Mediabistro On Demand Videos

If you are a business person, however you define that term, and you don't necessarily want to create videos but you do want to know what all of the hubbub about web video then I think I have an affordable resource for you.

What Is Mediabistro?

It is a portal for those folks in the media, aka print, television, journalism or those folks that interact with the industry. Mediabistro has a lot of media specific blogs, puts out a daily recap newsletter on what happened in mainstream media and they do offer classes; real world and online on media skills. It is actually more than that but you can check the other stuff out for yourself.

Mediabistro's On Demand Videos

Mediabistro has online classes. They also have video on media specific topics, like web video. To get an overview you might want to start with How Online Video is Changing the Internet, Part 1.

Here is the description:

Video on the web is rapidly expanding beyond the "clip culture" of amateur videos of skateboarding dogs. This Crash Course walks you through the latest trends in the continuing convergence of video, internet, print, mobile, and other media.

First of all, let's not be hating on the skateboarding dogs. They taught lessons on how a video becomes viral and gave hope to many a pooch that they too could have their special day at the fire hydrant. There is room and bandwidth for all types of videos.

In the preview you get an understanding of the focus of the overview. You are also able to see an outline of the contents, the video length and the size of the video file. You will also have access to the pdf Crib sheet that will give you the list of sources cited in the video.

Should You Pony Up $19?

Yes. Because for one month you would have access to additional On Demand videos. If you need more time you can re-up for another month or purchase a years subscription. It is a visually concise way to get up to speed.

Concerns and Quibbles:

This is a more than a quibble. You must specifically tell them to stop the subscription, otherwise you will be charged each month or re-billed again for a year's subscription. Mediabistro does inform you of this before, during and after you purchase your subscription.

Before I subscribed I did not know when the video was produced. Information and concepts change quickly. I would like to know that before I plunk down the money.

After I subscribed the video seemed to have been created in 2007. Some of the predictions and the person they thought to be a front runner in the election did not work out they way they anticipated.

However for $19 for a month's access to all of the On Demand videos it is a fair deal. I really liked the one on fact checking. Very helpful.

Was it spot on? Well, no. There was an item on the in the video on viability of video tagging. I wish! I wish it were that easy to punch in a keyword at a search engine, tell it you are only searching for a specific kind of video and have a tag cloud appear with just video choices.

I wish there was a way to say "show me all videos that have just walnut based pesto that start at 00:15 into the video. " Nope, not yet.

On the whole, it wasn't bad. It does open up the door to a lot of concepts; if you have no prior experience with web video. If you are a newbie, or thinking about web video for business use then give it a go.