Explainer videos are dark patterns that replaced written howto documents in order to serve ads. Not seeing them pop up any more in search results is one of the few positive outcomes of Google switching to AI-first search results.
Given we can write the documents in LLMs and summarise/explain the documents with LLMs one would hope we would go back to written documents instead of videos now.
Instead we've worked out how to get the LLM to make videos.
People are bad at writing clearly what a new startup or product actually does. A video is a richer medium, it can show the thing being used, the UI during use, tell a clearer story with a person using it, some context etc. It also forces them to prioritize more, and have to distill their message down to a certain bounded timeframe.
Neither gives any guarantee. Both static text and videos can be done well and badly. But I usually find it useful to have both. A video is like being guided through their vision of what the thing is (a "push" message). This can be annoying to many nerd types who want to cut through all that and just want to "pull" the info they need, for themselves, at their own fast pace, quickly identifying it and not being spoonfed. But the typical user is not like this, and prefers the spoonfed/edutained approach.
Yes that's the trick. And much more. If you have any sort of content, you should express it as a slideshow, a white paper, a blog post, a video, a podcast, etc. Get it out in as many forms as you can. Maybe even performative dance or song if you've got that energy.
I was getting ready to rant when reading your "A video is a richer medium" line, and then read the whole thing and saw you followed up with a point explaining exactly why: "just want to "pull" the info they need, for themselves, at their own fast pace, quickly identifying it"
Needless to say, usually if my choices are video or nothing, I'll choose nothing and figure it out myself.
12.4% of the world is illiterate and I'd guess more like 20% would have trouble quickly taking text and turning that into instructions faster than a video could do the same thing.
Not saying you're wrong. But maybe there's a reason Tiktok got so popular. Maybe for many people this way of communicating information is more effective and doesn't feel as boring/tedious.
A few years ago, to configure a printer I had to watch a video because all the written explanations were uninteligible. The screen is tiny, the menu confusing, and I couldn't find where to enter the wifi+password until I followed the video.
I sometimes run yt-dlp against YouTube or TikTok URLs to extract an mp4, then send that to Gemini to ask questions about the content.
It's particularly good for those frustrating recipe videos where they don't tell you quantities of ingredients to use - you can have Gemini hallucinate the quantities and it normally gets them about right.
Kind of whitewashing howto docs here--which in recent years have been replaced with (human-made) solely optimized for SEO to serve ads. That's why explainer videos took off in the first place.
When we provide written documents with embedded videos revealed by on-screen toggles, covering different sections of a help document, almost no one reads the doc, they just find the relevant video. Many of our docs require images, and videos do a better job of, for example, showing how to clamp an arm onto a structure.
Video that cover different parts of an outline are a great use of videos. Videos that try to cover too much all in one are a lesser use. Yes, you can use scrub to find in a video, but showing a text outline and letting users click to reveal videos for specifics topics works very well.
Yeah this is true - 4 bullets and an image vs a 10 minute video… dayum son ‘I’m a visual person’ - no, no you’re not - not if it’s ten mins vs a 40 second read
LastTrain · · focus · HN ↗
schnitzelstoat · · focus · HN ↗
Instead we've worked out how to get the LLM to make videos.
bananaflag · · focus · HN ↗
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
Neither gives any guarantee. Both static text and videos can be done well and badly. But I usually find it useful to have both. A video is like being guided through their vision of what the thing is (a "push" message). This can be annoying to many nerd types who want to cut through all that and just want to "pull" the info they need, for themselves, at their own fast pace, quickly identifying it and not being spoonfed. But the typical user is not like this, and prefers the spoonfed/edutained approach.
ModernMech · · focus · HN ↗
Yes that's the trick. And much more. If you have any sort of content, you should express it as a slideshow, a white paper, a blog post, a video, a podcast, etc. Get it out in as many forms as you can. Maybe even performative dance or song if you've got that energy.
transitorykris · · focus · HN ↗
jghn · · focus · HN ↗
Needless to say, usually if my choices are video or nothing, I'll choose nothing and figure it out myself.
AdamN · · focus · HN ↗
LastTrain · · focus · HN ↗
fapjacks · · focus · HN ↗
LanceH · · focus · HN ↗
AdamN · · focus · HN ↗
DriverDaily · · focus · HN ↗
I love using notebookLM for orientation stuff.
bitshiftfaced · · focus · HN ↗
cafebeen · · focus · HN ↗
websap · · focus · HN ↗
gus_massa · · focus · HN ↗
simonw · · focus · HN ↗
It's particularly good for those frustrating recipe videos where they don't tell you quantities of ingredients to use - you can have Gemini hallucinate the quantities and it normally gets them about right.
nazgulsenpai · · focus · HN ↗
simonw · · focus · HN ↗
Plus having the video file means I can extract frames as images at specific timestamps.
Homely though the ask feature is probably fit for purpose, at least on YouTube.
roboror · · focus · HN ↗
xnx · · focus · HN ↗
QuantumGood · · focus · HN ↗
Video that cover different parts of an outline are a great use of videos. Videos that try to cover too much all in one are a lesser use. Yes, you can use scrub to find in a video, but showing a text outline and letting users click to reveal videos for specifics topics works very well.
maxrev17 · · focus · HN ↗