Robert, I agree you should keep the raw interview available. It is like how reporters are being asked to upload their notes and recordings of an interview. For those that want to dig deep and get to the grist of the matter, and have the time, the raw shows can not be beat.

However, and there always is a however, would it be possible to break the show into a 3-5 minute segment. Time is a factor, and it seems every time I sit down with one of your videos as a consumer, I end up getting distracted by the real world and never watch the show with full concentration. If there was an edited 3 minute teaser that had a like to the full video, you could monetize the interview, fulfill the needs of both vendor and viewer, and have a way to cross market it on YouTube and other video services.

The extra cost of editing the interview to the key salient parts, or do a secondary interview live covering the short hits to save editing time, could make your brand much more accessible to a broader audience.

One one of our sites we do an hour long radio interview show weekly. But we also have a daily 2-4 minute commentary that is to keep the viewer involved and coming back. The combination is working well and our listener base is increasing rapidly.

TDavid, keep up the analysis, it is very beneficial. And Robert, thank you for all you do in the blogosphere. You have extended it and broken new ground and a couple of eggs. I love it and keep being you.

I’ve decided to spend that time doing more videos, cause I think that’s more important right now than having MTV-like short videos.

Now, this post has me reevaluating my approach, which is healthy any way you look at it.

I’ve started to be enthralled by video myself (and I’m a neophyte), although I fancy myself more of a writer. There are pieces of art as well as experiences that cannot be conveyed effectively regardless of my writing skill in a visceral immediate, sensory, immersive environment that I believe images and auditory elements bring to the table.

For instance, I kick myself now for not having a vid cam at the brand-new New Frontier on Main at Sundance Film Fest ‘07 (story: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117957606.html?categoryid=2472&cs=1). There is really no practical way that I can express the interactivity of the video art installations and the cafe vibe as effectively as if I’d just SHOWN it to you live.

I lean towards TDavid’s sentiment that interviews can be done effectively in podcasts with addition of a few stills.

I also think it is possible to throw out the long-form raw video and use something like Click.tv (disclosure: they are a client), so that one can jump, skip, and skim to the segments of interest. Typically a video is its entirety is the socialable object - which often feels too bulky - but with Click.tv any point in the video can be chunked into microcontent whilst still part of the whole, annotated, commented, and made socialable.

Video has taken off, perhaps, because it has the capability to be quick and because the bandwidth has opened up to accommodate it. It takes more effort to craft a great review than it does to hold up a laptop and say “here it is, here’re its USB ports”. I realise that what Robert is doing isn’t just product reviewing, and I appreciate the time, money and effort involved in editing, but by putting out lengthy interviews still in their raw state he’s basically saying that if you don’t agree to invest the time to watch the whole thing then you don’t get to benefit from ScobleShow. That’s fine by me, but when it comes to choosing stories to blog about I’m less likely to pick PodTech video than I am something I can look over quickly to see if its relevant. 45 minutes is a lot of time if you come out at the end thinking “this isn’t something my readers would be too interested in.”

If opening up the raw footage for community editing is too much of a free-for-all, then surely there are trainee video engineers/editors at a local college or university that would jump at the chance to do some unpaid placement time at PodTech? They get experience and something to go in their portfolio, Robert gets to carry on shooting video and not worry about editing, viewers get the salient points quicker and the companies being interviewed have more exposure. Not only that, but the exposure is based on opinion and critique, rather than simply ticking the boxes for a high Google search rank.

If I had to spend 12 hours editing for every hour of shooting, I’d only be able to do one video a week. There’s a reason I’ve decided against that approach. There’s too many companies who are trying to get demos of their stuff out. They’d never get video exposure if I had to spend that kind of time editing.

Every CEO says that my videos have had a sizeable effect on their business. Why? Google. Google links, even when others don’t. So, the traffic eventually comes.

But, notice the first comment that I got when I posted that.

I think what this points to is there’s room for two separate approaches.