I love embedding things. It's like taking parts of other people's websites, or your own imagination, and slapping it onto your own web page. Embedding works in two ways.
One, its informative. If you're writing about something, and you're having a hard time describing a scene, chances are that scene is on YouTube. For example, say I was a hockey writer, and I had to describe a breakaway, one-handed goal by San Jose Sharks forward Devin Setoguchi. Now I could talk for pages and pages, and still not do the goal justice. But just by posting this...
Words cannot beat that. This goes for charts, maps and widgets as well. Any time you can display information graphically, I recommend you do it. Especially if it looks good.
Embedded material also helps you break up a long string of text. For example, I've been talking for a while now, so I'll break up the constant stream of thought with a graph.
See? The reader is more likely to keep reading because they are intrigued by the pretty graphic. As you were no doubt intrigued by my nonsensical graph. Normally I might take up space to explain what is going on in my hastily-created graphic, but since the act of you merely reading this sentence proves my point, I'm not going to bother.
But you get it.
15 years ago
I agree that embedding "things" does make a blog more interesting and easier for the reader to navigate. I was drawn to your post simply because your text was broken up by the youtube video and the chart. When people's post consist of long paragraphs with no graphics, I normally skim right past their article and onto one that seems more "reader friendly."
ReplyDeleteUsing videos, graphs, charts, photos, etc. allow for the blog author to say 1,000 words by using no text at all. Like you said about the hockey play: "I could talk for pages and pages, and still not do the goal justice." The video speaks for itself. Videos are also a great way to keep objectivity in journalism - what you see is what you get! Let the action speak for itself.
Nice post!
I also agree. Embedding things does add that extra "oomph" to a blog post. It makes the page colourful and exciting and interactive.
ReplyDeleteSomething that often concerns me though, is an overload of embedded items, or embedding items in a way that does not make any sense. I love a flawless reading experience. One that is seamless and where the ideas flow perfectly into one another, making the author's point easy to understand. I find that embedded items sometimes have the ability to mess up this experience and make it botchy and complicated, especially when things are just randomly stuck in for the heck of it. And if there is an overload. Moreover, I don't think anything could ever replace the clarity and the context that text gives. So, what I would suggest to the average blogger! If you're going to embed, do it in a way where it logically continues or leads on from what you have written before. That way, the reader will be able to still connect the dots perfectly, without having to change their train of thoughts between text, video, charts and whatever else.
It's amazing how much a little detail like an embedded video or graph can change the perspective of a blog. Anybody can jot a few words down into the blogosphere. But simply going that extra step shows an attention to detail, adds weight and increases the perception that a blog is professionally done and maintained by someone not content to simply talk others to death but instead cares enough to go the extra step.
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