A number of people have been trying to turn me on to the brave new world of vlogging recently. I have personal favourites in the form of Brookers and Ask A Ninja but the truth is that vlogging just isn’t ready yet.

Most of these shows (including cult favourite zefrank) make pretty much no use of the visual element of the format and would in fact be much better served out as a tiny audio download. Even Ask A Ninja with it’s endless vogueing and gurning is pretty much all about verbal puns and non-sequiters. For me the surest check is to simply close your eyes. If you’re still laughing or enjoying the show then it could be a podcast. I haven’t found anything yet that makes the visual element of the show indispensible in the way that, say, Brooker’s dance routines are to her skits.

I might be being reactionary or I might be hating Quicktime’s streaming capabilities but right now there doesn’t seem to be a lot of point to vlogs except to prove that the technology is (almost) there to make them possible.