Seesmic video comments now available here
For anyone that’s using seesmic it’s now possible for you to leave video comments on this blog. It should be an interesting way for people to participate.
I am 25,000 tweets old
Half the amount of tweets from a few months ago and far less than was my habit until now. This should be the normal twitter amount from now on. Don’t have as much free time for the social media anymore.
Flickr users and video
Isn’t it amusing to see what you can find on flickr video?
Now to add some music and get a laugh out of people.
Interbine – Free your Mobile video – delivery via Wifi…
is an automated service that grabs videos from RSS feeds and converts them to 3gpp for easy download to the N95 and other mobile phones running the s60 OS. There are a number of default shows including MobuzzTV, Zefrank, National Geographic, DiggNation, Rocketboom and a number of other well known shows.
In the right hand column you have another four methods of accessing content, searching, browsing according to keywords, highest rated or what’s new. The second option is to browse through the directories they have selected to find the categories that are closest to your particular interests.
The final element is add a channel. If I wanted to I could take the RSS feed for the videos I have produced and create a channel to share with others with tags and more. The Personal feed is like a channel but for private use. The search feed works according to tags placed by other people in their videos. If you want video content about a music festival or event in a town by where you live then add those search terms and when video content appears it will be fed straight to your phone. Add youtube feed and video clip are self explanatory.
The website does not limit itself to the feeds that they have selected. With their firefox extension you may go to the youtube content of your choice and create channels of your choice. They appear in your account on the Interbine website.
Over the AIR (OTA) deliver
Once all the shows you want have been selected and the interbine application is selected you have a number of methods for downloading content over the air (OTA). These are WIFI, via the phone carrier and bluetooth. The option I have tested most extensively is Wifi. Once you’re in the application you have the option to sync all the video data you have selected and it will come to your phone for later viewing.
Since this is a mobile device there are a number of settings that are relevant, especially if you choose to get data via the carrier. These are how much space to allocate on the phone, how much data transfer you want to allow per month and how long the data will stay on your phone.
The Player
The application has a built in player that allows you to view the content per channel and then per video, allows for resuming, and syncing of the media for viewing. So far though I have had one minor inconvenience. I can’t get sound to work. I had the same problem with the youtube player so i don’t mind. (Turns out that problem was due to the warnings being off on the sound profile. That has since been fixed and it works fine) The work around has been to use the media gallery, play the content once and delete it once viewed.
What I like
What I like about this service is that it makes video content retrieval and viewing a far smoother experience than before. It may take some time to set up but once everything set according to your preferences everything else is automatic. Once you get back from work you open the application, sync your content and the next morning as you commute you’ve got a choice of video content to watch.
A Vertovian Reality
Look up Dziga Vertov and his ideas, then look at this video. Thinking of the documentary makers and their discussion about catching life unawares, getting real life to happen without the person knowing. It’s the creative treatment of actuality. That’s more Griersonian (if I remember right).
Everyone has a camera on them and certain of us stream it from where we are. Now it’s time for the documentation of a society through audiovisual means for future generations to puzzle over.
Playing with overlay tv
I’m just playing with overlays to see how they work. Move the mouse over the video and see three products appear.
940 Kilobytes per second
That’s always pleasant to see, nice download speed via wifi on an adsl connection in the swiss countryside. Meanwhile in a “Virgin media” part of the world someone mentioned a 2KB a second connection. Such is the online lifestyle.
Mobile web apps and data transfer; Jaiku and twitter
So I disagree that The Mobile Web is dead. For many of us it is just coming alive. Given the speed at which these devices are evolving and price dropping, I don’t think it’s worth people’s time to build sofware that optimizes the experience. Rather, they should use their expertise to build exciting new applications that will run directly on these new platforms.
That’s the difference between twitter and Jaiku. Twitter is an old fashioned website and application that requires data heavy websites to provide you with content whilst jaiku offers a mobile phone that requires minimum data transfer from server to phone
Another big difference is the api. With jaiku you can download all messages without needing an api’s permission. That means you can get all messages. With twitter you need to be patient. Tha api only allows sixty requests per hour… That’s one a minute. With something instant that’s stifling the conversation
Over a month of using twitter on the mobile phone I would count 300 kilobytes or more per refresh whilst with Jaiku I require just 15 megabytes of data transfer over a month to follow the conversation. As a result I much prefer the forward looking attitude that Jaiku have taken. There’s just one drawback, the community is smaller.
Twitter down, massive surge in users recently
For all those that thought twitter was finally a reliable service with a crappy api there is some sad news. Due to a massive increase in the number of users (according to a number of sources) twitter is once again providing a truly rubbish service. We’ll see how long they’re going to be unreliable this time.
Twitter as a way of life
Twitter is not a social network, rather it’s a way of life. The more you use Twitter the further it gets into your way of life. It allows you to follow current affairs, geek out about social media and keep in touch with friends that uses the social network. What’s more it’s a network that does not require any specific device.
At first it’s a confusing place. Look at the public timeline and it’s a torrent of junk and sifting through it will take hours a day. As you spend more time on twitter though you find people of interest to follow. In some cases it’s friends from the physical world, in other cases friends from other websites on the web and then more.
In reality what makes twitter interesting, and part of what makes people use it is how efficient it is at getting a message across. You’ve got 140 characters to express yourself. In Paris I was told I speak in 140 characters or less. That’s not a bad thing. In fact it’s good. It’s about the continual flow of information.
Imagine you’re swimming down a river but everytime you move to stay afloat you have to close your eyes. That’s what article and blog reading is. As you focus on one task so your ability to focus on anything else dissapears. That’s fine in the old media where pages are static and where airwaves are limited.
In the modern world though it is necessary to absorb many sources of information at once. How many of you have your ipod, laptop and mobile phone with you at the time you’re reading this post? I’m sure most. How many of you have more podcasts than you can view or listen to? How many of you have more programs recorded on PVR than you can watch?
That’s why twitter is a lifestyle. It’s about constantly looking for information and building an understanding of current affairs through constantly taking in little bits of information. Stop talking about the social media on twitter, rather start talking about the good old fashioned time efficient soundbyte. Want to be heard. Don’t take people’s time. Encourage interest instead.
Many people are complaining about the decentralised conversation, the notion that blogs are no longer the center of attention, that twitter, friendfeed, facebook and others are killing the conversation. In fact quite the opposite is true. If you’re in New York you’ve got one set of people, if you’re in London you’ve got another. if you’re in Geneva you don’t have much… To have a decentralised conversation means that many ideas can be explored at once and as pillars of the online community meet at various events so the conversations can once more converge.
Don’t worry about comments on a blog, think about the conversations and the people you’re having them with. That’s where the fun is to be had.