If it were only that simple. So many videos and advocacy messages try to be all things to all people, mix in a million details or address the concerns of a committee of experts. Or all that.
In this case, the subject is video produced by the folks at CommonCraft. There is even one embedded lower down on ecommarama about RSS. The CommonCraft videos do a great job explaining complicated online tools in just a few minutes. The videos are mostly pen and paper drawings with a voice over. Sorta like back of the envelope sketches of an idea that have been taken to the next level. Well worth checking them out and thinking about how to hone a message to its simplest pieces. If you can’t explain it with stickfigures then its still too complicated?
Not only is this the best darn explanation of why and how to use RSS to keep up with all the information on the web but it is a wonderful example of how a short, simple, funny video can explain things online (where visuals matter).
This post at epolitics.com argues the point that online video can be (perhaps already is) more powerful than paid TV ads in the context of political campaigns.
My sense is that this is largely true. As mentioned in the post, watching an online video requires an active choice on the part of the viewer… “Hey, I want to see this.” You already have some amount of buy in. A successful TV commercial may result in some teensy bit of negative or positive sway on the part of the viewer but as soon as one comes on the immediate reaction is likely antipathy towards whoever put the ad on in the first place… “I didn’t ask to see this, I don’t want to see this, this guy is an idiot, are those wolves going to attack me? I don’t get it.”
This video is just under five minutes long and if you stick with it then I think it’s five minutes well spent…
It is an intriguing look at how the is (and already has) radically changing how information is presented and “how it all fits together” … or doesn’t.
Should be particularly interesting to those whose job/vocation/passion is communicating ideas to (with) the masses. Controlling the message is perhaps futile.