Monday, January 15, 2007

About.com video series

So... I can't sleep for various reasons and I stumbled upon these series of videos from About.com while searching for help with insomnia, anxiety, and lower back pain.

This link takes you directly to the "Health" tab and cues up the video "Two-Minute Relaxation Technique" which I promptly skipped as I found it a bit insipid. However, something about the clean layout of the flash player (I'm guessing what this all is based on) and the other promising titles lead me to investigate further.

I only have watched a few of the short studio-based videos but I was kind of curious what you (those of you who actually read my blog) think of this sort of media format. Does it seem too infomercial-like? Too stilted? Refreshing and useful?

Personally, I poke around on the internet (using Google search as a launch pad) for various topics such as those mentioned above. Perhaps having short videos to display the basic information encased on websites is the way to go. Perhaps I am way behind the times and this is more common than I think. Brett will probably school me on this topic.

Anyhoo, I was slightly disappointed with "Choosing Pain Medications" because I thought it would cover muscle relaxants as well but then I was way too ambitious with my expectations. It's not necessarily a bad video if you can never remember if you should take Advil or Tylenol for a fever, or swelling, or a migraine-like headache. I know I always get those two common pain relievers mixed up.

Then I jumped to the "Style" tab to see what kind of topics were on the menu. "Size Solutions for Women" wasn't useless as it contained some easy-to-understand and implement strategies for dealing with parts of your figure that you find not-so-stellar. The video strongly reminded me of the practical guides in fashion magazines like In Style or Women's Health. In fact, I see this type of web-based video as a perfect complement to those paper-based stories. Maybe it's already one of many resources in the stable of those magazine websites. I don't really feel like checking right now because I would be hopelessly sucked in and forget what I wanted to accomplish in the first place.

So to abruptly end this post and get back to my web-poking, I give you the word of the day (ok one word of the day... that is actually in the dictionary and not something I made up on the fly like I often do... and I didn't know what it meant before I looked it up... and Brett knew what it meant):

iniquity (noun)
1. gross injustice or wickedness.
2. a violation of right or duty; wicked act; sin.

- http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/iniquity

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