With Vids, Google Thinks It Has the Next Big Productivity Tool For Work (theverge.com) 56
For decades, work has revolved around documents, spreadsheets, and slide decks. Word, Excel, PowerPoint; Pages, Numbers, Keynote; Docs, Sheets, Slides. Now Google is proposing to add another to that triumvirate: an app called Vids that aims to help companies and consumers make collaborative, shareable video more easily than ever. From a report: Google Vids is very much not an app for making beautiful movies... or even not-that-beautiful movies. It's meant more for the sorts of things people do at work: make a pitch, update the team, explain a complicated concept. The main goal is to make everything as easy as possible, says Kristina Behr, Google's VP of product management for the Workspace collaboration apps. "The ethos that we have is, if you can make a slide, you can make a video in Vids," she says. "No video production is required."
Based on what I've seen of Vids so far, it appears to be roughly what you'd get if you transformed Google Slides into a video app. You collect assets from Drive and elsewhere and assemble them in order -- but unlike the column of slides in the Slides sidebar, you're putting together a left-to-right timeline for a video. Then, you can add voiceover or film yourself and edit it all into a finished video. A lot of those finished videos, I suspect, will look like recorded PowerPoint presentations or Meet calls or those now-ubiquitous training videos where a person talks to you from a small circle in the bottom corner while graphics play on the screen. There will be lots of clip art-heavy product promos, I'm sure. But in theory, you can make almost anything in Vids. ou can either do all this by yourself or prompt Google's Gemini AI to make a first draft of the video for you. Gemini can build a storyboard; it can write a script; it can read your script aloud with text-to-speech; it can create images for you to use in the video. The app has a library of stock video and audio that users can add to their own Vids, too.
Based on what I've seen of Vids so far, it appears to be roughly what you'd get if you transformed Google Slides into a video app. You collect assets from Drive and elsewhere and assemble them in order -- but unlike the column of slides in the Slides sidebar, you're putting together a left-to-right timeline for a video. Then, you can add voiceover or film yourself and edit it all into a finished video. A lot of those finished videos, I suspect, will look like recorded PowerPoint presentations or Meet calls or those now-ubiquitous training videos where a person talks to you from a small circle in the bottom corner while graphics play on the screen. There will be lots of clip art-heavy product promos, I'm sure. But in theory, you can make almost anything in Vids. ou can either do all this by yourself or prompt Google's Gemini AI to make a first draft of the video for you. Gemini can build a storyboard; it can write a script; it can read your script aloud with text-to-speech; it can create images for you to use in the video. The app has a library of stock video and audio that users can add to their own Vids, too.
Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
In my meager experience, most actual work is NOT appropriately delivered or communicated in video - it's far too linear, unsearchable, not amenable to note-taking, monologue, and ultimately relies on presenter charisma, beauty, and professional voice and presentation talent - something that's in vastly shorter supply than most people believe.
I hate to imagine what Tufte's opinion of this would be. Buy them, read them, absorb them: https://www.edwardtufte.com/tu... [edwardtufte.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I hate supposed explanations of something which are a video of a talking head. Having something written down is much better if done properly. The problem is that getting ideas across is hard, few people can do it effectively. It also takes time to do right. Some of this will be useful, much of it will not be.
Re: Nah (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Not to mention you can read faster than they can talk.
Re: (Score:3)
I remember the joy when I discovered you can change YT to 1.25x or 1.5x.
Honestly, some of the presentations are so lethargic I put them on 1.5x before they even start and they SOUND NORMAL. I have to double check the setting is even right.
I haven't watched a non-musical video at less than 1.25x for years.
Re: (Score:2)
For example, teaching the pythagorean theorem [youtu.be].
But watching this reminds me of why we have moved towards Powerpoint, and hardly use the linking and animation features in Powerpoint any more - they take effort to prepare but don't add much to content presentation.
Re: (Score:2)
Also the essence of video is motion, and motion grabs attention away from thinking about what you're seeing. There are no better slides than minimal slides; this won't go anywhere.
Speaking of wasted Big Tech effort, how's that Apple Vision Pro doing? Don't remember hearing anything about it lately.
I hate video [Re:Nah] (Score:2)
Yes, I hate video as a way of communicating anything. It's simpler and faster to read.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Start the pool (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Three years was my guess too - Google doesn't have a good track record with non-advertising related products. I'm actually surprised that Drive and their office suite is still around except for the fact they use it internally and it saves them a ton on Microsoft licensing and was a driver for Chromebooks etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I came for that comment. You made my day :)
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually a tactical 3 year bet inside Google. That is, someone came up with the idea, the management have decided to throw however many millions at it "just to see". If it works out, it's a huge boost to Youtube - indeed, the two would probably merge in some way (Youtube for business?). It it fails, then no problem, it's not "core" so can be killed off easily.
G is clearly finding Youtube to be a cost centre. They're cranking the monetisation handle quite a bit there, but it s
So, like every other editor? (Score:3)
While sure, it's okay that Google has something too, just remember, Google will very likely discontinue it, like they do with many offerings.
Desperation (Score:2, Insightful)
GMail sucks and hasn't been improved in years.
GSuite is rotting on the vine and a horrible, ugly, complicated mess of bad admin UI and overly complex niche-case settings.
Home/Nest shit is garbage and a lot of the hardware hasn't seen a refresh since before COVID. The Nest Smoke Alarms (tm) still can't deal with anything other than 2.4 GHz WIFI with pretty much every setting set to 2006. The assistant is painful to talk to.
Remember when Gemini was being hyped? It turned out
Re: (Score:2)
GMail may suck, but the other webmail interfaces I tried suck even more. And I tried quite a few.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Couldn't agree more. It's got fat and lazy, plagued by career seekers stopping by to pad their CV. There is no long term vision. Tech champions that once led the charge, are hesitant invest in Google platforms due to their volatility, which is a problem given Google propensity to bin platforms that don't exhibit exponential growth after a few months. Likewise it's rare to see a Google product manager who is really invested in the app/service for more than a handful of years and the ecosystem is littered wi
Behold the Google Graveyard (Score:5, Insightful)
Google's history is littered with big-name flops - remember Google+ and Wave? Those died a long slow death. I got a feeling Vids is headed the same way, no matter how much Google hypes it up. Unless it can seriously blow the competition away, it's gonna end up in the Google graveyard with all the other abandoned projects.
Honestly, I don't see any real reason to choose Vids over the more mature options out there. Google's got the resources to keep it afloat, but without a killer value prop, it's gonna struggle to gain traction. Just another example of Google throwing spaghetti at the wall.
Re: (Score:3)
apps like Loom
Rise, son of Cygna!
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, I don't see any real reason to choose Vids over the more mature options out there.
We'll see, but I suspect that integration into Google's other office tools may give it a solid place. It doesn't have to be the best, it just has to be good enough, and well-integrated.
"Google thinks" (Score:1)
...there's your first mistake.
Nope (Score:2)
The dumbest reason ever: Behr says she has replaced her weekly recap emails with Vids, “and I get a lot of feedback that people like it because they can see my facial expressions when I’m talking about things.” https://www.theverge.com/2024/... [theverge.com] Give it time and people will start to hate yo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Behr says she has replaced her weekly recap emails with Vids, “and I get a lot of feedback that people like it because they can see my facial expressions when I’m talking about things.”
It means she's not good at communicating with words, and people are afraid of her mood swings.
no (Score:2)
I work in a government organization and can't imagine any way videos would improve the workflow around here, it only would make it worse.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like a terrible plan (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
More time wasting shit that should have just been (Score:2)
an email. No thanks.
Tell me (Score:5, Insightful)
How often have you thought "All I want from this 20 minute video is an answer to a 5 second question and I can't even scan quickly past it to find what I'm looking for. Screw that shit, I'll rather spend those 20 minutes looking for a text alternative!"
Re: (Score:3)
Every goddamn day.
Re: (Score:2)
How often have you thought "All I want from this 20 minute video is an answer to a 5 second question and I can't even scan quickly past it to find what I'm looking for. Screw that shit, I'll rather spend those 20 minutes looking for a text alternative!"
I hear you. This is Google, though, and they already do automated transcripts of Meet meetings and YouTube videos. Odds are good that you'll be able to easily get a skimmable and searchable transcript, and to be able to jump into a location of the video by clicking on the transcript. Might not be there in the first release, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All I want from this 20 minute video is an answer to a 5 second question
Google [...] already do automated transcripts of Meet meetings and YouTube videos.
Seems like an awfully roundabout way to go about it though. Somebody has to create a video, then you need to run Google tools to create the transcript, then maybe run Google's AI to condense the resulting 20 minutes transcript down to a clear unadorned answer. The only reason I can think of why Google proposes going through this rigmarole instead of providing a simple text answer is to force people to run more Google tools, use more Google bandwidth, spend more and maybe get a few "helpful, context-appropr
Re: (Score:2)
End of literacy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Be that one person who figures out how to do stuff in your head.
Imagine what that feeling of power!
Swing and a Miss (Score:1)
Actual work is done in solitude, not on teams. It is done after sleeping on the problem, walking around and thinking about it.
Its never done in a meeting or in the heat of the moment.
There is never quality in that kind of work.
One year from now : Google kills Vids (Score:2)
Mark this day in your agenda.
https://killedbygoogle.com/ [killedbygoogle.com]
Generally, videos waste time (Score:2)
I guess Google is running out of ideas.
How about good transcription from videos? (Score:4, Insightful)
Make some good transcription software instead! There is so much good content in videos, that we'd all benefit a lot from a text-based form with figures or video excerpts when that form is suitable in certain cases.
Making videos is time-consuming (Score:3)
Little surprised this isn't mentioned more. I don't really care about this lastest google desperation, so this is essentially off-topic. To make an accurate timely relevant video that looks good is hard work. It's like someone saying I can write a website! Yes you can. And if your browser is forgiving it will look like ghost of geocities. So you do wordpress. You can create a video and tools like this will make it easy to make a finished thing, which is arguably the hardest part of any creative project. But the result will be uninformative and off-putting moreso than beneficial--read: clearly amaturish. Your enthusiasm for video making doesn't necessarily make you useful to me for your core competencies. That is to say nothing of the already said. Videos are hard to skim for information. Just call me, we can hash it out in 5 minutes dial tone to dial tone.
Hopefully no bonus was awarded (Score:2)
HINT: Maybe there is a reason it is not in O365. (and yeah, the cloud version of Office sucks)
Sigh... Man. I really am Gen-X... (Score:4, Funny)
The vast majority of things should be explainable in text. ESPECIALLY complex things. The idea that video is necessary in general is a regression - not an advancement. Something written down can be consumed in seconds, if authored correctly.
When I search for a simple question that should be one line of text as an answer, and google returns me five youtube videos first, it just makes me sad. I want everybody involved in bringing that set of responses all lined up so that I can smack them in the face with some efficiency.
Re: (Score:1)
Looking forward to the new future! (Score:2)
Eventually everything will be communicated via videos that exclusively show Ikea assembly-style diagrams without language (after, of course, 60 seconds of channel logos and a demand to 'like and subscribe'). And people won't remember that "brt" broke down into actual words once. Fuck the future. Makes me sad.
Ugh! (Score:2)
Could we not.
Fucking linear data feed of mouth-flappy-noises is for business management types who like to preen.
Re: (Score:1)
AI data feed (Score:3)
This reads to me like google is trying to get shorter form videos to feed an algorithm that it's AI finds lacking. There is a longer play here than video slide decks. Goog-411 was not about voice directory it was about procesing voice to speech. Google books was more about data grabbing for language translation than a book selling venture. That being said: likely this will disappear once they get their data set.
Workplace BS in a Post-Literacy World (Score:1)