YouTube Shorts are the response of the Video Giant to the Tik Tok. They are 1 minute in length or less and have to be in portrait format to be a “short.” I don’t have nor do I want a Tik Tok so this sort of intrigues me, but I do wonder if it will actually go anywhere. For fun, I thought I would do some YouTube Shorts in preparation for the next Linux Saloon live stream where we will be talking about Solus, an independent Linux distribution that has been known for its speed and efficiency. I haven’t given it a spin since late 2018 so it is well over due for me. It will be quite fun to try it out and see how things have changed. I have historically liked its flagship desktop environment, Budgie but it has been a while.
That leads me to the point of this blathering. For the propose of promoting the live stream this Saturday, I thought I would do some YouTube shorts to show parts of the process. Though, I find my overall experience with these “shorts” is almost miserable. When I swipe through them, I get the same videos every time. I lost count how many times I watched someone crack open an egg under water. Also, it recommended my OWN videos to me with notifications. That whole systems seems broken. On the other hand, making shorts is kind of fun because it is a low effort thing, and a fun way to promote the upcoming stream. Sure, not a whole lot in the view department at this time but that’s okay.
The purpose, as I understand it, is to make the videos quick and interesting, but how interesting are Linux Distributions outside of what is arguably a rather small community of people? Not sure, is there much of an audience of people looking for short content on things Linux? Probably not. So, I guess we’ll see how it goes.
Linux Saloon is such a fun Saturday night activity, I want as many people as possible to enjoy it too and I want to do something to push the Saturday Linux Saloon live stream, and hopefully, garner some more interest for more conversation. I want as rich and beneficial of a conversation as possible.
Here are the shorts, feel free to tell me what you think. Is it a good idea or a silly, useless idea?
I do think the YouTube shorts is a better experience on a desktop Linux experience than Tik Tok is. Since I prefer the desktop 99% of the time, this is, more enjoyable for me. Tik Tok on a desktop browser is not good at all, so this seems like the better platform. We will see what happens for the long term.
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