12seconds.tv : Microblogging Video

By Jade | Wed, Jul 30, 2008 6:00 am

I applied for an invite to join this new site (it’s invite only public alpha with 500 invites), 12seconds.tv that I found through a Tweet from DarlaMack. I haven’t received an invite yet, but hopefully I will soon. I can’t wait to jump in an play around. As the name implies, the site features 12 second video clips from users, kind of like a twitter, but for video, and optimized for mobile users (you know I love that!). They were so inspired by Twitter that even on their Terms of Service Page, they do a shout out to Twitter.

12 seconds seems to think that time is perfect for people who want to quickly share and see stuff. I agree with them. The size/length of videos is perfect not just for creating videos on mobile devices but consuming the video on mobile devices too. Right now the videos are not compatible with iPod/iPhone, but that is an easy fix.

Many people may wonder why 12 seconds is the magic number:

Why only 12 seconds?
Because anything longer is boring. The scientists here at the 12seconds dodecaplex have conducted countless hours of research to determine the precise amount of time it takes for boredom or apathy to set in during typical Internet video viewing. Our patent pending Electro-Tear-Duct Prongers have determined that exactly 12 seconds of video is the ideal amount of time to keep anything interesting.

Imagine the possibilities… I am seeing this as a great platform for contesting or tours. Imagine, 12 second tours of say, a school, or some touristy location. Also, video blogging. Better yet: Twitter is to Micro-blogging as 12 Seconds is to Micro-vlogging. The length is short enough that even camera shy people might be comfortable diving in. I mean, what’s the worse that can happen in 12 seconds?

They aren’t the first, obviously, flickr also has their short length video for users to upload, but, the flickr brand isn’t really 100% compatible with short fun stuff (it tends to be more artsy fartsy) and video services that have tried to do this before tend to be complicated and not as easy to sync mobile-y. Plus, from the looks of the poll on their front page, they are listening to their user base. So, I can’t wait to see what people do with this.

Let’s hope that, much unlike their microblogging idol, 12 seconds doesn’t experience the Twitter downtime problem once they get up and running.

On the web: http://12seconds.tv

Category: Social Networking, Trends, Web 2.0, blogging

Tags: 12 seconds, darla mack, micro blogging, micro-vlogging, twitter

This post was written by:

Jade - who has written 42 posts on Black Web 2.0.

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Fredric

My only issue with video micro-twittering is that you have to click each video to find out what is going on.

One of the advantages of text is that you can read and just move on with out having to click something in a page a couple thousand times.

It was one of the drawbacks for Seesmic. Yeah, video comments are cool, but if you get like 20 in a post, it'll be hard pressed for me to want to watch them all.

L Martin Johnson Pratt

Fredric is absolutely correct. Its kinda like the $.99 or Dollar Store sure some stuff is a dollar but you are hard pressed to just spend 1 dollar. Its funny that you would probably spend more like 120 seconds watching or more watching what was supposed to be just 12 seconds of video LOL its great bait oh i'm only going to watch 12 seconds of video - who doesnt have 12 seconds? Shoot back in my looking for venture capital days i perfected the 30 second Elevator Pitch for my entire 60 page business plan. Interesting what impact this may have on commercials, emails.....

Jade

@Fredric People are becoming more and more used to consuming all kinds of information in short bursts though, so while it might seem a bit much to expect people to commit to, the fact that the videos are embeddable, and it isn't necessarily based on commentary on other videos means people get to choose how they use the service. I'd say that to say... that 21 and under crowd, this is ... perfect. I also like to look at bigger picture things and I can think of tons of little initiatives that use this type of service.

@L Martin Johnson Pratt I was also thinking in terms of 12 second pitches too. I am very interested to see what the impact might be.

Shawn Hickman

I just started using 12Seconds and I have to say that it is extremely addicting. It's so easy and quick to post something that I could literally sit there for hours and posts videos. I really like their little contests everyday too. Makes things a lot more fun.