really you've been pushing the boundaries of what some of your audience will consider as an appropriate story.

You've got a mostly technically inclined audience, and trying to sell them a "database proxy" that prevents SQL Injections will pretty much put off anyone who's done serious work in that area. You're not exactly catering to the easiest audience, but you managed to do so for the most part in the past 10 years. If you suddenly forgot how to pander to your audience, I really think you should have a look at your community and its roots and see where exactly you've lost touch.

We're also planning to start finding and documenting some creative means of destruction for naughty hardware

No, please... We've got the will it blend guy pimping his blenders, the will it fry guys with their tesla coils, and more enough kids with fireworks or hammers on youtube. Do something neat, something geeky. Do something that makes me go "Oh cool, I want to build one too" and grab my soldering iron or favourite editor of choice. Don't build a "death ray" out of a giant magnifying glass (remember that horrible story?) and burn yet another iphone/ipod. It's been done to death, and is extremely not geeky.

Re:Ask US what new features WE want

[TheSpoom]

And by the way, a huge percentage of us read Slashdot at work. When we're at work, we don't watch videos, for what should be obvious reasons.

Compare and contrast the videos

[Okian Warrior]

Hackaday is a tech-oriented site which includes videos in many of it's posts. In general, their videos are informative and on-point. They make the browsing experience better.

Let's compare and contrast those videos with the ones here, and see if slashdot can keep the good parts and ditch the bad parts.

Hackaday videos are generated by the people making the articles. IOW, when they make some cool gadget, they have a website describing the build and a video of the device in action. Here's the first example that I could find in a quick search. Lots and lots of other examples.

The subject matter of the cited example is rather uninteresting and techy, and it's amateurish, but the video does an excellent job of counterpointing and illustrating the text of the build.

I've seen other examples where the ideas expressed in the text are badly described or difficult to grasp, but the video makes it clear. There are also many examples of things which are just plain cool when shown as video. Lots and lots of examples.

Images are used to illuminate and express the interest and wonder of a concept, and videos should be used in the same way. Not as a medium in and of itself, but as a way to express those aspects which don't come out well in text or images.

Using them for fake advertizements is the wrong approach - there is simply no general interest in seeing advertizements, and making them into videos doesn't make them more palatable. Having a video of a person talking, expressing an opinion, or describing something is completely backwards - the description should be text, the diagrams in images, and the action in video.

If you had videos in the same vein and for the same reasons as Hackaday, it would be roundly appreciated by just about everyone.

It's like what everyone says is the problem with the RIAA and MPAA - change your business model, give the customers what they want.

We're still your customers, right?

Re: Timothy, is it really this difficult?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what people want:

Interviews with compelling engineers or other intelligent and worthwhile notables or pieces on compelling and interesting topics and technologies. Though, I don't know why that has to be done in video.

Here's what people do NOT want:

Advertising, masquerading as "programming". We're not stupid and we KNOW that YOU KNOW you are providing an advertising service when your video is:

* Some lawyer type guy with no seeming background or history as per google searches to justify his claim that he's some sort of expert... who happens to be doing the video out of his office in a strip mall.

* Anyone who is a non-technical CEO.
* Anyone who is in marketing.
* Anyone whose title (like yesterday) is "PR".

Frankly, I find what has already been done to be offensive enough that I don't plan on being here much anymore. I've been with Slashdot since it was Chips & Dips and have made thousands of posts and spend hundreds or thousands of hours here. Visisting -- for the most part -- dozens of times per day.

In the last couple years, that has slowed. And since taco left and you guys started with the blatant advertising, I almost never even remember to come back (and when I have, I've seen these "slashdtv" things that are poorly veiled advertising.

I probably won't be here even once a week, going forward. If you really want to turn into Engadget or Gizmodo, then go for it. I don't care. It's sad to see what Slashdot is turning into and there aren't many other places around like it... but I can find another home for tech professionals and geeks to discuss things.