A couple of months back I decided to start getting my video posts transcribed. A number of readers have enquired as to why I am doing this – here are the 3 main reasons I have my videos transcribed:
1. Accessibility
Not everyone is in a position to be able to consume video content. For some it is a technical issue – not everyone has access to broadband. For others it is about the device (although more and more mobile devices are set up for video).
Others still have a physical issue that impedes them from viewing video – for example I know that a number of ProBlogger readers are hearing impaired and had difficulty with my videos (particularly because I tend to mumble and make lip reading difficult).
Offering transcripts meets the needs of a variety of readers who cannot, for one reason or another, view video easily.
2. Learning Styles and Workflow
Other readers are just not ‘video people’. They rarely view them and would much rather read content than watch and listen to it. I myself would probably fit into this category – while I enjoy watching videos on occasion I’m much more likely to be drawn to content that is predominantly text that I can scan to quickly identify the juicy bits.
Ultimately its about appealing to people with different personalities, online workflows and learning styles to maximise your reach.
3. SEO
While search engines like Google is experimenting with indexing video content – the reality is that text is still king when it comes to search engine optimisation. A post with just a video is not likely to rank as high as a post with a good chunk of text in it.
Do you Transcribe Your Videos?
Getting videos and/or podcasts transcribed does take time and/or money but in my mind it is worth the effort as a way of maximising impact. I’d be interested to hear whether you do it on your blog?
As a transcriptionist I see all sorts of reasons come through for wanting transcripts of audio and video after it’s been added to a blog – I would say that at least 10% of the time it is to help out readers/visitors who are hearing impaired.
Even if you’re getting your audio/podcast/video transcribed for that ONE person it’s totally worth it in the end because you’ve repurposed your content, you have happy visitors, and the search engine loves you a little.
For those of you are newbies or seasoned bloggers out there may want to get a feel about a 5-day blow-and-whistle Alist Blogger Bootcamps. Well, I have just completed its 5-day botcamps starting August 8, 2010 to August 12, 2010. This bootcamp even has an endorsement from Darren of Problogger. I just wonder if Darren himself had gone through this bootcamp or had been given an opportunity to look at the entire course or not. Being having gone through this bootcamp myself, I think I want to provide you an overall picture of this course. Honestly.
First, the price. $285 for 5 days or $57/day. To me it’s more expensive than an academic course offering by a higher institution. For an online course offering by a noted university, it costs $5000 for 6 months (180 days) , which is $27/day. One can even enroll in a course with edu2go with only $100 for 6 weeks. I guess given the content of the course, somewhere between $50 to $100 is the most appropriate, at least given the currently deteriorating global economy. It’s really not worth $57 a day.
Now let’s go into the heart of the course, the content. The user interface is somewhat clumsy and cluttering, It seems to me that the course instructional designer has no extensive experience about how to design an effective online course. It’s not just throwing a bunch of text, video, audio, and set up a forum for discussion is good enough. Pedagogical method must have taken into picture to provide the best learning experience for variety of learning styles.
The course has 3 components: text, video, text, and a forum. First, the text. The text page has no print button for those who want to print out to keep it for later reference. There is a photo of the author or a snap on the text. It takes time to download the entire page for those who have slow bandwidth. From the standpoint of instructional design, there is no need to upload a photo of an author or unrelated snap on the page because it does not have anything to do with the content. And there is no need to inspire learners by putting up a story of how Mary accidentally became a blogger.
And another, 02 How a Passionate Artist Fulfilled Her Dream of Teaching An E-Course, which talked about Amelia Critchlow of 101 Bird Tales. Those stories have been spreading all over the web. I have the feeling that the producers of Ablist Bootcamp lack of good materials to put them on, so they they figured out by filing out these superfluous articles. Come on, don’t you have any valued material for learners?
Next, video. The video is embedded onto the page itself using Camtasia. It does not have a download button so that learners can download to watch it later on iPod, iPhone. Only one video has transcript, the rest has not. Some video clips even take almost 25 minutes to watch. It’s a waste of learners’ time forcing them to sit in front of PCs to watch these videos that one can find everywhere easily. One of the videos was how to use autoresponder Aweber. Is that necessary for learners who paid $285 to learn how to use Aweber? There are a ton of free Aweber tutorials out there. Learners would tortured himself/herself “ Do I really want to learn Aweber paying my hard earned $285.? Or videos about how to make a podcast. Just go to Apple related website and you can find tons and tons on how to make a podcast. Video clips are good tools when dealing with something that text and audio alone cannot fulfill their functions; otherwise they waste learners’ precious time? Time is money, right?
Lastly, there is one audio clip on Why Email Lists Are Powerful: Interview with Dave Navarro [PODCAST]. No transcript. People now are smart to be aware of how important to have a list. Do we really need this podcast? I wonder.
The forum: I almost did not see Leo on the forum. A bunch of learners asked themselves and tried to educate each other. As I said, the user interface really got into the way of the process of learning, and the forum is not an exception. Hey, is it expensive to hire a first-class instructional designer?
In summary, to me at least, I wasted my money that I sweat everyday to earn. Why? Because I can find these materials, video, and audio, and get into free forum ( Warrior) to ask questions and have generous folks to give me answers. The bootcamps itself violates almost the essential of designing an online course. I do not want to declare it a scam because I believe Leo and Mary have put a great deal of efforts into the course and tried to figured out how to provide the best learning experience to their subscribers. They just do not have experience and adequate education about online learning.
Day 1
Masterclass Day 1 video and audio
01 Introduction to Create Courses that Sell
02 How a Passionate Artist Fulfilled Her Dream of Teaching An E-Course [CASE STUDY]
03 The Accidental Entrepreneur: Mary’s Story [CASE STUDY]
04 How Going from Blogging to Bootcamps Changed My Life: Leo’s Story [CASE STUDY]
05 From Passion to Product [WORKBOOK]
Day 2
The material of Day 2 will show you how to create an asset through building an email list. You’ll learn why that’s crucial if you want to make money from blogging.
Questions from the Day 2 Masterclass: Recordings
06 Why Building a List is Crucial For Future Income
07 Jeff Walker: Why an Email List is an Asset [VIDEO]
08 Why Email Lists Are Powerful: Interview with Dave Navarro [PODCAST]
09 How to Set Up a List on Aweber [VIDEO]
10 The Good Karma List Machine
11 Good Karma List Machine: Installation [VIDEO]
12 Good Karma List Machine – Admin Setup [VIDEO]
Day 3
In the material of Day 3, you’ll learn about the importance of launches – and exactly how to do them. Don’t miss the Unit 13 video – it’s inspiring!
MASTERCLASS Day 3 recording
13 How a Broke Guy Stumbled Upon Launch Secrets and Got Rich [VIDEO]
14 How to Create a Launch with Heart: 5 Tips that Increased Membership by 470% in 4 Days
15 How to Create a Short Sales Page (PDF)
16 A-List Blogging: The Launch Swipefile PDF
17 The 4 Day Cash Machine Launch E-mail Swipe File
Setting up and running successful courses is easier than you think. The Day 4 material will show you how to set up courses quickly and simply.
Day 4
Recorded MASTERCLASS with Leo Babauta
18 The Three Essentials for Creating Successful Courses [VIDEO]
19 The Three Crucial Ingredients of Successful Courses [TRANSCRIPT]
20 How a Scrapbooker Created Successful Courses With Small Numbers and Organic Growth [CASE STUDY]
21 How to Start Making Real Money With Your Products in 3 Days [PDF]
22 How to Structure a Module – Part 1 [TIPSHEET]
23 How to Structure Modules – Part 2 [CASE STUDY
24 Camtasia: the Magic Software for Creating Training Videos [ARTICLE PLUS 4 HOW-TO VIDEOS]
25 Camtasia In Action – How to Grow a Killer Blog [VIDEO]
26 How to Create a Podcast – Part 1 [VIDEO]
27 How to Create Podcasts – Part 2 [VIDEO]
28 Amazon S3: How to Rent Cheap Online Storage Space for Media
Day 5
In this module, you’ll learn about Membership Programs. Why to create them, how to set them up, and how to run them.
Recording of Mary’s Masterclass
29 Why Membership Programs Rock
30 Membership Programs: Challenges and Joys
31 Introduction to Membership Software
32 Toolkit for Creating Courses and Membership Programs
33 How to Use Wishlist Member – Part 1: Modular Model [VIDEO]
34 How to Use Wishlist – Part 2: The Publisher Model [VIDEO]
35 Creating a Forum: How to Use the Simple:Press Plugin
36 Boost Your Success with Affiliate Programs
Darren,
I have recently started to transcribed my videos. Mostly for the reasons you mention. But also for one other reason.
Having the transcription actually allows me to write better. I find speaking allows me to get the ideas out nicely. Then I can edit the transcript later to really refine the idea.
Best,
Dave
Sometimes people simply want to read instead of watching.
Most of my videos are already transcribed because they come from articles that I’ve already written in prior weeks. After reading this post, I’m now debating as to whether or not I’ll add the links to the articles on my video page. Hmmmm.
I totally agree that people have often different learning capacities. Some are more visual, text or audio based when it comes to learning.
If you’re doing videos of entertainment or just some random post it may not be worth getting it transcribed.
However, when it comes to what i call “Extreme Content Of Premium Value” you definitely want to have it transcribed to offer your clients the best user experience.
P.S. If any of you use my “Extreme Content Of Premium Value” quote or dialogue please let it be known as where it originated.
Thanks
It’s a great thing for your readers, they can choose what format suits them the most, like me, I don’t have fast enough connection to do a video buffer.
Yes I much prefer to read so i can go back over at my own pace to understand better. Great Advice as always.
I know someone suggested that you really don’t have to hire a transcriber, just do it yourself, but really, do we need anything else to do during our day?? I’m already overwhelmed enough with all the e-mail, phone calls, and errands I have to do in a day. I video blog every Mon and Fri and have them transcribed by Omega Transcripts. I just find i easier to do it that way, less stressful. And my subscribers love it too, not to mention what it’s doing for my site SEO. But the last thing I want to do is learn to transcribe. I just want to see it magically appear in my inbox! LOL
Wow – a case where the post was useful but the comments were priceless. I groan every time I see video because it is so slow and I am glad to see I’m not alone. I know I’m going to have to take notes, and really that doesn’t seem like a useful use of my time, so if I have a choice between video info and written, I’ll go for written every time.
Ive produced a couple of videos myself and would always provide a written version, but I find them much more difficult to make than a written post.
I am just the opposite of the above comment. I love video because I can do other things if the video stays into some areas that I already know about. I don’t know about the transcription side though. It would have to be done through a service for sure.
Like your post. Transcription helps videos to reach to more audiences . Transcribe your videos for better visibility. Within less time, you can understand the concept more clearly with a transcript. Sometimes videos are hazzy, can’t have clear picture. At these kind of circumstances, transcript helps a lot.
I always believe that videos are the best way to learn but then it made me think twice. For me, video alone will work but some might not have a better understanding of how the person talked on the video its also good to back up with a transcribe version of the video.
I like both videos and text, for different reasons, like you said you can scan the highlights with text, but you have the entertainment value with video. I noticed several months ago that the noble samurai dojo (makers of Market Samurai) were transcribing their videos and I was amazed at how much faster I could go through the training.
I really like this particular area, My organization is with web marketing/SEO. Have you ever heard of meetup.com? I find that there are generally a few good odds to meet and netwoork online websites to our destinations. It is best that you check it out should you get yourself a time.
Just wondering if there are any do-it-yourselfers out there, either providing transcripts or video captioning. I’m looking for ways to do this on my own, specifically the video captioning, until I get to a point where I can outsource.
Would like to hear what software others are using to accomplish these tasks.