Broadcast Your Life.
Loading ...This is the mission statement from a new company named ‘Flixwagon’ that was established in 2007.
Our Vision
At Flixwagon, our vision is to bring innovation into the way people connect to each other and share their experiences. With Flixwagon you can broadcast your life LIVE! and keep close to your friends and family. All from the comfort of your mobile phone to whomever you wish to around the globe.
I came across this new technology while researching different companies in online video chatting. What Flixwagon ultimately offers is the ability to broadcast yourself ‘live’ at all times to the world. It can be thought of as a reversed ‘Truman Show.’ The site which is similar to Youtube offers a simple interface for accessing videos that are produced from cell phones. Once on the site you are able to scroll through hundreds of videos. Categorized by type and date, it seems easy enough to scroll through the different videos without any problems. You are able to rate the video right on the screen and all the product information that Youtube offers is available as well (Such as description, video controls, publisher and viewed counts). I have noticed that most videos range about a minute or so I assume this is due to phones limited storage capacity, however, I also saw a difference in the content of videos. As oppose to other sites such as Youtube and Myspace that have a variety of videos on a plethora of issues, Flizwagon’s material seems to be a lot more personal and subject. Here is an example of one of the videos off the site:
As you can see the content is a lot more personalized and aimed toward a different audience, an audience of amateurs or just people trying to keep in touch. Tying this back to my original travel logs of video chatting, flixwagon allows you to stay in though with friends and family all across the world, live, from anywhere with an internet connection. Although this tool is still in its beta stage, investors feel very confident about its potential in the phone market. As cell phones move closer to becoming integrated mini computers; tools such as these allow individuals the ultimate experience of logging your life for others to see, it is like reality t.v. on steroids. I don’t see this website really taking off in the same direction as youtube and other video sites have although it is interesting to see where this all goes. When I was in Hong Kong a couple years ago I saw a couple locals speaking to each other via video chat, since then I knew this phone technology was available but this integrate the internet to reach a greater audience. One of the partners in this venture is based in Tel-Aviv, an Israeli telecommunication company looking to get a foot in the door to what can be the next internet boom. It seems people are becoming more comfortable with ‘broadcasting’ their lives, and this just proves that point even further. It holds some advantages in keeping in touch with people over long distances however, it seems the content is limited by technology. As the company states its “a tool for people to connect” identical to my use with video chat. I am curious to see where this goes and how people will respond to it.
When I read your post I was very torn between where I stood about the Idea of “Broadcasting” my life. At first i thought I would never get into the posting of videos about me from my cellphone, and I know I wouldnt be broadcasting to the public anything personal. However, Having said that, in a way I guess I already do broadcast my life by being a part of facebook. But there is something about video that scares me. I feel like when we were young the rules for the internet were always dont give out your last name, your phone number, or your address. Yet with things like blogs and videos and websites like youtube I think we are becoming more vulnerable and more easily accessible to anyone who might be looking?