Video is back for the next iteration

Ross Hill — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:17:26 +0000

Video is back. The last big iteration was when Youtube exploded in popularity and anyone in the world could upload a video to share online. While that was cool, not many people were uploading video because the tools were still fairly difficult to use and there was no easy way to share videos privately.

But video is back, in a big way. Macs come with built-in webcams, and the iPhone 3GS records video that you can upload direct to Youtube. The hardware and the online services are ready.

Yesterday afternoon I saw Twitcam explode onto the scene and after playing around with it for 20 minutes and exclaiming at how cool it was, I saw Darren Rowse’s stream link pop up on Twitter. As I watched Darren was taking questions from the audience and replying in realtime! Now none of this is new individually but when you combine the package of signing in with your existing social graph through Twitter and having one-click broadcast to a short url – that’s a pretty impressive package!

Tonight Steve Sammartino ran a stream for an hour, taking questions on Rentoid and Startup Blog. It was really quite engaging and reminded me of just how much it is TV turn to die. There is going to be an avalanche of video content streaming all over the place very soon, and you can be sure that this stuff will be available on mobile devices very soon. The reach and potential of live mobile video is really amazing especially when you factor in that people will be notifying their social graph when they start broadcasting and that those followers can not only share the stream but comment back in realtime.

Everyone is connected, and everyone just became a live news reporter.

Ross Hill » twitcam

Video is back for the next iteration