February 8, 2008
'Big Think' Video Site Not Attracting Much Feedback?
Big Think made a splash when it hit the Web last month. After all, the site boasts hundreds of video clips of intellectual celebrities talking about pressing issues, has the former president of Harvard as one of its investors, and got plenty of glowing press coverage (including a mention in The Chronicle, of course).
But when T. Mills Kelly, an associate professor of history and art history at George Mason University, took a close look at the site, he says he felt like he was visiting a ghost town. “There’s virtually no discussion going on — hardly anybody has participated in ways that were anticipated,” he says in the latest issue of the Digital Campus podcast, where he is a host, along with two colleagues.
He and his co-hosts noted that Big Think, which features three-to-ten-minute clips of talking heads, does not seem to be getting the kind of response that the University of California at Berkeley’s YouTube page has. Berkeley’s page offers entire lectures from the university’s professors.
Indeed, of the 10 questions featured on the front page of Big Think as of Thursday afternoon, none of them had comments from readers. A few other videos had drawn some feedback, with the most being for a clip about “What is happiness” by Dan Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University. That had 26 comments.
Victoria R.M. Brown, a founder of Big Think, says the site is sparking far more discussion than the front page suggests.
“Content is certainly getting buried at the moment and we’re trying to address it — in part that’s why some of it is not being commented upon,” she said in an e-mail interview.
“We are addressing it in several ways: We are adding the ability for users to track their conversations and have implemented alerts so that users know when their comments have been commented upon. We are adding tickers to the home page to more clearly surface new activity. We are changing the algorithms so that most popular content surfaces more accurately. Also, we’re adding the ability of users to identify like-minded thinkers.”
What’s being discussed? She points to a clip on atheism, which has drawn more than 110 comments; one on favorite quotations, with 72 comments; and one on Marijuana legalization, with 40 comments.
Perhaps it’s too soon to judge, but just browsing the site, it is hard to find clips that are attracting a buzz.
But Ms. Brown said the number of comments is the wrong measure of the site’s popularity.
“We have had millions of video views and know that Big Think is not only about commenting,” she said. “Many people are using the site as an educational and informative tool.” —Jeffrey R. Young
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Big Think is a pompous arrogant pile of crap. One of its big mistakes is starting out with famous names. How pompous and boring their opinions are—straight out of CEO “insights” books for mass markets. If famous people are that boring and stupid, all the interest in life must be coming to us from somewhere else. The worship of celebrity and the very idea that good ideas come from famous people—is hopeless stupid. Anyone with net experience knows that every successful web site built itself by countering this feudal mindset from mass market central control morons of the early 20th century media. CNN “reporting” that the “actual explsosion” took place “here, where this crater is” —world class reporting for a world of utter morons!!!
— Richard Tabor Greene Feb 8, 07:50 PM #
The main problems are newness and broadness. New things take a while to catch on even in this era of electronic communication. Broadness in education often does not trump narrowness in terms of interest. Faculty seek out shared items, including videos, that they can use in their courses and in their research. These are often narrow topics found in specialized blogs rather than those education in general issues. At American Accounting Association annual meetings its amazing how many faculty skip the big plenary sessions but seek out those few narrowly-focused concurrent sessions that are more relevant to their teaching and research.
I maintain an enormous Website that in the August 14, 1998 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education was written up as a Helper Site. My Website evolved to where it has broad-based documents (e.g., Controversies in Higher Education) versus narrow and technical documents (e.g., FAS 133 and IAS 39 documents). Over the years I would have to say, based upon a high volume of feedback from users of Web crawlers like Google, less than 10% of the feedback concerns broad issues. The overwhelming feedback is about some angel dangling on the head of a pin.
Bob Jensen’s threads on open sharing and academic videos are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Bob Jensen, Trinity University
— Robert E. Jensen Feb 10, 09:05 AM #
Who cares what “famous” people say, even if they are the best and the brightest? David Halberstam showed us long ago that being from Harvard or the top echelons of industry, letters, science or art conferred no special insight into the broader scope of politics, war, or human affairs. Big Think? How about Big Hubris.
— marci Feb 11, 01:18 PM #