Following the passing mention, in the recent post about Murketing videos, that I “positively hate the way embedded videos, especially YouTube videos, look on Murketing.com or my other sites,” I got an email from someone who says he is a product manager at YouTube. (I have no reason to doubt that he is, I just have no way of confirming it.) “If you had a moment I would love to get some more detail so perhaps we can incorporate that feedback into our product plans and understand what you’re looking for in an embedded player,” he wrote.
I already replied, but since the topic of unappealing aesthetics has come up recently here, I thought I’d share an excerpt of that reply here.
I would point to two aspects in particular:
One is the start screen, the blurry image and the big arrow “play” button. It just looks bad. Why not a crisp screen image? Doesn’t everybody know at this point that you click the screen to start the video? And even if they don’t, there’s a play arrow right below in the control bar.
Second is that the YouTube logo is, for my taste, too large. I understand wanting brand the thing, but it seems to me it could be handled with more subtlety, preferably in the control bar, so that the embed doesn’t look like a big ad for YouTube.
If you just glance at a blog or other site that has a YouTube embed, it invariably jumps out as a visual spoiler. There’s nothing else blurry on the page (most likely), nothing else that looks so incomplete and tentative. For many viewers of that page who have no intention of viewing the video, it’s just visual noise; a distraction. And I actually think a crisp, focused image is MORE likely to make someone want to click.
As a side note, I wish there was more control in the “customize” feature for embedding YouTube videos — different sizes being the most obvious thing. The current visual customization option, changing the colors of the control bar and so on, is kind of meaningless.
Just to be clear, I’m not solely picking on YouTube; I’m not crazy about the way any embedded video looks. Although I do think YouTube may be the worst.
Your thoughts? YouTube may be reading!
A recent comment to one of the entries in Murketing.com’s Flickr Interludes series has me thinking. Commenter Angel McClinton wrote:
I hope you will start a youtube group to observe Murky video as well.
Interesting thought … but what would that consist of, exactly?
I do the Flickr Interlude stuff because I happen to enjoy Flickr browsing; want to share the cool stuff I find there that is on-point with Murketing.com; and like the idea of adding visual excitement to the site. So it’s all pretty natural, I think. (“Organic,” as they say.)
Video is tougher for me. I don’t spend a lot of free time looking at YouTube/Vimeo/etc. stuff (though obviously I get sucked into things). And I positively hate the way embedded videos, especially YouTube videos, look on Murketing.com or my other sites. (I don’t think I’ve ever embedded a YouTube video here, for that reason.)
Still, I guess I can see the value in collecting “murky” videos — which I won’t bother to define. [Note: The commenter links to and I guess is associated with something called Media Mojito, which I haven’t looked at closely, but may be some kind of platform for branded content, I’m not really sure. So factor that in to the question I’m about to ask.]
So if I did do something video-oriented, what would be an approach that would be interesting and valuable … to you I mean?
Whoever you are.
It’s been a while since I’ve updated the lengthy roll of links to be on the right-hand side of this page (assuming you’re looking at the Murketing site itself and not the RSS feed).
Here’s what I’ve added today:
I’ve had a couple of things brought to my attention just recently that I’m adding. One will be filed under Critiques, and is called the Consume®econnection Project: “A year-long effort to meet the laborers and craftsmen who build what I buy – and put a human face on consumption.”
Also added to the Critiques section: Buy-By Brian (see Murketing Q&A here) and the Obsessive Branding Disorder blog.
The other blog just brought to my attention is Wasted Food, which belongs to Jonathan Bloom, who
is writing a book on wasted food in America. I’m adding it to the Unconsumption section.
I thought that Sivacracy.net, featuring fellow UT grad Siva Vaidhyanathan among others, was already in the list, but it wasn’t, so now it is, under Various Other Friends. Also added to that section: Curious Capitalist, co-written by Justin Fox of Time Magazine.
To the Artists section, I’ve added Harriete Estel Berman and Valerie Green.
To the Sustenance section, I’ve added The Restricted Foodie, by friend of Murketing Lori Greenberg, “a woman of food, in spite of an insidious array of food allergies.”
I’ve added Mudd Up! to the Music section.
I’m also adding Animal New York. I tend to disagree with their constant slamming of Shepard Fairey and KAWS, among others — but they do have good stuff that I link to all the time. Probably they’ll be annoyed to be in the Brand Underground section … so that’s where it goes. Heh. On a related note I just realized Susannah Breslin/Reverse Cowgirl is contributing to Animal, and although I’d lost touch with her blog, I’m looking at it again and so I added it too, to the Hard To Categorize section. (It’s “Pornographic Coolhunting,” so decide for yourself whether that suggests it will be “safe for work” or whatever.)
Finally, to the Solipsism section, I’ve added my GoodReads profile.
No Consumed this weekend, I had a week off from the column.
As for the five or six unfinished lines of thought I’ve started on Murketing in the last two weeks, I’m going to try very hard to follow up on all of it next week.
Those of you who read via RSS probably don’t even know about the huge and moderately awesome list of links in the “blogroll” at right. Well you should. You should look it over immediately! (Also you should tell me if any links are broken.)
And you should be aware that hugeness and moderate awesomeness aside, this link list is an eternal work in progress (I still need to add a DIY/Handmade 2.0 category) and I’m adding a few new ones right now. It’s occurred to me I ought to say something when I do this, or you’ll never know.
To the Artists section: Justin Gignac (mentioned in this earlier post); Chris Held (mentioned in this earlier post).
To the Bigshots section: Dan Ariely’s “Predictaby Irrational.”
To the Hard To Categorize section: Delicious Ghost. Actually I added this a couple weeks ago.
To the Various Other Friends section: I Love Beer, a blog by Lee Nichols (thanks for the heads-up, Lance)
While adding these links, I also removed a few. But somehow telling what I’ve removed just seems like bad form.
So highly alert readers may notice that I added a little “share this” sort of button to the Murketing post template. Look down there at the bottom of this post. See it?
I’m not sure about this thing. If people see it as a useful sharing tool, great. On the other hand, I tend to save things via del.icio.us, using a button in my Firefox toolbar, and I don’t (or very rarely) use any of the other multitude of sharing options contained in the button below, so I’m not well-positioned to judge the usefulness of said button.
And what’s really bothering me is how ugly it is.
Anybody have an opinion on this? Keep it or get rid of it? Some better alternative?
I’m definitely open to any and all perspectives.
Update: Well the reactions are in, and the button referred to has been removed, and I feel good about it. Thanks to all who commented….
(Also, did anybody notice that I now sign posts with my actual name, instead of “murketing”?)
It was a hosting problem. And yes, it was frustrating and annoying. I was considering a “consumer rage” post about this, but I’ve calmed down. Somewhat.
Quite frequently in the eight years that I’ve been writing online (going back to the Slate days), I’ve heard from students, graduate and undergraduate, pursuing their studies in a range of fields from design to marketing, cultural studies to anthropology, journalism to business. I’m always pleased when this happens, and it frequently leads to interesting interactions.
For a while now I’ve been wanting to encourage more such interaction in a way that benefits not just me, but such students, and readers of this site. I finally did something about it — took a first step — after an exchange with a student at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto: I asked if she’d be interested in contributing a Q&A to this site. And after a little back and forth about potential ideas (all her ideas, not mine) we settled on something, which will be published here later today.
I’d like to make such Q&As a regular thing here on Murketing.com. And so:
- If you’re a student involved in a project or research that you think would be of interest to Murketing readers, tell me about it.
- If you are aware of such a project or research, and would be interested in putting together a Q&A with the person who is doing it, let me know.
As examples check out this Q&A, and this one, both involving student/class/school projects.
Use murketing AT robwalker DOT net, and put something like “Murketing Help” in the subject line.
Posted Under:
Murketing.com
This post was written by Rob Walker on February 11, 2008
Comments Off on Murketing seeks help, part one: Q&A subjects and interviewers
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