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Hawthorne Videoactive Report Vol 2 No 85 0723 Hawthorne Videoactive Report Vol 2 No 85 0723
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SpotMixer - Create video ads affordably and quickly SpotMixer - Create video ads affordably and quickly
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Donatella Versace collection on Saks Fifth Avenue Donatella Versace collection on Saks Fifth Avenue
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City of Henderson Nevada video spokesman City of Henderson Nevada video spokesman
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One For Fun: Gatorade ball girl commercial One For Fun: Gatorade ball girl commercial

Do Production Values Matter In User-Generated Content?

Maybe I'm too elitist, but I confess I have issues with user-generated content. For instance, check out this YouTube video

The information is excellent, but I have a hard time focusing on it because of what we in the biz call production values. There's no variety in the picture, the audio gets scratchy, and around the 2:10 mark, a phone rings and someone off-camera starts talking. This pretty much shot my attention to the content itself, which really deserves my full focus.

Of course, all communications face variations on this conundrum. If your writing is poor, readers lose focus on the story or argument and start hunting down typos instead. Public speakers who pepper presentations with "ums" will soon find their audience keeping secret tallies.

So the question is drawing the line, I suppose. How much slack do we cut "regular folks" now that everyone has access to the internet pulpit?