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Tweetree’s Value Is Embedded Media

Bwana — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:56:13 +0000

I’ll admit, when I first saw Robert Scoble‘s Tweet on FriendFeed about Tweetree, I was immediately skeptical. Robert posted that it was a decent app, but not going to replace TweetDeck for him. I saw the name, and I thought: “Great, another Twitter application that’s going to try to hack conversation context“. You may recall, I wrote about Quotably back in March 2008, and their attempt to capture Twitter conversations in a nice format.

I went over to tweetree.com and saw threaded conversations which met my expectations, but I also saw something else:

Embedded media.

Dave Winer has been begging Twitter to do something like this for quite some time. Dave has went on record to state Tweetree is on the right track:

This is brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. And exactly what I asked for, which of course makes me happy!!

These guys are brilliant. Great stuff. They’ll be rich next week so be nice to them

We’ve seen threaded Twitter before. Heck, even Twitter search has a “Show conversation” link which tries to give the complete conversation context. What we haven’t seen (or at least I haven’t seen) on Twitter is embedded media.

Tweetree supports the following:

Youtube
Flickr
TwitPic
FriendFeed (Yup!)
Seesmic
Qik
Lala
Blip.fm
xkcd

So if you link to any of the above, Tweetree shows you the associated media right on the website. If you would like to see examples, just search for the service in Tweetree’s search box.

Now I know we saw very similar functionality in Pownce (may it rest in peace), Rejaw, Plurk, and others, but this is Twitter. The big kahuna. The main squeeze. That’s the reason why it’s a big deal. I’ve been using Tweetree for less than a day, and what keeps me coming back is the embedded media.

I’ll be following this one closely. You can check out my timeline on Tweetree at http://tweetree.com/bwana.

*** UPDATE: I’ve asked FriendFeed what they think is more valuable at Tweetree. Join the conversation here.

*** UPDATE 2 I’ve performed a quick walkthrough of the interface in this video:

In Search Of A Video Micro-blogging Solution

Bwana — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:46:14 +0000

As we become spread out on the internet, we find that we have less time to concentrate on one thought. Over the years, we’ve created a new disease that I call IIADD which stands for I.nternet I.nduced A.ttention D.eficit D.isorder. I have it and if you’re reading this, you probably have it to. We can’t focus on one blog post, one web page, one application at a time. We tend to jump around from post to post, thought to thought, application to application, forever trying to satisfy our lust for more knowledge.

As a result, we’ve taken internet publishing to the “micro” level. We publish snippets of audio, text, and images on what we dub “micro-blogs”. This gives us an excuse to cherish and nurture our IIADD. “Hey, I just read this great post on TechCrunch… Ooo look, this Flickr image of a bird chasing its tail!… I need to record a podcast…Maybe I’ll eat spaghetti tonight…Ooo food network has a great recipe…Wow FriendFeed is weird, I need to get used to it…. I like turtles“. You know I what I mean.

Micro-blogging is the new black on the internets.

Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web.
-Wikipedia

Although that’s a fairly accurate definition, Wikipedia failed to mention one medium: Video. As our dump trucks fill up with more and more information, we are able to push video media fairly easily these days. Youtube, Viddler, and Seesmic (and others not mentioned) allow us to record a video directly from our web browser. The only requirement is a webcam or camera connected to one’s computer.

I’ve decided to embrace video micro-blogging here on Bwana.org. Why? Believe it or not, I once vowed never to do online video, which is why I jokingly made my Bwana.TV motto, “..And you said it couldn’t be done”. Now I have a partnered Youtube channel and have produced hundreds of videos that are well received by the informationsphere. I also do live video streaming via Ustream.TV and stream my audio podcast production daily for the world to enjoy. I’ve decided to do this because video is where it’s at. Also, I’ve decided to go in this direction because my IIADD said so.

On Bwana.org’s main page, you’ll find a video on the top right. This idea was influenced by both Chris Pirillo, and the guys behind theleetgeeks.com (wirelesspacket, bluefox, 4four1ones). Chris embeds his live video stream on every page of his blog, chris.pirillo.com. As a result, his audience grows by leaps and bounds daily. I played with this idea many times, but never streamed consistently enough to make my show grow the same. The site, theleetgeeks.com, has a wonderful layout which I believe was led by a great web developer, bluefox. They have embedded a small video micro-entry on the top right of their page. After I saw that, I was influenced and began to think:

How can I do that on Bwana.org effectively?

My first thought was Seesmic. Seesmic’s sole purpose is video micro-blogging. It is there for you to record short snippets of video, Twitter style. There is one problem. Seesmic is in “beta”, more like “alpha” if you ask me. I do not agree with the interface and it still has work to be done. I’m not trying to knock Seesmic, it’s just I recognize it for what it is: A work in progress. With their acquisition of Twhirl already making waves on the almighty tubes, Seesmic has a bright future. I’ll be watching them closely. [Update: Seesmic was going through a hardware migration today which explained some of my issues. In that light, they still aren't ready for prime time, but I want to use them]

My next thought was Viddler. Viddler has proved to be a very reliable and flexible platform for publishing video. Their use of inline video commenting is nothing short of ground breaking. I uploaded a test video there today and gave it a shot. While it worked for the most part, I would have preferred a much more elegant solution for my WordPress blog. Namely, I want a simple tag to put in my template which shows a static video, or the latest video in a RSS feed (namely a feed based on a particular tag). This solution has potential, but some kinks need to be worked out to fit my workflow.

Finally, I moved to Flickr Video. Flickr does Video? Yeah. First, the limitations: 150MB file size and 90 seconds of video. My test video (after encoding/compression through VisualHub) came to 4.4MB and 32 seconds. Ok, that shouldn’t be a problem. The next task was ease of integration. The situation was almost identical to Viddler’s. I’d have to manually copy and paste (or later script) the embed code into an include file on my server to show the latest/desired video. Flickr video seems perfect for video micro-blogging as it forces you to condense your material like Twitter (140 characters or less). This solution is what I’m currently testing, but I’m not sure it’s my final one.

So what say you? What is the best video micro-blogging solution for you? I’m definitely open to new suggestions.

Flickr Video: I like it.

Bwana — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:23:12 +0000

I really don’t have reasons not to like it. It’s in the same category as Seesmic in terms of “video microblogging” from my point of view. I don’t really care about the 90 second limit on the video to be honest. I agree with Gruber in that Twitter is limited to 140 chars, so why can’t video be limited to 90 seconds? Time to be creative people! Don’t even start on the 150MB limitation. I was able to get a 12 minute video under 100MB using VisualHub for Mac, and I’m sure there are similar tools on the Windows and Linux platforms respectively. I’ve already gotten started:

I’ve also joined the “Fridget” meme mentioned on the Flickr blog post. iSobot ftw.

All videos shot with my Canon Powershot TX1 in 720p, and then converted down 640×352 using Visualhub.