Some Random Nerd

View Original

...But if it was on TV, it would be rubbish

https://medium.com/@mikeindustries/on-teleportation-8104dc03ee21

But Periscope… this thing gets more and more amazing every time I use it.
I’ve witnessed baby chicks hatch live at a Texas fair. I’ve ridden along in the cockpit of someone’s plane. I’ve enjoyed concerts I didn’t even want to be at in the first place because I could dip in and dip out from my living room. I’ve shared my own panoramic view from the top of Mt. Tam with a bunch of people who weren’t lucky enough to be hiking that beautiful day.

I remember Charlie Brooker saying something along the lines of "if you take something funny on the internet and put it on TV, it isn't funny any more."

Well, I'm trying to put my finger on exactly what it is about Periscope that makes these things so interesting. Because it feels like one of those things that is surprisingly hard to put your finger on - like the reason why I will watch a film on TV - including ad breaks - in the knowledge that I have exactly the same film on DVD without the breaks, with better quality audio and picture, and with no unexpected edits. Yet I will sit there and watch the "live" version... I've heard it argued that "social media" is the reason, but its something that happened long before Facebook (and happens without Facebook/Twitter as well.) It seems to be simply the fact that we know that other people are watching the same thing at the same time.

Is it just the fact that its live? (Or "realtime".) Is it the social factor - the fact that I could be watching it through my friends phone? (Which puts it into that weird part of "social", that actually has nothing to do with my friend and/or my relationship with them - in the same way that there is nothing inherently social about watching my friend's DVD, versus watching the same film on their recommendation.)

There is, of course, another big question around it – how you go about sticking advertising around streaming, live, social/UGC video (or at least, how you make it valuable and brand safe). Maybe the real value is just for Twitter, in avoiding a different service becoming "Twitter for video" – but for me the question about the value of the service comes first.