SEEING IS BELIEVING
Most of us have gotten very used to searching online for more information on a new product or service that's caught our interest. We've developed our sets of favorite sites for both professional and user-generated reviews.
It's second-nature over the last decade for most of us, to check on sites like Amazon, the professional and reader/listener reviews on a book or CD we're considering buying.
As has checking Yahoo! Movies for external reviews by critics and viewers alike.
What's not second-nature for most of us yet, is checking sites like YouTube for VIDEO reviews of products or services that we'd like to know more about.
For instance, here's what you get if you look for some videos of the new iPod Touch. You'll see there are videos by the company , professional review sites, and users.
And it works not only for the high-profile, buzzy gizmos.
For instance, Engadget had a little post on the new Wacom Bamboo input tablets. Type in Wacom Bamboo on YouTube, and you get a relatively long list of videos up already, including this one on how it can make Microsoft Office users more efficient.
Try it for a PC or laptop you're interested in, or a digital camera, or camcorder. Type in the specific model. Most of the time you'll be pleasantly surprised by the amount of stuff already up there. Not all of it will be good, but that's the web for us.
For vendors, mega-video sites like YouTube should be viewed as the new MTV for gadgets. Any promotional video they have on anything they sell should be uploaded to sites like YouTube as a matter of course.
In not too long, looking online for video reviews on gadgets and services, is going to be as second nature as Googling a person before a meeting.
"Look before you leap" has never been truer.
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