Video Made The Bloggers Stars?

A lot of the current debate about videoblogging seems to focus on the technicalities of making the things rather than the issue of their consumption.

As I commented before, I'm not a great fan. I don't want to spend fifty minutes watching two smart guys chatting and take away three minutes of notes.

Unscripted chatter is generally not as informative as scripted blogs or podcasts and, at worst, it's lazy journalism or barely disguised PR puffery. The argument that four videobloggers have crashed into the top 100 is the vanguard of something big is I think jumping the gun. One belongs to a Chinese movie star whose text blog was already there, one's a geek TV show (the first mover in this category) and the other two are essentially stand-up comedy shows which (as entertaining as they are), I don't really see as blogs at all (let's not forget Ze Frank's is essentially a one year series).

Yes, there will be more. Yes, a picture can be worth a thousand words. But if your videoblog is like bad public access television then please, please think again because for all the technological advances you may idolise, there's still only 24 hours in my day.