Sunday, June 1, 2014

23 Mobile Things #14: Videos

Vine: Instagram for videos, right? It certainly looks a lot like Instagram in how the app is laid out, and when you add in the captioning, hashtags, ability to like videos, and so on, the differences seem almost nonexistent. It's hard to believe they're owned by different companies.

This was another easy app to use. I appreciated the micro-tutorial that Vine supplied: having the instructions right there on the screen while I made the video was so right that it was brilliant. A strong word, I know, but I've had too many experiences of trying to click back and forth between tabs or find my place in a set of printed instructions to not praise this. Now if only I could find something more video-worthy than six seconds of my ceiling fan. Ooh, I know: a montage of all my ceiling fans in operation! (No?) But if I wanted to inflict that on the Vine-osphere, Vine has made it simplicity itself to create that video.

I wasn't all that impressed by the videos Vine sent my way. Most of them were only half a step up from animated GIFs, and even the ones that were funny stopped being so after the third showing—which, you know, was only 18 seconds after I first laid eyes on the video. (Okay, the video of the irate chicken pecking the smartphone camera was above average. Given how many likes it had, much of Vine thought so too.) It turns out that almost none of my friends have made the leap to Vine, so I don't know what kinds of videos people I share interests with would make. 

No, I don't see us using this at work. I did click through Sajorenna's links on how libraries are using Vine. Some were more appealing than others. I thought the video of the 3D printer in action was probably going to entice more patrons than the video that just showed various shots of books shelved in the stacks. Books don't move; perhaps "plain" old photos would have been the better medium than video. Like all social media, you need to have a plan before you throw your library onto Vine.

Personal use? Well, at first I thought I'd drop Vine the minute I got this post written, but now I'm thinking I may stick around, see if I can find interesting videos without Vine's "help," and try to think of interesting topics to cover in six seconds. 

And film my Oscar-winning video of ceiling fans.

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