Remember the good old days when you saw something and decided whether or not to post about it? Or when you took all those pictures at a party and got up the next morning and thought about which ones were appropriate for Flickr? Or all that stuff you went through editing video and deciding what to post? All that is so loaded with 20th century values. Flixwagon lets you turn on your Nokia N95 camera phone (in the U.S.), click the "broadcast now" soft button and anything you see or say... anyone can see or hear! In this interview
Xen from Flixwagon tells me about the time she made a pocket broadcast. Like an unintended pocket call, except the video stream when out--live from her life---unintended. And there is the story about the Hillary Clinton event that was closed to the broadcast press... except it was broadcast. And through the combo of Flixwagon and Twitter the press tuned in live via camera phone.
I suggested to Xen they post set of best practices or warnings, like all the stuff we ignore about operating potentially dangerous machinery. My list might include:
-Warning broadcasts are live. Use with discretion when you're inebriated.
-Warning. You're not likely to have much discretion when you're inebriated.
-The Golden Rule of Broadcast: Ask permission to broadcast others as you'd hope they'd ask permission of you
-If your are under 18, read the warnings.
-Warning: No one under 18 heeds warnings.
I'm actually delighted that all the stuff that sat in the way of shooting video and posting it has gone away. Now everything's a post, life's a broadcast, and going live has also been completely democratized.
Things will never be the same. Sure its a cliche, but here's a place it applies. Or, as I said just a moment ago: