Popl and Tap Tag Digital Business Cards with embedded NFC tags and QR Codes
Gone are the days of big in-person conferences and meetings where you’d pass out dozens of business cards. Well at least for now. I do miss in-person events and hopefully, we’ll be able to see each other in person again soon. When we do, I won’t be carrying a ton of business cards like I used to. I’ve got one digital business card that should last forever.
My Digital Business Card Is The Last One I’ll Ever Need
Instead of getting paper cards printed and knowing that if anything changes on them I’d have to dump (recycle) them and get more printed, I had a digital card made instead. This digital card has an NFC chip in it that can be scanned by any modern smartphone.
Instead of giving you a card, I would wave my digital card near your smartphone and a notification would pop up for you to tap. Once you tap it, all of my contact/social media information would load in your browser with the option to save me to your contacts.
Clubhouse is an audio only social network. It’s currently invite only and currently only on iPhone (Android is in the works). Here’s the official description:
Clubhouse is a new type of network based on voice. When you open the app you can see “rooms” full of people talking—all open so you can hop in and out, exploring different conversations. You enter each room as an audience member, but if you want to talk you just raise your hand, and the speakers can choose to invite you up. Or you can create a room of your own. It’s a place to meet with friends and with new people around the world—to tell stories, ask questions, debate, learn, and have impromptu conversations on thousands of different topics.
Clubhouse iPhone App
I was surprised
I’ll admit that I wasn’t extremely excited to see a non-visual network start to get popular. After all, I’m a visual communicator and photographer. Everything I have done over the past 25 years has been visual. However, there are definitely some advantages to an audio-only platform. For one, you don’t have to get dressed up for it. You don’t have to worry about your lighting and background. Since it’s an iPhone app, you can do it anywhere you have WiFi or great cell service. Also since it’s audio-only there are no visuals to prepare. No demo to break. It’s just talking and actually, that’s a refreshing change.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in the Netherlands walking to the convention center to do my presentations and a new app called Periscope had just launched the day before (March 26, 2015). Little did I know at the time that it would be life changing. I remember when podcasting and blogging opened the doors to the masses to allow ordinary people to do internet audio/video broadcasts and create their own posts/news stories. Periscope (owned by Twitter) did it again by allowing regular people to live stream from their iPhones from anywhere in the world that they had a data/wifi connection.
Snapchat is one of those social networks that I do more viewing than posting. For whatever reason I just never really got into it. However, more and more of my friends are on it and I figured it was time to learn How to Use Snapchat. I jumped in with both feet and learned as much as I could about it. I’ll also let you off the hook if you’ve been struggling with it. It’s NOT a user friendly app…
The average Facebook user has no idea how Facebook really works when it comes to the content that the post. Facebook is a business! While it’s free for users to join and share content with their friends, family and colleagues, Facebook actually makes its money by advertising to its users. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a simple model. You can use the service for free and the only price you pay is seeing ads (unless you have an ad blocker). Yes it would be fine if it stopped here, but it doesn’t.
You might remember my post a couple of weeks ago comparing the NEW Live from Facebook Mentions to Periscope. After doing a few more broadcasts to both services I quickly realized that I usually have a larger number of views on Facebook. I thought that it would be great to be able to stream to both services simultaneously. That way I could finally address both my large Twitter/Periscope following as well as my large Facebook following at the same time. This would of course require streaming from two devices. I could use my iPhone 6 Plus and an iPod touch. The real question was, how would I hold both devices at the same time and keep them steady? I went in search of a “dual tripod head mount” and I found this one on Amazon. I ordered it, but when it arrived I wasn’t that happy with it. For one it was bigger and heavier than I hoped and the bigger problem was that the devices were spaced out too far apart for broadcasting the same thing up close.
That’s when I challenged my friends over at Arkon Mounts to make something better! Not only did they accept the challenge, they showed a mock up the very next day.
The mock up was night and day better than the one that I had put together and even better they would bring it to Photoshop World and hand it to me to try. After I used it for a day I was thrilled with it. It was everything I wanted, but that wasn’t good enough for Aaron. Aaron was concerned that the devices could possibly pop out. He had his company overnight their better smartphone grips (the ones used on their motorcycle mounts) and replaced the ones on mine with the stronger ones.
The TW Broadcaster Pro was born
Check out this video review that I recorded over the weekend:
I did several simultaneous live broadcasts to Periscope and Facebook Mentions Live. As I was walking around the show I got lots of double takes as people assumed I must be shooting 3D video.
Even if I wasn’t streaming to both Periscope and Facebook at the same time, I’d still use this to broadcast to Periscope in it’s current vertical video format and use the second device to record standard 16:9 wide video.
This mount is just freaking awesome with lots of uses. Of course it can be mounted on a tripod too.
It’s also versatile enough to be converted into a single mount (the TW Broadcaster) for those times when you only need to mount one mobile device.
The Bottom Line
I’m thrilled to have this new product which perfectly fits my broadcasting and recording needs. I’m deeply honored to have it named after me as well. Even if you’re not interested in this particular solution you should definitely check out the mounting solutions at www.arkon.com. If you have a need to mount a mobile device, camera, etc, on to something they’ve likely already built a solution for you. If you are interested in the TW Broadcaster Pro you can order it here. Or if you’re interested in the single mount (also great for selfies) TW Broadcaster model you can order it here. You can even take 10% off anything you order from their site with my discount code “twhite”.
You didn’t think Facebook would sit idly by while Twitter did LIVE streaming via its Periscope App did you? Early yesterday evening I got an App update to the Facebook Mentions App announcing that it now has a feature called “Live from Facebook Mentions.”
What’s Facebook Mentions – Live?
Facebook Mentions is Facebook’s dedicated App for those of us who are Public Figures and have a “verified” Page on Facebook.
While I was certainly honored that Facebook verified my page without any action on my part and the fact that they even created this separate celebrity app, I really didn’t find that it was all that useful compared to the regular Facebook Pages Manager App. Well that all changed yesterday. Now I can bring up the Facebook Mentions App on my iPhone and start a live broadcast at any time. People that have previously “Liked” my Page will get a notification and they can watch the broadcast and make comments via text in the broadcast itself. The best part compared is that after the broadcast is over it appears as a regular video post on my Page for anyone to view after the fact. I also like that this post can be edited so that I can add links, additional information to the items or sites that I mentioned in the broadcast.
What’s Periscope?
Periscope is Twitter’s Live broadcasting service. Like Twitter it’s free to use. You can download the iOS or Android version and start broadcasting immediately. When you start a new broadcast the app sends a tweet to your Twitter followers as well as a push notification to any of your Periscope followers. People can watch the broadcast either in the Periscope App or on the web in a browser. People can also make comments via text in the App that you can respond to verbally and they can also tap the screen to give you “hearts” (their version of Likes). The idea behind Periscope is to be able to show the world what you’re seeing in realtime. After the broadcast is over it will be available for replay by anyone that follows you in the App or has the link for up to 24 hours. After that it automatically self destructs forever.
Facebook Mentions Live vs. Periscope
Obviously Facebook Mentions Live (FML <- LOL) is the new kid on the block and will come at a disadvantage to Periscope that has now been out for 5 months. Periscope has had several App updates to address user feedback and finally released their Android version. FML is only iOS at this point and currently limited to only those with a Verified Public Figure Facebook Page.
Video format
Periscope’s video format is portrait. This pisses off most people not viewing the video in the app and while Periscope has promised to deliver landscape video it hasn’t made it on the scene as of this post. FML on the other hand is a square aspect ratio. This makes it less frustrating to view, but means that they may never deliver landscape video. As you might expect the quality of the video/audio to your viewers will depend on the strength and speed of your data connection. When I’m on WiFi at home both Periscope and FML look awesome. On slower cellular data connections Periscope can be sketchy.
Your potential viewing audience
Here’s where it gets interesting. While your Periscope broadcasts automatically announce to your Twitter followers that you’re LIVE, it can be missed if someone is viewing your tweets in the moment. Unless your followers are diligent about scrolling their timelines and viewing your tweets, your broadcasts will only be seen by a fraction of your followers. Periscope does have the advantage that people can follow you on Periscope separately from Twitter, but from what I see the average number of Periscope followers to Twitter followers is usually a small fraction. For example, I have over 43,000 followers on Twitter, but only 3,227 followers on Periscope. My buddy Scott Kelby has over 288,000 followers on Twitter and only 10,830 followers on Periscope. I think that the lower number of Periscope followers is largely due to the fact that people can only follow you on Periscope from the iOS App or recently released Android App. There’s also no way currently to give someone a link to follow you. You can only give them your user name (ie. @TerryLWhite <- yes follow me please).
On the FML side you already have an audience on your Facebook Page. I have 39,736 Likes on my Page. That’s my potential audience each time I do a broadcast. Facebook does play games though when it comes to showing your post to your followers. Look at the graphic above and you’ll see that last night the post had only reached 1,725 of my audience. The more popular your post is the more people that Liked your page will see it. So with that being said not all 39,736 people were notified when I did my 1st broadcast. There’s no way to control who gets notified and who doesn’t.
If you want more people to see your post/broadcast you can click the Boost Post button and PAY to have to promoted to more people. It’s a shame that people ask to follow you by clicking the Like button on your Page, but unless they manually visit your page regularly they may not see many or any of your posts via notifications or in their timeline unless you pay for them to see it. Let’s face it that while social media is free, Facebook and Twitter make their money from advertising.
Comments and adorations
Both Periscope and FML allow people to make comments during the broadcast. in the case of Periscope the comments appear superimposed over the video and some find that distracting. FML on the other hand displays the comments at the bottom of the screen below the square video. With Periscope if your viewers like what they are seeing they can tap anywhere on the screen to give you hearts (adorations). I haven’t seen anything like that yet in FML. However, I did see at the end of the broadcast that I had “Likes” not sure how I got them at this point?
Replays
Both Periscope and FML offer the ability for people that missed your live broadcast to see it after the fact. With Periscope your broadcast remains active for up to 24 hours in the feed of everyone that follows you. Anyone that got the tweet when you went live can still click it to watch after the fact. Recently Periscope was updated to allow you share a link to anyone. The obvious downside is that if you send the link to someone and they don’t watch it within 24 hours, the link won’t work afterwards. Periscope also offers the option to save the raw video to your device after the broadcast. This means that you can post the video anywhere you want afterwards but note that it will be a vertical video. FML on the other hand puts the raw video of your broadcast on your Facebook Page immediately after the broadcast ends. That’s VERY COOL because there’s not expiration date. It also means that I can edit the post after the fact and add more info and links to the things I was talking about during the broadcast. Also since it’s a regular Facebook Post you can share it with others on Facebook that aren’t on your page. If you right click the video on your page you can copy the URL and share it anywhere like here.
Why not broadcast to both at the same time?
I came up with an idea to broadcast to both Periscope and Life from Facebook Mentions at the same time. It became a product from Arkon called the TW Broadcaster Pro. Check out my video below:
The Bottom Line
Periscope is cool and I use it regularly. However, I’ve always felt that many of my fans were missing out if they’re not on Twitter or don’t follow me on Periscope. I’ve posted links to the Periscope replay on Facebook afterwards but again the replay is only available for 24 hours. If Facebook opens up Live streaming to the regular Facebook app, Facebook Pages app and Facebook Groups App I think they would ultimately win as there are more people on Facebook than there are on Twitter. Twitter should open up Periscope a little more by offering direct links to follow people even on the web and they should give the option of allowing replays to last longer than 24 hours. If Facebook wanted to “own” the Live Streaming social media world they certainly have the base to do it. Live from Facebook Mentions Live may be just the beginning of their strategy!
Well technically I did. You’re reading it now. However, the point of this post is that I don’t post daily or as much as I used to. The reason is quite simple, I don’t always have a product to review or something that requires a full blown blog post. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have something to say each day. For the shorter, quick messages that I want to get out to my followers I usually use social networks. I almost always have something quick to say or point people to each day and I do those posts on Twitter, my Facebook Fan Page, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. If you’re missing your daily “Terry White” fix, then it’s best to make sure you follow my social media channels. These are the places I’m also more likely to have a conversation with my followers when time permits. Even if you HATE social media, you can still browse my Facebook Fan Page or Twitter feed WITHOUT actually having to be a member of those networks. Just this week alone I posted “inside-look” photos of Adobe San Francisco, a funny Facebook Phone Parody video, sneak peek videos on Adobe’s Video Products, a cool Illustrator extension that turns shapes into code (geek style), and more. If you’re only following my blog, then you’re missing out!
It’s that time of year again. It’s time to head out to one of my favorite shows – Adobe Photoshop World. This year’s east coast event takes us to Washington DC. As usual I have a slew of classes that I’m teaching on a variety of topics. Everything from using the iPad in your Digital Photography Workflow, to InDesign classes for Photographers and Designers, to Importing and Managing your Images in Lightroom 4. Also while I’ve got your attention, the class that I’m doing on creating Interactive Portfolios is based on using InDesign to create Interactive Portfolios for Tablets.
