Twitter is growing at an incredible rate of knots, by allowing anyone with half a brain to become a blogger of sorts, or at least a micro-blogger. And there is also a video alternative, with 12seconds providing an easy-to-use platform for micro-video bloggers everywhere.
Video Blogging
Video blogging, or vlogging, has been around for quite a while now. Video blogs, either as a counterpart, or as a separate entity, from a written blog, can work extremely well. The only problem is finding things to say on them, and then videoing yourself and uploading it to the Web.
12seconds
solves both of those problems in one fell swoop. Users of the site are limited to posting 12 seconds worth of video at a time. This isn’t much time, but it’s enough to enable those who want to, to get their point across and say what they want to say.
Once having joined the site, which is a simple process that require very few details, an Adobe Flash recorder allows anyone with a Webcam to record their thoughts for posterity.
Easy To Use
Basically, those people put off the idea of video blogging in the past due to either technical difficulties or a lack of having something to say can now climb on board and give it a go.
As well as posting videos yourself, you can also browse other people’s efforts. There are featured posts as well as sections to look at everyone’s videos, or limit it to just your friends. And if you’re stuck for an idea of what to say for that one fifth of a minute, there are prompts by way of set questions.
Twitter For Video
The comparisons with Twitter are obvious and ultimately fair. But whether 12seconds can do for online video and vlogging what Twitter is currently doing for social networking and micro-blogging remains to be seen.
Issues
The biggest problem to my mind is still people’s lack of willingness to show their face on the Web. While Twitter allows you to post random thoughts as anonymously as you like, 12seconds users would have to wear a balaclava to achieve the same thing.
There’s also the problem of editing. While the simple recording tool on 12seconds makes it a relatively painless experience to re-record your clip, it’s never going to be as simple as editing the written word.
But the biggest issue for me has to be the value of what people are saying. I enjoy Twitter because I follow a set of people I believe have interesting things to say. A couple of days into using 12seconds and I’ve still yet to find someone I feel the need to hear what they have to say.
Conclusions
I like what 12seconds is doing – bringing vlogging to the masses and keeping it short and simple. But I’m not sure it has the potential to do a Twitter and become the next great social networking idea. Still, try it out because the more people that do so, the more likely it is to show its potential.
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