Kevin Rose has published a new concept video for a service called TinyBlog. Blogging is now mature and to some degree the industry is getting bored and looking for new ways to move the platform forward. The Verge introduced story stream which aims to recognise that stories are multi-part and evolve over time and those dispirit parts need to be assembled in an easy to use manner. Kevin Rose’s TinyBlog prototype aims to bring users closer to the author by turning on the camera of the post author, snapping a still or even video to provide context of their environment at the time of writing.
There’s so many questions that come out of this suggestion.. first off, let’s talk about the creation process of posts. Sure there’s times where you can come across a piece of news, smash out and hit the publish button, but most times a blog post comes together over multiple days. So what would happen to the video in this situation ? Harsh cuts between each environment? Maybe you could create a smooth transition but what happens when you write a paragraph or two, then go in the next day and edit it, does the video from the time of writing or the time of editing win ?
Now lets talk about the uncomfortable reality of bloggers. Often bloggers aren’t working out of a fancy apartments or offices, there’s plenty of times where the video would simply be the white walls of a motel room as journalists travel to events around the globe.
Whether it’s motivated by readability or privacy, the decision to blur the image and filter it is a great idea from Rose. This will also assist in the platform being successful amongst the handsomely-challenged amongst us. It’s a neat idea, but definitely has some questions that need to be answered before it’s a MVP.
In many ways TinyBlog is the visualisation of GeoBlogging, a concept I came up with back in 2008 which suggested the location you were in would be important to the reader. In the same way that the location of a photo is important to the viewer, the location of an author, at certain times, could be relevant to the post. Things like local currency and timezones, as well as current events in that location. Imagine you were blogging from New York when 9/11 happened, your context would be different and perhaps more relevant than someone on the other side of the world.
With Kevin Rose’ past successes, his ideas should never be taken lightly, this will be one to watch.
