Video Tutorials suck

Call me old fashioned, Possums, but when I’m learning new information I like to read, not watch.

With site scraping and plagiarism being a huge problem it was inevitable that intellectual property was going to need to be protected in a way that can’t be achieved by a regular web page. First there were podcasts and then video tutorials.

At the time it had little impact because I was doing the experimenting and staying ahead of technology with the best of them.  Then life gets busy and a new wave of techies take over. No problem, thats just the way it goes.

So I’ve seen some topics mentioned and thought it would be good to get a greater understanding just in case I’m ever asked for my opinion on the subject. What I’ve found is that I either end up on a page with a video clip that starts automatically (disturbing the office) or one that isn’t backed up by a written version of the information.

Now, it may be my age, but I spend enough hours in front of a screen that I don’t need to spend my leisure time there too. Instead I might read some bits and pieces on my iPad when I’m on the sofa and the family is watching TV. I’m there, I’m involved but I’m not obliged to watch the dross.

The only problem is that a video clip probably won’t show on my iPad or I’ll need headphones which defeats the point of being with them. Its also harder to download for consumption later (offline even).

A digitalpoint user recently asked for a review of WebTrafficCollege.com [ref] and it is a perfect case in point. All the “paid” content is hidden in video clips with ridiculously lightweight text descriptions beside them.

Another example was when I was trying suss out something tricky on a Plesk control panel. For this particular feature all I could find were video tutorials which were a) long; and b) starting at a beginners level; I didn’t want to have to wait for 13 minutes to download so I could see if the content in the middle actually covered the question I had.