The Decline Continues

I find You Tube videos that I watch have a lot of "padding" Maybe the people that put them out feel that more run time equates to a more relevant video. I find it's just more annoying "fluff"

Thank you for that link. You made my day - until that site disappears too.

This post was meant to be about the link provided for the Imaging Resource archive site. I don't understand why or how it got here.

Remember that many You Tubers on their channel are trying to make a living...'that' is their job. So the more entertainment they can make their channel, the better. They need subscribers to pay the bills.

When the headlight burned out in my 2011 Buick Regal, I went to YouTube to see how much work it would be. There was one very long video where the untrained gent had half the front clip apart, looking at something like 6 hours of labor at the minimum to finish the task. Then there was another video that was only 45 seconds long. Expecting some satire like the guy removing the bulb from the front with a hammer, what I got was a GM technician sitting in the car and he hadn't even pulled the hood latch yet. How is he going to get this done in 45 seconds?, I wondered.

He pulls the hood latch, lifts the hood, points to the washer fluid bottle filler neck, pulls upward on it (unbeknownst to most its a two piece removable system) and out it comes . Viola, direct access to the halogen bulb behind it. No tools needed.

Living proof that YouTube is an uncurated minefield. Use at your risk.

In the traditional print publishing business model, the publisher would provide publicity, distribution, content editing (curation these days), desk editing (grammar police), book design, and a platform for you to build an audience. Since that model was established, bookstores that rely on reps and distribution have faded, customers have migrated to Amazon, and the entire model developed holes. Anyone that already has a platform can bypass the system entirely.

You already have a platform, arguably need no curation, no clue on your design or grammar skills, and through Amazon, you have most of what you need to self publish. And you don't even have to go to Amazon, given the platform that you have already created, so no need to share the cut there.

The only downside is for those who sell only digital copies. Print is still 75% of the market.

Yes, but...
Samples are in tight demand, especially for the products that would probably most interest a community like you're trying to build. Unfortunately, as I and a few others have found, it all turns on how many eyeballs you can convince the camera makers you have. You're going against YouTube followers, et.al. My sites total up to over 1m uniques a year, but it's still hard going to get attention.

The way it seemed to start with the camera companies and YouTube/Influencers was that the camera co's all wanted to reach market they weren't reaching, and hired consultants, marketing firms, etc., to give them an alternative. Basically, they were sold "eyeballs." And many of those numbers are irresistible to the camera co's given that magazines, et.al., no longer produce large audiences. The coupling of "lots of eyeballs" with "young market" was basically an easy sell. It continues today.

In my Thom Hogan's Complete Guide to the Nikon D750 he mentions 'D810' on several occasions where he obviously should have mentioned 'D750'. 😄

We are not shooting with glass plates as the recording medium , or have you not realised it yet.
ive still noticed that ISO is in the image data. Lead from example if you are correct.

Functional Stupidity.

This is described by functional stupidity experts Mats Alvesson and André Spicer as ‘the stupidity paradox’. Alvesson and Spicer wrote the definitive paper on functional stupidity in 2012, A Stupidity-based theory of organisations. “We spoke with hundreds of people in dozens of organisations,” Spicer wrote. “During the course of our research, we were constantly struck by how these organisations, which employ so many people with high IQs and impressive qualifications, could do so many stupid things.”

You have just discovered what one of my jobs is 😂

Functional stupidity - people in an organization or a company do exactly what is expected of them uncritically, without pausing for thought.
That's exactly the opposite to Bob's MO.

A model used by lab test based audio site Audio Science Review www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?reviews/ is to review stuff readers send in on loan. It seems to work as plenty of people seem willing to box up their stuff and send it in for review. I see that some of the lens reviews on Phillip Reeve.net seem to be user supplied gear as well.

Yep. Particularly with the older books that transitioned from print, I never got the time to go back and do corrections. Even books I've redone several times I'll still find something that needs fixing.

Did not stop me from enjoying the book, Thom.

A lot of it has to do with how (and who) you approach, and how your credibility is perceived.

This gets back to goals. If you can outline what the goals of the site are, how reviews will be handled, etc., you can present in a way they'll take seriously. But it's another of those chicken/egg things. To get started you have to get started.