It has been a while since a new interactive web tool actually got me buzzed up. I see lots of potential in lots of new tools, but not all of them have applicability to my life directly, other than geek curiosity. Vlogging in some form or another is something that has been teasing at me for more than a year, but I have not been able to find a solution that is easy and portable enough to make it a winner. Qik had an initial attraction, but I do not own a Nokia phone, so it will not work for me. I can not even sign up for an account with Qik without the right phone. uStream has some interesting potential, but again I can not easily upload things from my Treo. I love what ustream is doing with the broadcast of longer events, of bringing events that would have been otherwise unavailable to the masses live across the web. I have watched LOTS of events on uStream, and participate in live chat.. but I have not used it for broadcasting yet. Both of these missed the boat for cases where I want to share something, but have no connectivity at the moment I am recording ( often the case inside a school building, for example)
Kyte looked like it was going to be a lot of fun, but I had to be at the computer to upload and make channels. But now I have 12 seconds. The thing I am most intrigued about with 12 seconds is that I can take video I recorded on my treo and email it in as an attachment, and it is auto shared. I can think of all kinds of potential for this one… vacation video sharing (our family vacation starts this Saturday), event clips (Gencon is around the corner), party bits and clips… all kinds of scrapbook type sharing on top of the daily conversation and discussion that people may be doing. Since my Video Camera and my Treo both use SD cards, it even means I can record with my digital video cam and then email from the treo later. My mind is starting to get a bit excited on this one– who said my Treo is extinct and I need to move on?
Looks like for the next month I am going to be hammering this service hard, please check it out, comment, give feedback and let me know if it works for you. I will do more reviews here as the month progresses. As a bonus, I also have a few invitations left, so if you are interested in trying out 12 seconds yourself comment here and let me know.