Prowling the interwebs: Ustream.TV, Friendfeed, Twitter
My prowlings around the interwebs today provoked some thoughts about three unique and up-and-coming players on the interwebs landscape.
Ustream.TV
Ustream.TV is a “live interactive video broadcast platform.” It combines live video streaming with live chat and throws some basic social networking features into the mix. What that means is that you can run a live show while at the same time allowing live chat to take place among chatters in which the show host or hosts can also take part. Further, you can also partake in “non-live” interaction such as show page commenting.
It’s an interesting and slightly odd mix, driven by the eclectic and slightly oddball lineup of offerings that ustream has on tap. For example, a quick browse around the site shows a Johnny Knoxville (of Jackass fame) show, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis basically responding verbally to chatters while he worked away on other stuff, and some sort of live feed provided by the San Diego Police.
It’s a potent and timely mix, video and social networking and a real-time communications experience. I’m curious to see where this will go.
Friendfeed
Everyone keeps on talking about Friendfeed, and it certainly has that early Twitter buzz out of the blogosphere thus far. SEO and Tech Daily posits a few ideas as to why the “frenzy” continues, such as riding the buzz (correctly and well, presumably) and releasing an open API at the right moment.
Friendfeed is a great and powerful and simple product: you sign up and people can then track all of your publishing online, from blog posts to comments to twitter tweets, to social networking profile announcements. The downside to this of course is that it can make you too visible, particularly when seeing comments and thoughts posted out of context and in a huge stream. There’s the thought too that people can have an extraordinarily close insight to all your online doings, movements, and communications as well. Of course, many people love this idea – particularly bloggers and web entrepreneurs, so power to all of y’all of them.
I’m kind of back in the Twitter fold after an absence of many months. (Are some of my comments about Friendfeed above somewhat paradoxical considering this last statement? Probably!) It really is a fun way to “listen in” on thoughts and links and short and concise blurbs from a select group of people around the globe in nearly real time. The key word here is select. I’m trying to cull the list of people I’m following to people I know personally, people I admire and trust and who provide great lists, and people who are really interesting… like the fake Capt. Mal Reynolds profile, of course.
Here’s my Twitter page. Enjoy!
Recent Entries
- There’s a lot going on with the Interwebs, and that’s a good thing
- The rambling shambling social networking funhouse that is MySpace
- Are social news sites like Digg useful anymore?
- Could Google Friend Connect be a MySpace killer?
- How will Twitter ever make money?
- Google Earth comes to life-like
- Grand Theft Auto IV goes very very old school
- Gadgets threaten the Internet’s future? Ridiculous
- The online video monetization equation (or, how do you make money on this stuff?)
- Using smart content aggregation and smart people networks to beat back the over coverage plague
