Today twitter has reminded me of why I dislike how it’s managed. With the big Mac World event and CES twitter is down, for the count. The problem is that these crafty people have decided that rather than take the site down completely they would let it lag.
As a consequence of this lag the site has been rendered redundant but don’t worry. Other sites like plurk, friendfeed and facebook are still standing.
Since I started using the world wide web one thing has become clear over the past year. The web has become personal. We have seen a migration from a worldwide web of strangers where everyone is hiding behind an avatar to a worldwide web where no one is hiding behind an avatar, where everyone wants to be seen.
In the early days of the world wide web when no one was sure what the world wide web was about many people created websites and web rings and such were formed. Webrings were an early form of tagging whereby a list of websites on a particular subject would be put together to help promotion between websites. Over time this disintegrated.
Another difference is the mentality of webmastering. Whereas before a website was designed to provide text-based information within the smallest amount of data (due to network limitations) it has gone the other way. From HTML pages to Flash-based video players. The Web has become a far more important tool now that broadband is so popular.
At the same time, broadband and “always-on” connections have meant that whenever you turn on the computer you’re online. In the early days, I had a friendship with a Swedish girl, via e-mail. The friendship was an interesting one because it was one thousand word e-mails one to two times a day for an entire month before it ceased completely. That’s a lot of communication between two countries at a time when social networking was in its infancy, at least online.
Remember the Geocities chatrooms, those that were text-based were a popular question was A/S/L… Those days were more interesting. In those days you’d chat with someone and try to keep them interested and establish a friendship which would result in getting an e-mail address to stay in contact. Profiles and logins became more advanced and chatrooms are now designed so that everything about you is clearly visible (that you choose to make public) therefore some of the more basic questions are no longer needed.
I have been a member of many online forums and I have seen how they have changed from being fairly simple places for people to share ideas a post at a time to massively complex social networking websites such as myspace, Facebook and others. This brings me to the idea of portals.
I remember when companies like yahoo attempted to give you as much information as possible on their main page and the most activities to enjoy were numerous so that you would stay there. A few years later and one of the top social networking websites is Facebook where not only do you have all your friends as members of the network but additionally they may choose how much they share with others. It’s become a central node for the web-based user experience.
In this time those networks have demonstrated one thing, the ability to re-establish links. On Facebook it’s getting back in contact with school friends I haven’t seen for more than a decade whilst in other situations, it’s about people we met during vacations in another country. It’s a way for friendships to be created and to remain alive thanks to the virtual communities that have formed.
I wonder how long it’ll be before my friends use Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce or other SMS enabled social networking communities online. In America, with Facebook, this is already a reality. For other countries with patience, it will be a reality as well and we will be truly connected.
I’m already experimenting with that idea via twitter.
Operator 11 has taken video sharing and webcasting to the next level. Whereas websites such as youtube, google video, myspace, and Facebook all allow you to upload and share videos this one allows you two additional features.
The first difference can be spotted when you sign up and arrive at the profile page. Rather than have text dialogue boxes you are offered a set of questions. You are expected to respond to these with a video message. You can describe who you are, what films and television you like, what books and interests you have.
As a result, your status as a lurker has already been compromised. People see you and you see them. That’s just the first step.
It’s whilst watching The Old Grey Video test that I saw the great potential that this website has. It allows you to switch between webcams in different countries. What this means is that the presenter presents the show and tells everyone about the program before introducing his guests, at which point he switches from his camera to that of one of the guests. As a result of this technology, a video dialogue between individuals is possible.
You may deal with the video content in a number of ways. The first of these is that you start a show and just talk until you run out of things to say before quitting the show and stopping the Livestream. The second option is to go into the video library. Here you can see your old shows and comments, you can upload video clips with a size limit of 200 megabytes, plenty for video inserts. The third option is to record some videos straight from the computer to the website.
Once this step is complete the fun may really begin. You go to create a show and have the choice between starting the show immediately or scheduling it for another time of day. If you start the show immediately then a few people may hear about the show but there’s a good chance that the viewership is low. A second option is that you schedule the show for a different time and day. As a result of this, you may tell your friends that at a specific time you will have a live show.
Now that the first two steps are done and that your show is about to start you start preparing your inserts and making sure that your guest video streams are ready. The clips which you had selected earlier and uploaded are now all in the video library. You may select up to 9 video streams ready for playout when you chose to cue them. Assuming you’ve had a show for a while you may roll the intro clip introducing the show. You may select a second source, for example, your camera and press cue. What the cue does is tell the website’s software that the next source should be your camera. Once the intro finishes rolling you’re on, telling the world about your show, and during this time you’re going to go to select another source, for example, some interview from the street. You cue that source and select to broadcast that stream. The camera’s off you and you’ve got time to prepare the next clip.
When preparing the clips you can preview them, making sure that it’s the right clip. Once that’s done you cue that as the next video. As long as the clips are long enough in duration you can keep switching from clip to clip. If you’ve got more videos than sources simply replace a video you’ve already played with another one.
Whilst I have not yet had the chance to switch between live sources through this software I have watched how it is used. Already I’ve found that there are three or four social groups that are part of the system. As one group of friends sits in one apartment another individual is watching them. If he chooses to he can go into the “live” room. Once he’s in there the “director” can see the video stream coming in whilst the guest can make a request to be on camera or to play a video clip. That’s the business end of this software because that’s what allows conversations to occur between individuals. At times this may be between two people but at other times this may be between a cluster of live feeds. As a result, you can talk to anyone around the world about any topic. It’s great.
In the past few hours of use, I have seen computer gaming shows, teens talking to other teens, cats playing with string, and walking on ledges. I have seen people play music on request and live events in various parts of the world. As a result, there is an interesting diversity of programs on offer.
It’s also a great learning experience. Having done vision mixing, directing, studio camera operator, and insert editor with full production crews mainly for my university course I find this environment is quite complete. It’s a simple but powerful user interface and I should be giving it a proper try out at 8 pm British summertime, 12am PST. The show will be called twitter vox and should discuss the twitter phenomenon.
An additional bonus is the fact that you can plug a DV input into your laptop and the source will be recognised as a result of which you can get a much higher quality video image, aside from pixelation. Better than not seeing anything.
Overall I think this is one of the most interesting video sites I’ve seen in a long time and I plan on using it to its full potential.
What makes the situation in Cairo so interesting is the number of media outlets that you can use as sources. From 24 hour news channels like France 24, Al Jazeera, BBC World and others to individual people with mobile phones. For France 24 you have three languages to chose from, with Al Jazeera to you have three languages to chose from. With Sky News you have the choice between Standard definition and High definition.
You have live cameras looking into the square. There is no lag time between the acquisition and distribution of images. There is the challenge of aquiring images from the ground though. Journalists have been attacked, as reported on twitter, and through interviews once they arrive in their home countries.
Tweets have told us of arrests of certain individuals, of attacks on certain media offices etc. It means that whilst those within the country may not have access to this information we on the outside see it.
One of the aspects that is so interesting is the way in which people have been able to organise themselves. Facebook, twitter and other social websites have been important, like Bambuser and flickr. Mainstream as well.
I am looking forward to the literature that will come out from this event, especially if it successful. Imagine comparing a situation like that of Tomas in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” to this situation, especially if the end result is greater freedom.
Recently I have noticed individuals tweeting as if they were people, asking questions and getting 120 or more comments. They ask a question like “What was your first OS” or “What is your current setup” or other questions. These are generic questions that everyone has an answer to, so everyone answers to them. Those answering think either that they will get a personal answer back, or that they will increase their visibility by answering to these questions where no one cares about the answer, except marketers.
These questions are simple, and brilliant in their deceptiveness. They give the illusion of a personal question, but require no timeline reading, no investment of time or attention. Just broadcast a generic question, and wait for answers.
When I see that a tweet has three hundred answers I usually don’t bother to answer. I look for one on one conversations that may expand to four or five people, but no more. I have no interest in listening to a crowd that does not listen back, and by listen I mean read tweets.
I come from the age of chatrooms and web forums, an age where we were part of communities where everyone knew our name. I come from the Cheers age of the web. “Hello everyone”, “Hey norm”. An age where presence and time meant visibility, rather than algorithm seduction.
The accounts that I start to see more and more, are just noise. They don’t give me a reason to spend hours on the web. They give me a desire to do something else.
This morning I did do something else. Clothes washing, looking at kindles and learning about what service workers can do, by a four year old course that seems out of date. It wasn’t part of learning path I would have dumped it and moved on. I find it hard to watch courses where I can’t get practical experience. I will find relevant information to put the theory I am learning, into practice.
And that’s it for today.
