DEMOfall has some great debuts on show this year including a
YourTrumanShow widget called VideoMap. This little tool links friends
and their videos across several social networks such as MySpace and
Facebook.
The intuitive, embeddable widget is a graphical relationship
map that
renders a graphical representation of video collections. The new widget
can be placed and accessed by anyone on the Web and it allows video
producers and fans to share content from inside the widget.
Your Truman Show
YTS was
founded last year by
Arturo Artom and Luca Ferrero. The San Francisco company is a video
blogging enterprise that helps everyday people distribute great stories
in their video diaries.
The beta version allows anyone to create a
personal channel, share life stories and view other people’s lives.
This latest widget promises to connect people even more closely via
what is essentially a mental map to their YTS presence.
DEMO And YTS
According
to Chris Shipley –
Executive Producer of DEMO:
“VideoMap changes the social ecosystem by
making media the filter for discovering new networks of content and
friends, creating global neighborhoods that eliminate the boundaries
between disparate social networks.”
I hope Chris took a breath in there
somewhere, and I have never heard the term ecosystem used to describe
an online entity – but the VideoMap does in fact bring networks to the
people.
According to Co-Founder Arturo Artom, VideoMap becomes smarter
over time as the widget is virally distributed, amassing user
preference data as it is used. Essentially, VideoMap is an object
oriented video aggregator with expanded selection criteria.
Two Views
VideoMap
provides two views
for users. In view one- users see themselves at the center of a video
hub where theirs and their friends’ collections are displayed from
across the Web. In the second view the user is still at the center but
now they see their friends’ collections and other collections
associated with those.
The idea is not rocket science but it is useful
and effective. The popularity of YTS and its rather tongue in cheek
approach to things is refreshing if a little adolescent.
Two views can
also represent two approaches to collaboration I suppose and VideoMap
is one of those. In the screens it is easy to see the effect of
VideoMaps and also the artsy light atmosphere the tool creates.
Conclusions
Of course
this is going to
be a popular addition to an already successful enterprise and I can’t
say I dislike it because it is cool. I just wish Chris would not
describe everything at DEMO as the obelisk from 2010 the
movie.
“Oh my
God it’s full of stars!” does not quite fit this widget from
YourTrumanShow but aside from that users will enjoy the new feature and
its capability to span the Web.
Phil Butler is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
