There are increasing numbers of ways to hold a video/audio conversation online — from one-to-one chats on Skype to multi-party conferences on Oovoo to more produced panel/presentation sessions on Vokle and beyond. The opportunities of these for arts organizations and artists are vast. But they share a common constraint.
Despite the distance-bridging opportunities of on-line conversation, you still have to be there. They require your immediate presence in the moment, which is obviously the point. But it’s also a constraint if you want take such conversations to scale. You can certainly record your part of the conversation and post it in recorded form or you can record an entire conversation, but that’s just presentation. The visitor can only watch, and can’t take part.
Which is what makes evolving ‘on-line presence’ systems like VYou so interesting. VYou allows you to post video responses to posted questions, and create a library that’s accessible to all. While it’s not a conversation, VYou adds some of the qualities of conversation, including a video loop of the respondent waiting for a question (which serves as their main video image), and including an opportunity to record multiple responses to the same question, meaning you can click the same question twice and get a different answer.
Again, I’ll admit that this is NOT a conversation. But it’s an interesting hack and hybrid that’s well worth exploring.
The implications for creating a middle ground between live discussion and recorded presentation are quite intriguing. A few artists and media companies on the system, like flavorpill, are already exploring the new medium (I particularly like the singer-songwriter who will write a song based on user requests). But imagine an artistic director answering questions about their work or the upcoming season. Or imagine an actor taking questions as the character in an upcoming play. Or imagine an audience-support system that offers video responses to common questions — where do I park, what should I wear, what kind of experience should I expect, and so on.
I’m not sure yet if VYou is the system that will lead us there, but it’s a fascinating place to explore the idea. So, go ahead, ask me a question. My video loop is patiently waiting.
uStream has commenting and social media functionality, so could be used as a live conversation tool…I think.
I now keep a browser tab open with the image of you waiting. When I’m stuck on something (or procrastinating), the image of you looking expectantly at me spurs me to action. 😉
I realize this has nothing to do with the point of your post (or that of the site). Shall we chalk it up as an “undocumented feature”?
Let’s call it ‘adaptive reuse.’ It’s brilliant. Perhaps we need a selection of AAAE member video loops of them patiently waiting for something to happen. We could choose the ‘virtual colleague’ based on the nature of the project and the urgency of the deadline.