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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsmAZR2RLA4]

Last night during a general browse of YouTube I ran across a link to a new feature called Video Annotation.  This appears to be a new feature that has only just been launched and I’m in the process of experimenting with it to determine it’s functionality, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses.

I’ll report more on this when time permits (see updates below).

In the meantime here is an initial clip I put together.  Unfortunately it appears that annotations aren’t devolved to embedded instances of the clips, so to view the annotations I’ve included in the above video you’ll need to visit the original version on YouTube.

From YouTube Support site (”What are video annotations“):

“Video annotations are a new way for you to add interactive commentary onto your videos!

You control what the annotations say, where they appear on the video, and when they appear and disappear. You can even link from an annotation to another YouTube Video, Channel, or Search result.

To get started, log into your YouTube account and choose one of two options:

Option 1:

1. Click “Account” at the top of any page.
2. Under “Manage My Videos”, click “Videos, Favorites, & Playlists”.
3. Find the video you’d like to add annotations to.
4. Click the “Annotate Video” button.

Option 2:

1. Choose to play one of your videos.
2. At the bottom of your video description box (on the right) you have “Video Owner Options” on a blue background.
3. Click the “Add/Edit Annotations” button.

For more info on how to create and edit annotations, please visit: “How do I create or edit video annotations?”

Video annotations, once published, are shown by default. You can turn them off while watching a video through the “Menu” button on the bottom right of the video player.

Please note: Video annotations are available now as a “beta” feature. We’re working hard to get this out of beta and, once we do, annotations will officially support languages other than English, embeds, and full-screen playback.”

Update 1: Educational Implications

I’m pretty disappointed in the limitations of the new annotation feature in some respects.  What could have been a truly useful tool for providing supplemental reference material has been seriously hindered by the restrictions.  Specifically:

No Outbound Links:

The ability to include embedded links to contextually relevant external material would be so beneficial in expanding the scope and depth of the message - however this is not permitted currently.  By formatting URL references as a clickable link - particularly that spawned in a new tab or window - students would be able bring up additional information to refer to after viewing the clip.

For example, a clip on water conservation could embed links to wikipedia articles, research papers, quotes, news articles, assignments, discussion forums, etcetera.

However as it stands currently that’s not possible.  The only recognised links are those within YouTube - be they search results, channels or other links.

Instructors could of course format the links as static text that students could type into their browser manually, however this is not nearly as effective as the clickable version as the static link would need to be displayed for a much longer duration and would inevitably distract and detract from the main message.

Annotations Not Shown in Embedded Instances:

Equally frustrating is the fact that embedded instantiations of the video clips do not display the annotations (at least currently).  To view them users must visit the site specifically.  In many regards this drastically reduces the value of the annotation tool to education, since video can do only so much for elaboration after which point textual elements are required.

Educators would be forced into a situation where they are either repeating their key points in two separate locations - once as an annotation in the local YouTube clip and again in text at the embedded location - or forgoing the annotation entirely.

Embedded media is an incredibly effective way to convey a message.  Not only does the visual element increase engagement, it also caters to different learning styles.  Given the systemic drought of time availability experienced by academic staff I can’t see them doing both.

I can only hope that the functionality of the video annotation tool will be expanded over time, because it could become a very useful tool.

Update 2 (CORRECTION): Referring to the quote from the YouTube support site above I note YouTube indicates:

“Please note: Video annotations are available now as a “beta” feature. We’re working hard to get this out of beta and, once we do, annotations will officially support languages other than English, embeds, and full-screen playback.” (Emphasis mine)

Therefore it would seem that YouTube has every intention of pushing annotations out to embedded instances in the future, which is very good news.

References:

• “Video Annotation“, Mike Bogle, YouTube, 05 June 2008
• “How do I create or edit video annotations?”, YouTube Support, Accessed 5 June 2008

There’s been a great deal of chatter recently in the wake of Adobe’s two-fisted launch of acrobat.com and Acrobat 9. As Erik Schonfeld from TechCrunch elaborates ["Webtop Watch: Adobe Launches Acrobat.com and Releases Acrobat 9 (With Flash)"]:

“Acrobat.com is a combination of three recently launched online services: Adobe Brio (online meetings), Adobe Buzzword (online word processor), and Adobe Share (online file sharing). Thus with the public beta launch of Acrobat.com, Adobe is taking on Google Docs, Microsoft Office Live Workspace, WebEx, and GoTo Meeting—all at the same time.”

I have of course taken the opportunity to test drive the suite of tools that constitutes acrobat.com, however the program that has captured the bulk of my interest is their web conferencing offering - ConnectNow.

Having spent the better part of 2.5 years facilitating web conferences using Connect’s predecessor Macromedia Breeze, I’ve been taken back by the relative absence of web conferencing service providers.

There are of course Elluminate and WebEx, as well as what one might call lesser-known providers. However in light of the Instant Messaging wars between powerhouses like Skype, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN, as well as emerging livestreaming services like Justin.TV, Ustream.TV and Yahoo! Live, you would have assumed that someone would have recognised the gap in the landscape for a widely available high quality web-based conferencing provider.

Online video is an absolutely HUGE niche right now, so this absence has always been a mystery to me. In that sense the emergence of Adobe ConnectNow is long overdue.

I devoted the better part of 2 hours this evening to evaluating ConnectNow, and as Schonfeld mentions in the TechCrunch article, it is a somewhat lightened version of Adobe’s other webconf offerings. Perhaps the most noticeable gap in functionality is the inability to upload and display PowerPoint presentations in a pod within the main session. In my experiences with web conferences, next to the audio-visual elements this is the most frequently requested activity. The fact it’s been left out (at least so far) is truly surprising.

The screen sharing tool will let you conduct PowerPoint presentations, however in order to do this the bulk of the application disappears from the perspective of the presenter. So effectively the opportunity to present your slides comes at the expense of your ability to see much of the rest of the ConnectNow toolset.

(NB: I can only compare ConnectNow with my knowledge of Breeze given I haven’t had the opportunity to evaluate Connect yet.)

Perhaps this omission is an attempt to motivate users to invest licensed copies of Connect; however I would hazard to say it will be a deal breaker for many users.

This factor aside thought, the rest of the toolsuite offers a great deal of functionality and flexibility while retaining fairly userfriendly sensibilities. In addition to the audio-video chat functionality there is a whiteboard tool, filesharing pod, shared notes and agendas, teleconference dial-in support, and of course the screen sharing option.

The latter opens the door to presenting any file format or program to the meeting - regardless of how obscure or rare - because the meeting is relying upon a single machine to provide the software and file rather than all having to have duplicate copies.

In terms of obstacles to uptake there are those who argue the 3 location restriction may be significant. For example Sarah Perez from ReadWriteWeb argues (”Adobe Launches Online Office Suite and New Flash-Enabled Acrobat 9“):

“The only drawback to ConnectNow is its limitations in terms of number of people. Currently, only three people can use the service simultaneously, which limits its ability to offer a true alternative to a business’s current web conferencing solution.”

This is true to a degree I think, but I don’t think it’s going to be a deal breaker on a wide scale. This is especially true given the increasing popularity of web conferencing rooms that cater to groups of 5 or more people. In this case the restriction of 3 would refer to locations and not people. For example if 3 universities linked up 3 web conferencing rooms, each with 10 people, you’d have a meeting of 30 people; not just 3.

Trying to conduct a web conference containing 30 people isn’t a particularly good idea though of course as each individual would have very few opportunities to participate. Equally importantly is the fact the cameras would have to zoom back exceptionally far to capture all the attendees, meaning each individual appeared microscopic on screen.

Nonetheless the fact remains that we’re talking locations, not just people.

All that being said, ConnectNow is a welcome addition to the field of web conferencing and I will continue to track its progress with interest.

References:

• “Webtop Watch: Adobe Launches Acrobat.com and Releases Acrobat 9 (With Flash)“, Erik Schonfeld, TechCrunch, 1 June 2008
• “Adobe Launches Online Office Suite and New Flash-Enabled Acrobat 9“, Sarah Perez, ReadWriteWeb, 1 June 2008
• TechMeme thread: http://www.techmeme.com/080602/p4#a080602p4

I have to say I admire the folks at Twitter for the transparency they’re trying to provide into the nature of the ongoing outage debacles that have befallen the application of late.

According to a recent post on the Twitter Blog released Wednesday, May 21, 2008:

“We’ve gone through our various databases, caches, web servers, daemons, and despite some increased traffic activity across the board, all systems are running nominally. The truth is we’re not sure what’s happening. It seems to be occurring in-between these parts.

We’re busy working on instrumenting and adding meters to provide visibility into what’s slowing Twitter down. We’ll use this data both to alleviate the current woes and to help inform our long-term architecture work to make Twitter a utility service people can count on. We’ve definitely failed that aim this week.”

To me the wording of this entry reveals some very interesting insight into what’s going on at Twitter behind the scenes - and it reeks of desperation.  This post comes from a company that is absolutely panicking about the downward spiral of discontent in which they’ve found themselves and are frantically trying to stop the slide.

First there is frustration - massive frustration - over what appears to be a completely mysterious, and equally high-profile problem.   For despite the knowledge that users are demanding answers - now bordering on outright revolt and exodus - they have none to give.  As a result Twitter is being forced to do the unthinkable, and publicly declare they have no idea what is going wrong.

In saying this the second theme of this post becomes clear: Damage Control.  They know full well they are getting hammered from all sides about the ongoing outages and sluggish performance.  They desperately need some good press, or indeed a reprieve of any kind in which users start to act a bit more understanding about what’s going on.

So they’ve been reduced to pleading for patience and are now effectively saying: “we know we’ve completely stuffed up, but we’re trying to fix it.”

Unfortunately for Twitter, the fact remains that, with each Twitter outage, the user feedback and tech coverage grows more and more viscerally damning.  Despite its phenomenal usage and adoption rate, Twitter has got to be the toughest gig to be a part of in the online services market today.

It remains to be seen whether their pleads will be heard by the masses.  Somehow, I doubt it.

Update: A perusal of many blog entries discussing Twitter’s post reveals that - contrary to my initial suspicions - people do appreciate the honesty coming out of the company.  I must say I’m inclined to agree with them.  It’s a hard thing to admit you’re still at square one with a big problem like this, but in doing just that Twitter seems to have earned back a degree of trust and understanding from some members of the community.

It’s a step in the right direction - even in the face of the ongoing problems.

References:

• “I have this graph on my screen all the time…” Twitter Blog, 21 May 2008

There’s been a lot of discussion in the tech sector recently - most notably depicted on TechMeme - regarding the concept of Internet “noise.”

Robert Scoble is among those who argue the noise is incredibly valuable and should be embraced. His logic is to the effect that mainstream media (MSM) sites - and even aggregated collections of MSM sites, such as those appearing on Google News - focus on conveying polished, easily digested sources of information which are designed for quick consumption, but are not wholly representative of the complexities and realities of user opinion.

New forms of mass communication such as Twitter on the other hand are the exact opposite. When taken piece-meal you gain an interesting sense of insight into the thoughts and opinions of each individual user. However, when aggregated in bulk the threads merge into a cacophony of voices that is truly overwhelming initially.

As overwhelming as this is on the surface, Scoble and others argue that the noise is indicative of trends - whether established or emerging - however you have to know how to listen, filter, and as importantly, interpret.

For a long time I didn’t understand what they were driving at by saying the noise is good, however in my continued reading of Eric Raymond’s “The Cathedral and The Bazaar“, I think I’m starting to understand.

In the section titled “Release Early, Release Often“, Raymond describes the logic behind the Linux philosophy of early and frequent release cycles. Notably this section quips the now famous saying: “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” However it also discusses the concept of the Delphi Effect:

“Sociologists years ago discovered that the averaged opinion of a mass of equally expert (or equally ignorant) observers is quite a bit more reliable a predictor than the opinion of a single randomly-chosen one of the observers. They called this the Delphi effect.”

It would seem therefore that the trends inherent in the noise, which Scoble et al are listening to, are in fact a contemporary, publicly visible instantiation of the Delphi Effect - and on a mass scale.

If this is the case it also immediately highlights the value inherent in what Duncan Riley recently anointed the “Blogging 2.0” era. Here conversation and discussion have taken centre stage; and ideas, not content, reign supreme.

The conversations presently occurring on Twitter, FriendFeed, Disqus and the like provide an amazing insight into not just popular culture trends, but the myriad of opinions, and ultimately people that underpin them.

From a sociological standpoint the research potential is truly remarkable - the key question is how to harness this opportunity.

References:

• “Delphi effect“, Wikipedia, accessed 20 May 2008
• “Blogging 2.0: It’s All About The User“, Duncan Riley, The Inquisitr, 18 May 2008
• “The Cathedral and The Bazaar“, Eric Raymond, May 1993

In a post yesterday, Duncan Riley stated “Blogging 2.0: It’s All About The User“, arguing that in many ways blogging has reaching a paradigm shift in which the nature of the technology - and the communication it facilitates - has changed.

“If blogging 1.0 was about enabling the conversation on each blog, blogging 2.0 is about enabling the conversation across many blogs and supporting sites and services. The conversation has matured and no longer is it acceptable to believe that as a content owner you hold exclusive domain over conversations you have started. Users/ readers today demand more than a conversation on one site, and blogging 2.0 facilitates this.”

This is a powerful statement with profound implications for the nature of what blogging is, as well as what it will become. Duncan isn’t the first person to argue this point, however for me personally his logic is the most clear and compelling thus far.

Duncan cites the example of a debate with Robert Scoble about full versus partial RSS feeds, saying he had argued two points:

“…one that it limited the ability of spammers to republish your content, secondly because a part feed drove traffic back to the main site if people wanted to read all the content.”

The fear in including full feeds, Riley argued, was that blogs would be circumvented and readers would not ever visit the site to view the original content. Similarly, he continues, in the context of Blogging 1.0 vs. 2.0, the key threat perceived by bloggers when considering applications like FriendFeed is the loss of control. I have argued the same point myself many times, such as the post I wrote on Shyftr in April.

However having read and re-read his post several times now I’ve begun to question my position. In fact I’m beginning to wonder if there is in fact an inverse relationship between the level of control held by an individual and the vibrancy of the community and depth of discussion that surrounds the content they produce.

An example of this theory in practice might be the Linux community.

The Empowered Community

In 1997, in the now famous work “The Cathedral and The Bazaar“, Eric Raymond discussed the stark contrasts between the long-standing, orderly development style of Unix with the relatively newer, seemingly anarchic style of Linux development.

Describing Unix software, Raymond said:

“I believed (before discovering Linux) that the most important software…needed to be built like cathedrals, carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation…”

In striking contrast, the Linux development style adopted by Linus Torvalds came as quite a surprise and “overturned much of what [he] thought [he] knew.”

“…the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches…out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.”

The significance of this example is that in devolving Linux development to the community mind, Torvald facilitated the gathering of a populous of extraordinarily passionate and empowered individuals. Over time the contributions of each individual were aggregated into a single writhing mass of discussion-driven and cooperative productivity and a body of knowledge and experience that continues to expand today.

The result of this has culminated not only in the GNU/Linux we know today, but as importantly a community of people who have arguably accomplished more together than they could have separately.

In establishing Linux development as a meritocracy, Torvalds empowered the community and arguably inspired a greater sense of ownership in the project than exists in similar proprietary products. In return user/developer contributions exploded, as did their dedication to the community.

In the context of Duncan’s Blogging 2.0 post, Blogging 1.0 saw authors and editors as the kings of their castles and conversations/comments relegated to a secondary position at the bottom of the post. To a fair degree this prevented the knowledge from escaping the confines of the site. Discussion was retained in the comments area, and readers were obliged to return there for updates. It was not, and is not, a level playing field that inspires a great sense of ownership in the discussion; conversations occur on the author’s terms, not the readers.

In the realm of Blogging 2.0 content takes on an entirely new role as fuel for conversations.  Applications like FriendFeed and Disqus restore community interactivity back to where it should have been all along - a forum for discussions on IDEAS not just comments on content.

You do not own conversations - you merely contribute to them.  Making a name for yourself in the Blogging 2.0 world is therefore about how you participate.

So it would seem the question for bloggers going forward is: How will you participate in the conversation?

References:

• “Blogging 2.0: It’s All About The User“, Duncan Riley, The Inquisitr, 18 May 2008
• “The Cathedral and The Bazaar“, Eric Raymond, May 1993

As we speak Seesmic’s servers are getting absolutely hammered by traffic - but holding up - as news quickly circulates of a series of Q&A-based discussions that took place tonight involving Hollywood heavyweights Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, George Lucas and Karen Allen.  Based on emerging reports it appears that the series of posted videos relates to the upcoming release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Jemima Kiss at PDA (”Spielberg pops up on Seesmic“) was involved in the discussions and had the opportunity to send several question, later saying:

“I asked Spielberg if he had any plans for the small screen, if he’d thought of playing the narrative possibilities of geo-location on mobile or the interactivity of the web. He replied that he is working on a web project he can’t talk about (he might have been referring to the rumoured paranormal social network! He also worked with a games company recently.) but then went on to describe several new TV projects. The mini-series, he said, is where he gets creatively inspired, and he’s working on one about the Mayflower and one about the Pacific during the war.”

Kiss’ post at PDA features 5 embedded responses from the discussions and is worth a look - especially given her first hand participation in the event.  With the clips displaying post times of less than 4 hours ago (as of the time of this post) I suspect more information will emerge on the background of this as time progresses.

From what I’ve gathered so far there was a gap of nearly a day in some cases between when questions were submitted and when replies were posted.

For example in the case of a question for Harrison Ford regarding maturity, elmundoes submitted the question 22 hours ago and the reply from Harrison Ford was posted 3 to 4 hours ago.

For Seesmic this is huge press.  I hope they’re prepared for it.

In the wake of this news the web will undoubtedly be set alight with analysis about the event, what was said, or perhaps not said, and in particular what the implications may be for what appears to be the next wave in internet communication and online video.

I recently did a write up of Seesmic, covering the user experience, technical side, and initial observations ["Seesmic: Initial Impressions and Use Case Proposal", 12 May 2008] beginning:

“…My early impression: Seesmic does for video communication what Twitter does for text chat.

While not restricting users to 140 characters in the same way Twitter does (the video constraints are yet to be investigated), the goal of Seesmic seems to be much the same; and that is to facilitate rapid, large-scale, publicly visibly, asynchronous discussions.”

The realm of online video continues to explode, with online hosting and streaming sites like YouTube maturing into the largest trafficked sites on the web today.  However in addition to this we’ve also begun to see a new generation of activity in the form of web casting sites - like UStream, Yahoo! Live and Justin.TV - and now sites like Seesmic that are geared more towards rapid posting and heavy interaction between multiple users.

What we’ve seen tonight on Seesmic seems to point to a clear distinction between the more polished, one-direction flows of information we see on sites like YouTube, and the substantial levels of interactivity and rapid-fire multi-user communication that occurs on Seesmic.  YouTube does support similar reply functionality as well as text commenting (which Seesmic notably lacks), but having used both applications Seesmic is far faster in the response time in terms of post replies.

Certainly there is a place for both on the web, however for Q&A sessions Seesmic may start to become the application of choice for events that rely on community outreach.

As Jemima Kiss says:

“Beneath the froth, though, there’s a directness and energy about this that really works, though lord knows how much engineering (both technical and bureaucratic) must have gone into this.

The best thing about it is that it bypasses the Hollywooid/Cannes schmaltz and gets straight into a conversation.”

More on Seesmic @TechTicker:

• “Online Video Discussion and Social Context Cues“, Mike Bogle, TechTicker, 15 May 2008
• “Seesmic: Initial Impressions and Use Case Proposal“, Mike Bogle, TechTicker, 12 May 2008

References:

• “Fave Indiana Jones” Harrison Ford on Seesmic
• “@harrison Maturity” elmundoes, Seesmic
• “RE: @harrison maturity” Harrison Ford, Seesmic
• “Spielberg pops up on Seesmic” Jemima Kiss, PDA, 17 May 2008

Seesmic seems to be gaining more and more ground in the realm of online video discussion these days, and as I mentioned previously I’ve begun to look into these developments with interest. Significantly Seesmic’s entrance to the market is occurring not only on the main site, but through the introduction of video commenting as well.

Through the use of a Wordpress plugin, bloggers and web masters can now avail their readers to video commenting functionality in addition to that of text.  The tool is unobtrusively located beneath the text comment field.  When clicked, the tool spawns, replacing the text field and enabling the commenter to use their web camera to record their comment. When this process is complete their message appears in ascending chronological order along side the text comments.

To my knowledge, TechCrunch was the very first site to capitalise on this innovation, however there seems to be some disagreement on its value, with many people viewing the introduction as at best a flashy ploy for attention, or at worst an addition to the ever-growing sources of information overload.

Initially I fell into the camp of individuals who really didn’t see much value in the development, however over the last few days I’ve begun to question this stance.  Just this morning in fact, during my ongoing reading of  “Opensource: Technology and Policy” I had an epiphany:

Perhaps video commenting can facilitate far more civilised discussions than text commenting - particularly in terms of tempering disagreements.  Let me elaborate on that.

As Deek and McHugh discuss in Open Source (pg. 176 - 177):

“It has long been contended that computer-mediated groups tend to exhibit “more uninhibited behaviour - using strong and inflammatory expressions in interpersonal interaction” (Siegel et al., 1986, p. 157). Sproul and Kiesler (1986) attributed the tendency toward “more extreme, more impulsive, and less socially differentiated” (p. 1496) behaviour than in a face to-face context, as due to the lack of adequate social context cues in information-poor media.”

This could be interpreted to suggest that the greater the absence of a human presence, the greater the possibility of uncivilised behaviour.  It would seem logical to suggest then that the introduction of a greater human presence might have the opposite effect - more civilised behaviour and a greater adherence to social norms.

For example, two years ago I facilitated a web conference between local Australian students and their counterparts in Japan.  In the session that followed the social norms and graces inherent to Japanese culture were clearly present.  Students bowed to one another at the beginning of the session and then again at the end.  Throughout the event they appeared to be quite in-tune to one another’s non-verbal communication signals, pausing when someone else wanted to speak, and acknowledging their contributions to the discussion.

In the context of Seesmic, and indeed online video discussion in general, despite its asynchronous nature my theory is that the visual human element would go a long way to introducing “social context cues” to a traditionally text-oriented sphere of activity.

These social cues might also help minimise the confusion that arises from the misinterpretation of meaning that can occur with text in the form of spelling or grammatical errors, or lack of clarity.

Furthermore, unlike text commenting, in which it is all too easy to quickly fire off an ill considered uninhibited remark, the incorporation of video requires a bit of preparation - both technical and mental - and as such might serve to further temper the delivery of the message, particularly during heated exchanges.

Having said that, all this is purely speculative at this stage.  This is all the more reason to pursue adequate exploration of online video discussion within a group context.  You cannot replicate the complexities of social-context cues as an individual. If you’re interested in participating in this research please let me know.

In the meantime I’ll continue to explore the main Seesmic site as well as monitor the interaction that is taking place on blogs like TechCrunch and The Inquisitr, which have introduced the Seesmic video commenting plugin.

References:

• “Opensource: Technology and Policy”; Fadi P. Deek, James, A. McHugh; Cambridge University Press, 2007; (pg. 176 - 177)
• “Seesmic: Initial Impressions and Use Case Proposal“, Mike Bogle, TechTicker.net, 12 May 2008
• “New: Video Comments On All TechCrunch Blogs“, TechCrunch, 23 April 2008

Just this afternoon I’ve begun to experiment with an application known as Seesmic (still in Alpha). My early impression: Seesmic does for video communication what Twitter does for text chat.

While not restricting users to 140 characters in the same way Twitter does (the video constraints are yet to be investigated), the goal of Seesmic seems to be much the same; and that is to facilitate rapid, large-scale, publicly visibly, asynchronous discussions.

The user experience

To participate, users only need to create an account and post a video clip. This can either be a brand new post, or a response to an existing conversation; and the clip can be recorded directly to the site or pre-recorded and then uploaded. In the case of the latter option, uploaded videos are immediately available with absolutely no processing time.

By comparison, YouTube - despite the technical infrastructure Google has to offer - takes several minutes for similar recordings to become available, and even longer for uploaded video (processing times for videos uploaded to Seesmic has not yet been tested).

That said though it’s important to bear in mind the differences in scale between Seesmic and YouTube. YouTube’s user load and network traffic are astronomically high, whereas Seesmic’s is conceivably far, far less.

Nonetheless, seeing a video you just recorded seconds before already available is very impressive to the end user.

New video clips are continuously appearing in a menu on the left side of the page, with brand new clips displayed at the top of the menu along with a reference to the number of responses the clip has received. Users are not required to refresh the page to view new content; updates are loaded automatically as new material becomes available. This serves to substantially increase the interactivity of the user experience to the point where it borders on synchronous discussion in both look and feel.

In my case, the clip I posted in which I asked  “How is Seesmic different from YouTube?“, received a response in less than 5 minutes.

The technical side

On the technical side of things, Seesmic appears to be Flash-based, which has opened the door to a seriously impressive Graphical User Interface (GUI) that capitalises on the hyper-dynamic nature of Flash applications.

On the video front, the visual quality of clips recorded directly to site is incredible. While video noise is present in both the clips I recorded, the overall quality was crystal clear and among the best I’ve seen in the realm of large-scale user-generated online video - this includes YouTube, Ustream, and Yahoo Live.

Compared to similar clips I’ve recorded directly to YouTube using the exact same equipment for example (laptop, lighting, location, and network), the results I experienced with Seesmic were substantially better.

Observations

Text commenting does not seem to exist: Curiously I don’t recall seeing any functionality for leaving text comments. The implication, as supported by Seesmic’s “Join the discussion” tagline, seems to be that comments are expected to be video-based, not text base. Whether this omission is a detriment, an advantage, or neither is unclear; however it is definitely an unusual move on the part of the Seesmic developers.

Unclear whether private messaging exists: Equally unclear is the question of whether private messaging exists in Seesmic. To continue the comparison, in the case of Twitter users have the ability to send one another direct messages that are not visible to other users. Seesmic does offer a degree of interoperability with Twitter, with the ability to send “@user” messages to Twitter users with a link to the video, however it’s unknown whether this extends to private messaging as well - either between Seesmic and Twitter, or locally between Seesmic users only. I’ll be looking into this further

Channels or groups would be useful: I’m still in the early phases of my Seesmic evaluation, however one aspect is immediately clear: the ability to create topic-specific channels or groups would be incredibly valuable. Especially from the standpoint of learning, like Twitter, there is a tremendous amount of activity and information-flow that occurs in Seesmic - to the point where it could easily become overwhelming. Therefore it would be a fantastic thing to be able to drill own into topical areas where the video clips that you see are related to a specific subject matter.

This functionality may already exist in Seesmic. I hope it does. If not, I would hope that the driving forces behind the application are open to the suggestion.

Developing a Use Case

Realistically, you can’t properly evaluate the potential of an application that is based on group participation as an individual, so I’d like to suggest the formulation of a group of educators, educational technologists, and IT people that would seek to take Seesmic for a spin.

For example, as a preliminary use case we could compile a list of interesting basic topics or agenda items for discussion and then use Seesmic as the mechanism through which the conversation takes place. Then having done this we could reflect on what aspects of the experience were positive, negative or completely unexpected.

If you’re interested in participating please leave a comment and we can get started.

In the meantime I’ll continue to pursue my personal evaluation of Seesmic and will post updates as they become available.

References:

• “How is Seesmic different from YouTube?“, Mike Bogle
• “RE: How is Seesmic different from YouTube?“, freidawolden
• Seesmic website - http://www.seesmic.com/
• Seesmic Blog - http://seesmic.typepad.com/en/

I was very pleasantly surprised just now to discover that Pidgin is available for the Windows platform.

According to the Pidgin website:

“Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.”

Overtime I’ve somehow managed to accumulate accounts for a variety of instant messaging services, including MSN, Google Talk, AIM, and Yahoo! Messenger.

I spent quite some time trying to use all of them, but eventually came to the conclusion that forcing my machine to load five different messaging programs every time I started up the machine was a complete waste of processing resources. As a result I stopped using most of them. In some cases I managed to convince some of my contacts to switch to a new IM client; but that hasn’t been the case with all of them unfortunately.

Then when I started using Ubuntu I discovered Pidgin, which is installed in the distribution by default. Pidgin enables you to log in to multiple instant messaging networks from a single program. This not only saves you space in your system tray but reduces the overall demands on the system.

According to the website Pidgin works with:

• AIM
• Bonjour
• Gadu-Gadu
• Google Talk
• Groupwise
• ICQ

• IRC
• MSN
• MySpaceIM
• QQ
• SILC

• SIMPLE
• Sametime
• XMPP
• Yahoo!
• Zephyr

Furthermore, unlike some of the other multi-protocol IM clients I’ve used, Pidgin will even notify you of new email messages sent to the different accounts. For example I am informed of new Gmail messages, given a brief summary of what the message is, who it’s from, and then provided with the option to login to Gmail in my default browser to read the full message.

The one thing I don’t think Pidgin does is facilitate VOIP communication. As a result I now load two IM clients when starting up my machine: Pidgin and Skype. My system tray is blessedly empty and yet I’m able to communicate with more people than I could before. Brilliant.

The installation process is quite straight forward. Just go to http://www.pidgin.im/, download the set-up files for your operating system and then run them locally. You are also given the option to install some additional features - such as a spell checker. Just click through the wizard process and the bulk of the work is done for you.

Once that’s done it’s just a matter of adding an account for each instant messaging service you want to link to. In my case I have three accounts in Pidgin - MSN, Google Talk and AIM. Then when you start up Pidgin, you are logged into each service and all of your contacts are displayed in the single buddylist panel.

Note if you want to take advantage of the email notifications you need to activate this option. This is done in the account settings area (open Accounts, highlight account in the list and click Modify, then in the User Options click “New Mail Notifications”). Notifications then appear at the very top of the chat window.

Like all open source software, Pidgin can be heavily customisable if you know what you’re doing. I’ve only just begun to experiment with the application, but rest assured I will be tinkering to see what else it can do.

For the Mac users, unfortunately Pidgin doesn’t exist for the Mac platform; however Adium is just as good and is very similar in appearance and functionality.  This can be downloaded at http://www.adiumx.com/

References:

• Pidgin - http://www.pidgin.im/
• Adium - http://www.adiumx.com/ - Multi-Protocol Instant Messaging client for Mac OSX

With few exceptions Ubuntu has proven to be far less overwhelming territory than I had initially anticipated. The work the community has put into developing an open source operating system that is accessible to the general public has been extraordinarily successful, as is shown by its increasing profile amongst non-techies.

Several of the tasks I had expected to be ominous proved to be anything but. Getting a printer set up for example was nearly as simple as a PC; in fact it was more so because Ubuntu never asked for a driver disk. I merely went to System -> Admin -> Printing -> Add New, it recognised the existence of a network printer and then prompted me to finalise the process. It was positively beautiful.

On the other hand, the process of getting a USB web camera and microphone working has proven to been an absolute pain in the arse. I’ve spent days trying to get this working and have only achieved partial success.

As it stands now I’ve managed to get the web camera recognised by Skype in the options area, however the situation with the audio remains a dog’s breakfast. At best the quality is poor, with low, echo-laden sound punctuated by snaps and clipping.

Furthermore it would seem that Skype is far more flexible with things than some of the other applications in the OS, because in all other cases I’m met with an error message indicating no device is found.

Ultimately the solution seems to involve a project at berliOS, which seeks to:

“…provide all necessary software components to fully support UVC compliant devices in Linux. This include a V4L2 kernel device driver and patches for user-space tools.”

I’m still at the beginning of this process, so if you have experience in getting this working PLEASE impart your knowledge in the comments area.

References:

• Linux UVC driver & tools @ berliOS