DISQUS

carolus.holman · 3 years ago

I did the 10 second test, or Blink. Dude I spent another 20 seconds on there looking for somehting to do. It may need a retool, I sitll don't know what it is supopsed to do. It reminds me of the insanity when going to MSDN, just looking for the download button is exasperating.

Aneil Weber · 3 years ago

I love the BlinkTest! I think that is a great way to also compare two services just as you did. Great idea Robert, I've be unconsciously doing the same thing these days.

Christopher Coulter · 3 years ago

John on tech is usually always right, skeptic without being a luddite, cept when he opines on politics and does the prototypical Leftist Valley Dances, then he's mostly wrong.

10 seconds test? It took me more than 5 minutes just to figure it out. Reminds me of Windows Live and MSDN rot...random scattered junk, corporate feeling and nothing quickie ease of use. GoodbyeWorld.

Google Video is hellish too. YouTube has the right formula, and the videos always usually play. Now the content is all goofy amateurisitic and community, but that's what the net is for.

onecoolsoul · 3 years ago

It looked like Hello World was trying to be a jack of all trades but certainly a master of none! The blink test is a nice idea.

Brian · 3 years ago

I agree on this Robert. But what concerns me about You Tube is this:

Still no ads on You Tube?



They're gone.

Brian · 3 years ago

whoops, my blink tad disappeared. Should have looked like this:

Still no ads on You Tube?

blink

They’re gone.

SippinWhisky · 3 years ago

Robert, I'll let you know when you're right and I'm wrong.

Boeing has decided to exit the high-speed broadband communications connectivity markets and is discontinuing Connexion by Boeing. (Source: http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2006/q3/060...)

I said it would be everywhere in a year and you said it would not be. (Darn, I hate being wrong.)

eROCK · 3 years ago

Terrible. helloWorld attempts to do too many things at once. I like simple and straight-forward. It took me longer then 10 seconds to a.) realize this is a video site b.) discover how I can upload a video if indeed I can c.) figure out why the 9/11 attack(s) are on the front page d.) figure out how or if I need to sign-up

-Erich

jonpatch · 3 years ago

I didn't last 5 seconds at HelloWorld, 10 would have been far too long. I was drawn (unhappily) to the pretty flash graphic (I hate flash intros, BTW, I don't have time for it, and who does?), which told me nothing right away to keep me there with it's content-free, painfully slow, "... blow your mind" statement. A quick scan of the page, and it looked like one of the those domain-squatting pages.

It'll be interesting to see how the folks at HelloWorld respond to your prod, Robert. That's a real measure of success: the ability to respond positively and quickly to feedback.

Jon

Robert Sanzalone · 3 years ago

Last year I worked with HelloWorld AND MyVideoTalk. We put on presentations for them in Vancouver. Their business model was simple: network marketing. Yes, be the Amway of the Internet. I wasn't interested in the network marketing, just the technology. I was given a rude awakening when told by each company the "downline" was far more important than the product. I eventually dropped both and evangelized YouTube, Vimeo, Sharkle, DailyMotion and Blip.tv. When I realized .flv was the way of the future, I hedged bets on YouTube and DailyMotion. Blip.tv eventually transcoded to .flv though sometimes poorly and slowly (up to a few days later). Though Dvorak's article is kinda right about making the service "simple" (thus the success of YouTube), I still think it was more to do with luck that they came out the winner. At least I'm sure that's what the creators of Vimeo are thinking.

brem · 3 years ago

Sites like Atomfilm and iFilm are 5 years behind as far as ease of use is concerned. Why do we have to click on a button for a popup to appear then choose our preferences, over and over again, then watch ads, for a mere 30 seconds video?

jcposner · 3 years ago

They disabled the back button to leave the site. Not Cool. When sites do this it creates an immediate visceral negative reaction. Aesthetically reminds me of a AT&T website.

Steve P · 3 years ago

veoh.com

Brian Sullivan · 3 years ago

Geez this is a momentous occasion -- not only is Robert agreeing with Dvorak but Christopher Coulter is agreeing with them both.

Can't be a good sign for Hello World or is this just the prelude to the Apocalypse?

Robert Scoble · 3 years ago

Brian: I'm guessing apocalypse.

CJ · 3 years ago

wow, Robert. more and more of your posts are sarcastic and composed of condescending sentence fragments.

do you think if all your sentences are four words long that you'll convince people of your argument?

Tim · 3 years ago

10 seconds? 5 seconds? Try 1 second. That was enough for me to get an impression of the site: unfocussed crowded site that looked like hell to navigate. My general impression was somewhere between the old classic 'portal' sites and icq.com's infamous hellish home page. With a bit of domain typosquatting site look'n'feel thrown in for good measure Bonus points for having a logo reminiscent of the @ symbol for that authentic "I'm surfing like it's 1998" feeling.

Funny - I've been doing the 'blink' test for years with websites - I just didn't know that someone had given a trendy name to common sense/instinct (and presumably pimped some tedious paperback bestseller on the premise).

Cider · 3 years ago

Tim,

Actually, the judgement time is 50 milliseconds. As per research which was broadcast all over the web back in January:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=judge+website+...

I'm afraid Scoble's blink test has prior art...

Granville Barnett · 3 years ago

After 10 secs I decided youTube was by far the better :)

Robert Scoble · 3 years ago

CJ: as my son says: what?

Robert Scoble · 3 years ago

Tim: yeah, I should have also given credit to Jim Fawcette who told us to make our logos red because that was the color most likely to attract the eye and most people give magazine covers microseconds to decide whether or not to buy them.

Evan Erwin · 3 years ago

Agreed. That site is too cluttered, too ads-ish, too hard to actually FIND content.

Shutting down the ability to right click is just friggin ANNOYING for people who accidentally do so often (i.e., myself).

Thanks but no thanks. YouTube, please continue to be awesome.

Brooklyn Kitchen · 3 years ago

Dvorak wrote a pretty bad article there. He says he "seriously" compared other video upload sites, but doesn't say which sites he looked at and is relatively vague about the criteria he used. I personally dislike YouTube because they have crappy intellectual property guidelines in their Terms of Use. There are definitely better options out there (Vimeo and Blip TV are my choices).

If YouTube moves the direction I think it is going (large-scale corporate media acquisition), it's likely that it will be misunderstood as the acquiring media company attempts to use YouTube as a way to 'virally' spread clips of its TV shows. User content will be deprecated, disapearing behind clips of 'Two and a Half Men.' That, and you might see Clips popping up on shows like 'America's Funniest People.'

Or as Ze says, 'America's Stupidest People.'

N. Maffeo · 3 years ago

That was Pretty a pretty amazing dichotomy

Christopher Coulter · 3 years ago

Better options? Vimeo and Blip.TV are ghost towns, YouTube at least has the community. It's the community, more than the tech. Such is also why Myspace succeeds where the Orkut's and other Marc Canterish geek-rots don't. But ease-of-use is still a big big factor. Google only thinks in terms of Advertisements, and is horrid at community, the pretty colored-balls, works for the cultic geeks, no one else. Sex and vanity makes MySpace, goofy clips and similar vanity makes YouTube.

But there can only be one leader, and YouTube is already it, for all the startups, amazing how oligarchyish be the Valley. Thousands of auction sites, now narrowed to one. Tons of search engines, now mainly one, two sorta.

But anyone using YouTube as anything more than a teaser network is crazy. Sure they have overreaching IP claims, all of Web 2.0 seemingly does (all your user-generated-content belong to us) but considering them a serious distributional network, is not playing with a full deck.

HelloWorld doesn't even strike me as a real company, it's a half site, half splong, way way too spooky MLMish, just parasites eating the flesh offa the current trends.

Greetings from the Apocalypse, or wasn't that last week? Silly me, packing that suntan lotion.

David · 3 years ago

HelloWorld is supposed to be a video site? Could have fooled me. Like others, I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. So many screen elements demanding my attention. I just freaked out and left.

LayZ · 3 years ago

Well, that wasn't really the point of Gladwell's book (and no surprised it was lost on you), but the first impression thing works for just about anything, doesn't it? A web site that is easy to read and navigate. Is a product easy to use? Is a car visually appealing? The list goes on. Isn't this product design 101?

Robert Scoble · 3 years ago

LayZ: everything is lost on me. Thanks for noticing. That wasn't the point of my post, though.

Anyway, yeah, first impression does matter on most everything. Except when your first impression is wrong.

chuck · 3 years ago

I love the BlinkTest too!
Yes, HelloWorld is just plain awful. You always see a million wannabe sites popup with any trend-like-thing.

I agree with this survey that blip.tv is the best, and what i recommend to many people and organization wanting to easily post and share video. Unlike YouTube, they don't compress the crap out of your video or slap a logo over it.

LayZ · 3 years ago

I understood the point of your post. When it comes to products people's first impressions, like opinions, can't be wrong. They may not map with others impressions or opinions, but that doesn't make them wrong. "Blink" was about knowing things almost innately. That's likely not what we are talking about here. We are talking about someones first impression about a product or service. If it doesn't hook me in the first 5 minutes, I'm likely not going to be hooked. That does't make me wrong or you right, or vice versa. It just means the product, for some reason, didn't appeal to me. Has nothing to do with what I know or don't know.

John Pretto · 3 years ago

Ah,

You're comparing apples and oranges between Helloworld.com and all of the other Media Communities. For a fair "blink test" try www.helloworldbeta.com which is Hello's true vision way back to 1996.

Points of consideration:

Helloworld's Parent company is publicly traded.
They have NO debt.
You have the ability to transode into any format of media you want.
Live Web-based broadcasting
Web-based Video Mail
Automated Podcast Publishing tools
Automated Video Blogging
Video Instant Messaging.
Most importantly, they are making money.

More Blinking required here.

Mark spivey · 2 years ago

I've been using Helloworld for over a year and a half now and have seen many changes which have improved the service radically.
I have also used Youtube which is free but that's the only real advantage.
I like Helloworld's technology and the ability to do things I simply cannot do with YouTube or Myspace.
It's true you get what you pay for.
My dream was to have my own TV studio and promote my music and Helloworld has given me the best online tools to be able to do this.
What I really like about the service is the flexibility I have working with my content and how I can choose who sees what, where and when.
I effectively have the same versatility as a TV station at an absolute fraction of the cost.
If you want free and basic stick with YouTube but if you want to get more out of the web then Helloworld is definitely the way to go.
(And you get paid if you share it with others).