Probably have to do with the fact that since “everyone” is doing it.

Or the opposite scenario “no one” is doing it, so you should be the first.

I have been downloading and listening fairly religiously to the Geekcast podcasts (one of the Geeksters Shawn Collins mentioned that the new episodes come out every Tuesday) and watching Gary Vaynerchuk’s video posts.

So the $1m question is if you like this audio and video content, should you also jump on the metaphorical bandwagon and fire up your Flip camera too?

Here’s where I might differ from some of the others – there’s 2 elements to communication – there’s form (whether you write something on a sheet of paper, take a photo, do a blog post, shoot a video) and there’s function (AKA content) – the meaning behind your message.

In the rock-paper-scissors equation of multimedia…

• graphics trump text-alone (a picture says a thousand words?)
• audio trumps graphics (usually)
• and video trumps static images and audio, right?

In most cases, if you’re judging the value of communication (whether it’s a blog post, a forum post), on the FORM alone, that might be true.

But once you add the function/content equation into it,  I think Content > Form.

I’ve listened to scratchy MP3 files remastered from decaying audio cassette tapes (remember what those are?) to get some information which I’ve then been able to apply in my business or in my personal life.

You might’ve had the experience of walking in a crummy used bookstore and picked up a crumbling ragged old book (rare and out-of-print to boot), and might’ve picked up some useful information.

They say that “knowledge is power” – I don’t think that quite works, rather “applied knowledge is power”

Notice the “container” in which the information came in doesn’t play into the equation.

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Applying this to the audio/video channels and especially to social media – providing value to your consumers is going to be key to your survival in the long-term.

Building on business fundamentals and borrowing from some of the dubious PR spin out there, creating a “unique user experience” can and does provide some novelty value (even if it’s something as unique as the Naked News).

But if you want longevity, you MUST have a reason beyond “nobody/everybody is also doing a podcast or video blog”

Bottomline: the last man (or woman) standing at the end of the day is going to be the one who bears in mind the saying “it’s about the content, stupid.“