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Facebook and twitter were first and foremost about conversations between individuals. It is only later that thoughts on the conversational sharing of links became relevant. In a conversational environment you may see headlines and either comment or re-share them without taking the time to read the article. In taking the time to read the article you neutralise the conversation that you were having. This is not restricted to Facebook and Twitter. Those who remember Google Reader remember that we used to star articles that we wanted to read later. We bookmarked the stories that we thought were interesting and other people could see what we highlighted. This habit continued on to Facebook and twitter.

Instagram is still a healthy social network. It still finds an engaged group of users who want to share their adventures, meals, friendships and more with other users. Some of them love sharing selfies and others share beautiful landscapes. This keeps the network vibrant and young. Twitter on the other hand has neutralised peoples’ passion and engagement with the site. They wanted to become google reader, they wanted mass following of key accounts, they wanted to neutralise the social, conversational aspect and they have succeeded in their goal so effectively that now an IFTTT rule reduces the need to visit twitter. [caption id=“attachment_2980” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] Which network do you prioritise[/caption] When you share your instagram photos as native twitter photos you are hiding that you are disengaged from Twitter. By hiding this disengagement from the social network you are hiding that you may not respond to replies, mentions etc. By not responding to those interactions you are negating the purpose of your presence on the social network. [caption id=“attachment_2979” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] The once social network Twitter continues to decline[/caption] When you fail to interact directly with websites such as Twitter you perpetuate the notion that twitter is a place where bots interact with bots because humans are no longer present. When humans are gone, when interactions between users no longer take place then what remains of the “social network”? Two hundred and ninety six thousand people have added this recipe to their IFTTT accounts. A quarter of a million people have chosen to spend time on Instagram rather than twitter. For this reason it makes sense to share pictures via Instagram. We will see your instagram account and we can start following it. In so doing we spend our time more effectively. Instagram still has a future. If you post to the networks that you want to use there is a good opportunity that others will want the same. Lets cut out twitter. ;-)

Content creation and Social Networks both fulfil our need to communicate with others. In one case we are working on the long form and creating content in blog form, photographs, well produced videos and more and through certain social networks we do the opposite. On twitter and facebook we spend most of our time writing two or three sentences at a time. These posts are quickly out of date. [caption id=“attachment_2974” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] Twitter can push people to associate it with video but I always saw twitter as a conversation tool. As long as they do not see themselves as a conversation tool I see no reason to spend time on their network. Other videos sources provide a more pleasant experience.[/caption] Content creation in the form of article writing, blogging, well produced video, photo essays and more take time. You need to think of an idea and you need to think of a narrative. You need to find 300 words of content. You need to find at least two or three minutes of content if not more. If you challenge yourself to create this content then you see why facebook, twitter, vine and other short or quick social sharing platforms are so popular. It also explains why Geocities and other platforms eventually implode. According to recode Twitter is making a huge video push — and tweaking Vine’s six second limit in the process.

A few months ago I saw the video of a mobility scooter going fast across snow. The video was shared as an anim gif with no context. As I explored the diversity of content on Youtube I came across Colin Furze videos. In one project he sent mobile phones to the Middle of the Stratosphere at about thirty three thousand meters. [caption id=“attachment_2969” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] Building interesting devices[/caption] He usually produces at least two videos. The first video usually shows him building his latest project and the second video shows him using the finished project. To celebrate the million subscriber marks he creates fireworks contraptions. He has created a hover bike, a centripetal chicken cooker, an underground bunker, magnetic shoes, a jet powered barbecue and has tried to set fireworks off in the stratosphere. When you look at individual videos you see that they can get up to nineteen million views. He has just over three million subscribers at the time of writing this blog post. I suspect that he has more video views than subscribers because of the subject matter. As the projects vary from jet propulsion to mobility scooters to cooking content is compelling part of the time. Youtube also recommends his content so we might watch it through recommendations rather than direct searches for specific terms or keywords. In the video where he tried to make magnetic shoes to walk across a ceiling we see him try and fail several times before he finally manages to achieve his goal. Once his goal is achieved the video ends and you can “wait” for next week’s video to appear online. When you learn about youtube personalities weeks, months or years in to their “career” the more content you can watch in a single sitting. What unique or eccentric topics or projects could you document?

Physical Video Gaming

Physical video gaming is coming of age thanks to the HTC Vive and related Games. Cosmic Trip is one of these games. You can use both controllers to prepare machines that will prepare robots for mining and defence. These two sets of robots are autonomous. The more resources you mine and the more robots you have. These robots are attacked on a regular basis so defence is important. The laser robots provide some assistance. You can attack the enemy bots by throwing disks at them as if you were throwing frisbees. Most people should find this instinctive. In the last 17 hours more than half a million people watched the video on how to play this game. The game is still in development and building up hype for when it is released properly. The creator of the video above now has eleven million subscribers on youtube. When he produces a video eleven million people are notified that there is a new video to watch. [caption id=“attachment_2961” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] Half a million views in 17hrs[/caption] Out of those 11 million subscribers on youtube only 1.6 million follow on twitter and a quarter of a million on Facebook. Within the next year or two I would like to see social networks such as Youtube and others expand and become niche communities where people can find content of interest without using Facebook or Twitter. I found Jack Septiceye content when I was searching for VR demos. I use youtube rather than Twitter and Facebook because I don’t want content creators and sharers to tell me how to feel or why the content is of value. I want to make that decision for myself. Youtube and social networks that allow us to browse and discover content based on niche interests are going to become increasingly important. [caption id=“attachment_2962” align=“aligncenter” width=“726”] A small twitter audience[/caption] The creators of the game have just two thousand eight hundred followers on Twitter and approaching one thousand on Facebook. When youtube personalities make videos about products they provide companies with a lot of extra visibility. You reach game players, people who want to see what new technology such as the HTC Vive can do and people who like to watch gameplay videos without necessarily being game players themselves.

For several weeks now it has rained almost every day and almost every weekend. As a result of this rain acitivities have been cancelled. On Sunday we were meant to go outdoor climbing and when we got to the wall we found a rock climbing snail where, in dry weather we could have enjoyed some good climbs. The climbing site in St Triphon has about 150 climbing routes of differing climbing difficulties. When the conditions are so wet outdoor climbing is not possible. It rained as we drove to the climbing site, it started to get brighter and then it started to rain hard again. As we drove away from the climbing wall where snails were climbing instead of humans we saw that the weather improved as we got to Lausanne.

Three things have made the pleasure of narrowcasting rather than broadcasting a reality. Broadcasting is finding something that as many people as possible are interested in watching. This is mass appeal television. European Football is one example, british rugby another, skiing another and tennis as a last one. Each of these has a large budget to spend because of the mass appeal of the content. It means that you can experiment with Ultra high definition, 3D broadcasts and more. In essence it is content that is easy to justify. Narrow casting is the opposite. Narrow casting is the opposite. It’s about providing content for a small number of people. This means less interest, less money and therefore less feasible. Early attempts at narrow casting include both cable television and community videos. The problem with cable television and community videos is that they are not on demand so unless you’re ready to watch the content at the time it is aired or the time when it available on VHS tape you missed it. Youtube, DailyMotion, Vimeo and other video distribution solutions started by allowing people to upload random clips with low production values. As interest grew and as people uploaded new content from pirated shows to pirated music, from home videos to more so the focus changed. I look at the early days of vlogging when iJustine streamed content live, Seesmic when we chatted with each other to webcam vloggers, game play videos and more. As these low brow content makers showed that they could amass an audience and as advertisers saw that they could generate an income so other people could come along. I recently noticed that Jay Leno has a show on youtube about his garage. We see him talk about a car per episode, around 25 minutes a piece. In these shows he speaks at a relaxed normal pace. We see him talk about cars. We see him show content from photo books and in general we get the feel that we used to get from browsing through magazines and books like in the good old days. With Video on Demand services like youtube we are coming to a new age in video content where the content we can browse through and watch documentaries like we used to browse through newspapers, magazines and books. We can learn about niche topics in a medium that would have been prohibitively expensive in the past.

I believe that we are shifting towards a Post Social Media Era where social networks are built in to online activities. People love to say that online social networks and social media are a waste of time and that they have a negative impact on how we feel about ourselves. For years I have been trying to demonstrate that social networks and social media are as valuable and important as socialising in person. The first 17 minutes are about a game that attempts to provide the player with empathy for those suffering from Anxiety. It then inspires Jack Septiceye to provide us with a look at how he felt after leaving college, how youtube helped him connect with people and how it had a positive impact on his life. When most people read about social networks and social media they read about making money, social media marketing, trolling, disinformation, depression and many other topics but very few of these articles look at the positive impact that connecting with people can have through social media. Social media, after all connect people whether they live in the middle of a big city or in the middle of the countryside. When you live in the countryside and practice sports in the mountains then the car and social media are equally important for having a sociable life.

360 timelapse videos provide us with interesting new opportunities. Imagine for example placing the camera out to see near Weymouth beach and watching as the tide comes towards the camera and then beyond it towards the city. Imagine watching as the sun rises on one side of the Leukerbad Valley and sets on the other. Imagine that BBC Natural history unit sequence of sand dunes moving across the landscape one day at a time for a year.

I have been watching The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for a while now and I like the insight and analysis that his shows provide to current affairs programs. I like his shows because he provides a different perspective than other news. He is a South African who moved to the US and work on the Daily show. In this show he explores cause and effect. He speaks about his childhood and tying shoelaces. He speaks about running and falling “a lot” and then about how his mother told him to tie his shoe laces. What I like about his show is that it is calm, factual and logical. He makes the occasional joke but it helps strengthen the point he has just made and provides a transition to the next point. What is interesting about this comedy/current affairs show is that it also pokes fun at mainstream news shows and the way in which they try to deflect the conversation away from the key issues. News and current affairs should provide insight and analysis without worrying about what shareholders, lobbyists and other groups want the message to be. They should provide people with facts and context. We are in the age of On Demand videos and it takes the average web user seconds to find the content that will provide them with the message or conclusions that they want to justify. Search for Orlando as a key word on youtube and you will find emotional video content. In a healthy news environment you should have two main sources of information. Mainstream media should provide you with the facts and the context of what happened without prejudice or assumptions being made. Once these sources of information have been exhausted then we can shift towards the emotional talk shows, opinions and columns. What I see at the moment is emotion taking centre stage and obscuring reality.