Yeah, sorry. I just can’t take any more.
I can’t tell you how annoying it is to be reading Twitter and Jaiku messages from people brandishing top-of-the-line handsets as they walk around Mobile World Congress.
Whilst the content is fine, the experience is utterly shit.
Let’s be clear: It’s crap. Utterly, utterly rubbish.
Take, for example, Mr Whatley, dedicated mobile genius. He’s at Mobile World Congress with Spinvox busy networking and documenting the goings-on.
I’ve been reading his Jaiku feed. I replied to a post. Before long, there was a little conversation going between me, James and a few others. Conversation turned to weather.
I don’t want to read about it.
I want to SEE it.
I don’t want to go and see a QIK video either. I want it there, in my hand and on my browser. Integrated and working right-away. I don’t want a tinyURL to it. I don’t want Jaiku posting one shitty small picture per day from my Flickr feed either.
Text is over. It’s old. So old. Multimedia, please.
EVERYONE on my Twitter/Jaiku/Whatsit list has a top quality mobile handset with at least 3 megapixels on the camera. Yet these mediums — Twitter and Jaiku in particular, are nothing short of appalling when it comes to anything other than text.
Case in point: Mr Whatley posted a comment on Jaiku saying “I’ll have my flickr photos uploaded later tonight.”
At that point I thought ‘that’s it, I’ve had it waiting for Twitter and Jaiku to innovate’.
The fact that one of the most mobilised chaps on the planet is actually ‘GOING HOME’ (or to the hotel) to upload his Flickr photos highlights just how shit and how broken Twitter & Jaiku really are. There are, I suspect, a wealth of photos on his N95 that have been sitting there for almost 10 hours. When he uploads them, I will definitely have a look. But it’s hardly the same. It’s dull compared to real-time multimedia.
I want to see the pictures and video in-line as he posts his commentary. I ALSO want audio. Real time streamed audio.
The experience with the existing Twitterku is suffering heavily. I think we’ve done text. Now, photos and video please. I’m disappointed that I’m having to even write this text. What the hell are Jaiku and Twitter doing? You can’t just vomit out a platform and let it sit there. Text was great, it’s done now. What’s next? Photos, audio and video. It’s quite fascinating seeing the users of these platforms evolving their requirements — like watching a growing kid trying to fit into last year’s school jumper.
The old model of knocking up a service, launching it and adding slight updates doesn’t work. Not in this fast moving environment — and not when the users themselves are having to resort to publishing stupid notes like ‘I’m using QIK please have a look’ or commenting ‘This is a funny picture [click to view the 1.2mb picture on Flickr’ (an experience no one should be subjected to on a small Nokia browser).
Palringo does audio, text and pictures right now. Published in-line as you experience it. Yes, the Palringo interface isn’t quite, er, usable for the majority yet. But when they update the UI, and provided they do a good job of it, could everyone please PLEASE PLEASE stop using Twitter and Jaiku and use Palringo?
Well I totally agree that text is…well maybe not 90s, but certainly old. And getting older.
However, couldn’t Mr. Whatley have used Share Online on his N95 to one-click-post (provided WiFi coverage was not an issue) the pics to Flickr or to the newly launched Share on Ovi (which, btw, does have a mobile site, at mobile.twango.com)? Just an idea.
Vlad’s last blog post..Impressive Google Android Gallery
Fair point Vlad, but I disagree. I know you *can* do that, but no. That’s not what I mean. I’m tired, tired, tired of this segregating of data going on now between so many services. If you put them on Flickr then they are divorced from the real time commentary that (in many cases) defines the images.
Hey Ewan.
Kinda agree, kinda don’t. The issue is really in that Twitter and Jaiku have subtle but very much different uses, and neither suit this reporting style context. You’re right in that Palringo is more suited to this medium given it’s mixed media capability BUT as I have said before NONE of these microblogging / converged or unified messaging service offerings really cuts it.
The reason, none of them truly allow portability between the other. What do I mean by this? Well think of it like this, Jaiku is really really good for collaborative threaded conversations, Qik is great at video, Pownce let’s you throw the odd picture or event into the mix. In other words each of the services has a great product serving a specific need.
The problem we are facing here is that as none of these services affords us the aggregation into a single threaded multi-user stream, think of this a bit like a chat room. The reason? Well I suspect it is because;
i) each of these services is well focussed (and rightly so) on doing the best they can in what they do,
ii) actually providing a framework or platform for allowing this aggregation is quite hard to achieve, at least without some real under the hoods smarts like Digital Identity and User Centricity.
Palringo tries but ultimately fails to deliver, sure the UI sucks (which they are working on) and sure it affords a single point for the conversation to take place, BUT it has no connectivity with the world outside Palringo.
What is really needed is for me to be able to create photos and stick them on Flickr for everyone to see, but then I also need to be able to “route” those same pictures to where ever else I want them to appear, say in side that “chat room.” Now by route be very clear I do not mean forward or synchronise, I mean send a unique digital identifier for that photo with a digital rights agreement to the chat room such that it can go and cache a copy of the photo.
Again a subtle difference BUT it is the only scalable way to do these types of things. Of course for Palringo, or more specifically their investors, these seems silly – after all their business model is most likely built around collecting as many users and as much of those users data inside their own walls – ‘coz that’s where the value is!’ Well not really, this is a case of misplaced value and that is a conversation for another day.
All that said I still have and will use Palringo, as well you know until such a time as this portability nut gets cracked.
I would normally (obviously) use ShoZu but the data charges are insane and of course the wifi is rubbish…
Meh. All my stuff is on flickr now – so you’re very welcome to it
🙂
James Whatley’s last blog post..11022008(012)
Oh and Online Share v3.0 refuses to work over the Vodafone protocol…
(hence the recent ShoZu love)
James Whatley’s last blog post..11022008(012)
I was just re-reading this and remembered that there *is* a Jaiku client that can upload pictures ‘direct to stream’ but it has never seen the light of day…
I’ll see if I can find out more.
James Whatley’s last blog post..Reminder: Mobile Geeks of London III