Did you hear about the recent earthquake in Mexico? Where did you get the news? CNN? Guess where I got the news! I got the news on a twitter link which led me to an Ustream live video where a blogger was interviewing a Mexico-based blogger concerning the earthquake. I have to admit, that’s pretty cool – as cool as it gets. Trying to figure out what I’m going on about? Here’s the low-down:
The earthquake hit Mexico. Local(Mexico – based) twitterers started twittering about it. Indeed, the earthquake was first reported on twitter. Before long, a Mexico City blogger was connected to the Ustream chat. Chris Pirillo requested his Skype ID for a video chat. More people tuned into the live A/V stream, more people re-twittered the link, more people became active in the Ustream chat room, and the whole thing went viral.
As Chris puts it, “Dozens of people were talking to one another in real-time, while watching me speaking with a man in another country about an event that was unfolding quicker than could be covered by traditional media outlets.” (Read the rest of his account by clicking here)
What say you? New media rules, doesn’t it?
That said, this week’s cool sites are:
Ustream.tv – This is like a youtube of web-cams. It is a free platform that let’s anyone broadcast anything live, and for free, to the whole internet. Basically, now you can make your own justin.tv (see below). Ustream is a service that let’s anyone create their own 24/7 live web-cam show.
Twitter – A site that answers the question, “What are you doing?” The answer may very well be something spectacular or mundane like, “Oh, I’m filing my nails.” Twitter let’s you tell the whole world what you are doing RIGHT NOW.
LiveOffice Free Conferencing – “LiveOffice FreeConferencing sets the standard for innovative and reliable conference calling. It’s quick and easy to set up and manage, and free to use anytime—there’s absolutely no catch! Setup a free conference calling account now and instantly receive dial-in information with your conference call number and access code. You can invite as many as 250 attendees to your free conference call. Invite as many as 250 attendees to your free conference call session!” (from site)
Justin.tv – Watch as Justin lifecasts his life 24/7. As he says, “I am broadcasting live video of my life 24/7 to the internet. I started Justin.tv because I thought it would awesome for people to see what it was like to be Justin. I convinced three of my friends (Emmett, Michael, and Kyle) to join me out in San Francisco. Now, we’re starting a company to make broadcasting live video on the web easy.”
Go ahead, sign up for your twitter, ustream, and liveconferencing accounts and let’s change the world. I don’t think the old-skool media will recover from this new trend, do you? Then again, isn’t all this a bit too much? Now everyone with a computer and an internet connection can track his/her whole life and put it on the web. I’m not sure whether that’s an entirely good thing.
Now, to bust Some jargon:
Twitterers – people who use twitter.
Twittering – the act of using twitter.
lifecasting – broadcasting your life. Remember jennicam?
Speak your mind