Online Publishers Struggle With Video

Valleywag alerts us to the problems tech publisher CNET is having. Apparently they’ve had to cull their video production unit to divert resources back into the main publishing unit.

It’s certainly interesting to watch the Viacom backed Vice magazine VBS channel and the award winning CoolHunting videos – no one is making any much money from these clips because no one (relatively) is watching them.

The news about CNET reflects a big issue for online publishers – even ourselves. Is it time yet to invest in video, or shall we wait. Video still doesn’t offer the dip in, skip through, jump out abilities that simple text does. Video still has to be watched in an analog manner – from one end to another and it’s not very searchable. Google doesn’t yet point you to the frame or chapter you really want to get to in video.

As some of you will see, we’ve been publishing videos of our conferences on the site – but the numbers who watch those videos compared to read the site are tiny – probably because the way people read PSFK is scan and go – not watch and learn. Hey, we’re all busy.