willow cypress
This video covers a ton of ground and I am trying to balance communicating how my mechanical computer, and computers in general, work and keeping the pace attention grabbing.
Stuff like: Is there a point where music would help? Is it repetitive or too fast?
Bonus questions: Do you think I should stick with this format or incorporate more footage of building the computer? Should I tweak the title?
mystic swallow
going to come back to this for feedback, feel free to ping me if I dont tomorrow - I remember Von Neumann vaguely from my CS degree so I think this would be an awesome watch
fluid moth
It's late but skimmed through it
I got a zillion thoughts and I'll go in depth as you want me to
But my first question is -who is your target audience?
To answer your questions:
I don't think music is very common on this style of video, but you could still probably add it if you wanted to.
Title is fine could probably be improved
Thumbnail is mid, but you are clearly getting some views
For the question about including footage - it really depends on your audience.
willow cypress
But my first question is -who is your target audience?
thank you!
Target audience is a great question. The video seems to have found an audience among computer science hobbyists (those who already know how computers work), but my goal is really more to attract people who want to learn how stuff works in a fun way. Kind of the audience that would be attracted to Mythbusters type content.
About half my traffic is from external sites, mostly reddit, but it looks like those views are still translating into decent engagement.
I am getting around 4% CTR with an updated thumbnail with the added text "MACROPROCESSOR?" and people are staying to watch 2:45 on average.
Also, it looks like you may recognize some of my time lapse footage!
fluid moth
Time lapse?
I don't remember recognizing any of the footage
Want me to give feedback beyond the scope of your questions?
willow cypress
I don't remember recognizing any of the footage
Near the end, based on our servers we share a makerspace.
willow cypress
Want me to give feedback beyond the scope of your questions?
I would love that!
fluid moth
Near the end, based on our servers we share a makerspace.
Oh holy snap
I've been looking for more youtuber buddies, especially ones getting started like me
oh sure enough, I do recognize it now that you mention it
willow cypress
I've been looking for more youtuber buddies, especially ones getting started lik...
Yeah your content looks great!
fluid moth
I'm hella oblivous
fluid moth
Yeah your content looks great!
TYTY. It's alright, but I still have a lot to learn
I haven't made any (popular) long form content, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I have seen a ton of videos in the same niche as your video so I think I can give somewhat valuable feedback
The most obvious place to start is the subject matter of the video - a wooden computer is a total banger concept. The concept alone is enough to get views, regardless of the execution of the thumbnail or title.
In many ways you have it easy, because that is by far the most difficult thing I have when I try to teach people how to improve their videos.
The reason I started with the target audience is because your first 30 seconds don't really seem to appeal to any specific group of people.
Knowing your audeince is important for every video on youtube, but it is especially important in edutainment videos because you have to tailor your content to accommodate what they already know.
IE: If you are making a video about exponents, it might be fine to do a short recap about multiplication. But there is no need to talk (in depth) about addition - your audience should already know that.
Your thumbnail could be improved, but I don't think it is a high priority because the concept should already get plenty of views.
But once they click, they need to get sold on the video.
"I want to know how computers work, so I'm making one out of wood" -> great for noobs, but comp sci guys already know the basics.
"A turing complete computer with 288 bits of ram using a von neumann architecture" -> You risk losing the noobs, and it isn't interesting enough for the experts.
Well that second comment about losing the noobs/not engaging experts is a gross oversimplification
It makes sense that hobbiests are the audience because you immediately start teaching their level of knowledge right after the hook
The other main piece of feedback I have is the content of the video is also kinda unfocused. This is such a banger concept you could make 5-6 videos about different elements of the device.
Minor feedback is about camera angles / execution, but those are fairly obvious and I'm sure you will improve at that with time.
I could do a bigger deep dive on a discord call, I have so many thoughts it is hard to type them all.
mystic swallow
1): I think it might be easier to first show the computer and how powerful it is before talking about how its built. Kinda like how Veritasium might show in a thumbnail or intro of the cool subject matter, then work their way backwards to explain how its so cool. You have to REALLY grab the viewer's attention in the first couple of seconds, they're making a snap judgment as to whether to spend the next 12 minutes of their life on the vid or not. This doesn't mean you need mr beast style editing or some super zoomer stuff, just means that you have to engage and reward the viewer early on before proceeding to educate them. It took a long time to show
2): im not really sure why there are so many jumps in scenery? maybe it was just a cool filming location but for me it gets a bit distracting personally
3): You don't actually explain why Von Neumann architecture is so important or necessary for a computer, you explain what it is (and it could use some on-screen text since there's the list of 5 things you're mentioning) but to a layperson who doesnt know computing (or to a CS grad like me who forgot to pay attention during computer architecture LOL) im kinda left confused as to why I should care. If anything, it makes me think that I am not the target audience for this - only people with a background in computing who knows about Von Neumann are supposed to watch. Turing completeness was explained better but it still wasn't clear WHY it's such a big deal to be Turing complete
4): its visibly very difficult to understand whats going on with the register, I wonder if there's a more colorful or clearer design that could be used for a viewer to see whats currently stored in the register
5): I don't think you needed to bring up 2's complement at all, especially because it's not clear to a layperson what 2's complement is and why it's so essential for computing versus unsigned/1's complement. Again, gotta remember the target audience
6): As big and objectively cool the device is, to a viewer it's not clear why this is such a cool deal. Okay, it adds and subtracts, so what?
Overall I think the biggest huge important thing to work on is really the scriptwriting - communicating these topics it's important to remember that the target audience is probably working from very little, and you have to not only handhold them but to convince them to not let go of your hand to play Fortnite instead. For example, you use the word CPU around 9:30ish but before that I believe you were only calling the device a "computer", so to a layperson they're probably wondering where the CPU is and not making the connection that this whole device is the CPU.
veritasium, computerphile, and tom scott are all great similar channels with videos on scicomm (tom scott & computerphile also do a lot of CS videos specifically) that would be helpful to watch and analyze for how they communicate these complex expert topics to a layperson
fluid moth
I think it might be easier to first show the computer and how powerful it is before talking about how its built. Kinda like how Veritasium might show in a thumbnail or intro of the cool subject matter, then work their way backwards to explain how its so cool. You have to REALLY grab the viewer's attention in the first couple of seconds, they're making a snap judgment as to whether to spend the next 12 minutes of their life on the vid or not. This doesn't mean you need mr beast style editing or some super zoomer stuff, just means that you have to engage and reward the viewer early on before proceeding to educate them. It took a long time to show
Agreed, this is five-paragraph essay type thing. After the hook explaining why they should care, you should immediately explain what you are building and how it compares to a traditional computer.
mystic swallow
MVG (Modern Vintage Gamer) has some good vids on cybersecurity, LiveOverflow as well but his target audience is for people with a solid CS foundation so he has the luxury of skipping a lot of the considerations that you might have
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE5dW3BTpn4 this was a great explainer from Tom Scott on Heartbleed, there's almost no editing or fancy tricks but it did well at the time because it was digestible, accessible, and entertaining
fluid moth
You don't actually explain why Von Neumann architecture is so important or necessary for a computer...
Also strongly agree. It is fine to have a single sentence in part of the hook that contains fancy words that they don't know. But if you include them, it should be there to explain to the audience what they are about to learn and to get them curious.
In many ways it is the chekov's gun of edutainment.
Yeah, tom scott seems like a perfect influence for your channel - he often explains very technical computer science things in a way that is interesting for both beginners and experts.
Alternatively you could go full suckerpinch/ben eater and only explain to the highly technical computer science audience.
its visibly very difficult to understand whats going on with the register, I wonder if there's a more colorful or clearer design that could be used for a viewer to see whats currently stored in the register
Somewhat related: It is also very difficult for beginners to know binary in general, but also probably the best thing to deep dive into.
A beginner thinks of a computer as a magical box that leverages the magic of electricity.
mystic swallow
> its visibly very difficult to understand whats going on with the register, I w...
idk what there was a need to "deep dive" with though, they explain binary pretty succinctly in the video. binary is literally just a way of counting, there's not much beyond that. I guess you could explain why computers use binary instead of base 10?
fluid moth
First minute of the video doesn't explain binary at all, he jumps straight into "lets input the number in binary"
willow cypress
great feedback! Yeah I think you both are totally right
mystic swallow
tbh I thought there was gonna be some grand reveal about how the backgrounds actually connect back to computing, otherwise im not really sure what the point of the statue and the waterfalls were outside of being pretty cool to look at
willow cypress
tbh I thought there was gonna be some grand reveal about how the backgrounds act...
honestly it was just because all my visually interesting stuff in my apartment is around the computer so I had nowhere indoors to film.
mystic swallow
WSJ also does a good job with tech videos from time-to-time, since their target audience (finance bros who think AI was invented by Sam Altman and have never had the displeasure of learning Cook-Levin/K-SAT) has no clue what the weird little computer box thingies do
willow cypress
There is not really room for me to stand in front of the computer and have lights and a camera, and every time I climb inside it is difficult and risky lol