Comments on: SketchCasting

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:25:13 +0000

I think it depend on how you look at it. You could certainly add text around the sketchcast. Take this post for example. The main content is the video, but there’s still plenty of text, which grows with each comment.

Don’t underestimate the power of links either. If your sketchcast was good it would likely generate links which would be more valuable than the text that’s not there.

I’d even add that if you produced quality sketchcasts so that people linked to you and visited and subscribed you might not worry so much about search traffic.

But I do agree you wouldn’t make your entire blog the sketchcasts and nothing else. I wouldn’t depend on it completely either, but as part of blog I think a sketchcast can add a lot of value.

By: Tony Sticks

Tony Sticks — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:45:19 +0000

I think that SketchCasting is a cool concept, but it’s not effecient when it comes to search engines. Assume that you have built this blog using this method, how Google is supposed to recognize your content and how it’s supposed to give you the credit you deserve? I agree that it can be helpful if used it conservatively. But if you depended on it completly. It will end up failing, in my opinion.

By: Chris Denny

Chris Denny — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:31:53 +0000

I can immediately think of many ways to use sketchcasting to convey ideas in a fast and interesting way.

This would be excellent for demonstrating site design principles or for a business to explain visually how its process works and/or how its products move from point A to point B, C, D…

I will be looking for the how-to.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:20:31 +0000

Exactly Chris. I think any time you want to express some kind of movement or change this would be a great way to do it. Sometimes a series of images will suffice or perhaps even be better, but sometimes all that’s needed is a quick sketch.

I love the idea of being able to draw a few quick lines to express some concept and then erase those lines to move onto the next concept. It could easily take several paragraphs to try to describe what could be conveyed in a very rough sketch.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:44:23 +0000

Nathania I’m clearly with you on this one.

Forrest think about how much you can communicate with a drawing you can change to make a new point. I think a series of images can sometimes do the same thing, but not always in the same way.

There’s something inherently educational about being able to explain a concept at the same time as you’re drawing out that concept. You could present some text and then an image, followed by more text and another image, but I don’t think it would have the same impact.

It would also take longer to create and absorb the text and image combination. That’s not to say we should abandon text and images. I have no intention of doing that, but sometimes being able to talk and sketch can communicate quicker and more effectively.

By: Forrest

Forrest — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:58:34 +0000

You know … I just don’t see any value to this approach compared to just putting an image on the page? I’m reading The Tipping Point right now, and a lot of the concepts explored involve graphs, so I understand the part about visual communication … but I just don’t see the value for it to be videocast?

By: Nathania

Nathania — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:21:11 +0000

I absolutely think this is cool. Online videos are hotter than ever and this is a great way to do something different.