It's more about the conversation than the mobile posting

Photo by CC Chapman: CC BY-NC-SA

At BBC NEWS | dot.life | A blog about technology from BBC News | Mobile video at Davos, Loic LeMeur comments:

"My learning using them in Davos is that in Seesmic people did not like the fact that mobile posting via Qik and Shozu to Seesmic was a one way posting. Both Scoble and myself were just broadcasting and not listening or open to conversations. We will fix this very soon.

Back to the learning: it's more about the conversation than the mobile posting."

This is a good lesson.

When broadcasting live with Qik, you can have a real-time conversation with viewers, by watching the display on the Nokia N95 and talking back.

When you enable Qik to post your archived stream to Seesmic, you need to then log on to Seesmic to participate in the followup conversation. In the meantime, anyone who is logged on to Seesmic can participate in the discussion.

So a couple of things are happening here.

1. Live two-way communication while broadcasting.

2. Follow up conversations about archived streams.

I think both can work as long as you can be selective about which live streams you send over to Seeesmic. As part of the Seesmic community, I'm trying to be careful about what I post there, since unlike Twitter, people can't unsubscribe to me for periods of time when I'm posting a lot.

Scoble Going to FastCompany.tv and Me

Robert Scoble announced on his blog where he's going next:

Why we’re going to FastCompany.tv

///The thing is that the new technology lets you PARTICIPATE with the people who are in front of the camera. You got a taste of this while I was walking around CES with a cell phone and you could ask questions WHILE I WAS FILMING LIVE. That really changes the equation a lot and that’ll be a key differentiator on FastCompany.tv. After all, if we’re talking to Fast Companies, why shouldn’t they answer YOUR questions live as well as mine?

I left him a comment:

Hey Robert congratulations!

My experience up in NH covering the primary with Qik really got me excited all over again about the PARTICIPATORY aspect of this. I love that it's one of hte things you are focusing on.

I've experimented with Mogulus and hope to try some LIVE broadcasting with it. Finding the right technical solution that works is the tricky part here. I've tried a lot of the live streaming solutions at Boston Media Makers meetings and most times there have been issues that keep the stream from working. Computer issues, configuration issues, bandwith issues... I'll be experimenting more with these technologies to find something that works for me all the time.

And finally Seesmic. Although the videos are recorded, they are live. Alive with people, and timely. On New Years Eve Carol and I had dinner with the world as we watched everyone celebrate and recorded our own toast.

2008 is going to be an exciting year.

See you in the internet and in person...

--Steve

I'd like to make a side note to Jeff Pulver. He asked me to participate in his Bucket List meme. I've been really busy so far this year and have spent some time thinking about goals for 2008. As I responded to Robert Scoble's post, those points are going to be a technology focus of mine in 2008.

My Bucket List For 2008 - Technology



1. Mobile Video Journalism - I am going to be experimenting with mobile video journalism tools like Qik that allow you to broadcast LIVE from the street. I first talked about this at a journalism conference at Harvard in 2006 and now we can make it a reality. It's very exciting. I'll be practicing Journalism By Wandering Around.



2. LIVE Participatory Broadcasts - I love the idea of two-way broadcasts that include viewers. WBZ TV in Boston started experimenting with this using a text chat. Jeff Pulver and Jonny Goldstein have been very active in this space, John Herman has also started experimenting with live improv, and Chuck Olsen has been following the campaign. I like some of the things I've seen MTV do with viewers too. I'm going to be experimenting with tools and technologies in this space to find a reliable solution.



3. The Village Square - As an investor and advisor to Seesmic, I'm excited to be working with them, enabling people to easily participate in video conversations. Since the early days of videoblogging I've been interested in subscribing to people. Seesmic is people. It'll be fun to see where this goes...

I'll be posting more Bucket Lists when I can... stay tuned.