Following an early-morning tipoff about a New York Times article about Kyte.TV, I thought I’d better give it a whirl.
What is Kyte.TV? Think YouTube + Twitter, with the convenience not only of mobile uploads but live chat and (in effect) live broadcasting from your mobile phone… nice idea, and a nice implementation. You have to download a little java applet for your phone (N70 users: disable security first – really!).
Here’s an early result (OK, it’s The first one was just a silent 3-snapshot just-in-time-upload test, but later ‘episodes’, visible by clicking on the ‘kmi’ bar underneath the main image below, will eventually reveal different styles, including emailed video clips), with a copy further below of some comments I sent back to paris_d who was online (yowzers, I had gathered 10 live viewers within 2 minutes, even as I was experimenting):
Having live chat overlaid on your own real time video ‘lifestream reportage’ is a very compelling experience. Bandwidth limitations right now mean that mobile ’streaming’ is restricted to snapshot-sequences OR emailed mobile-phone videos, but both are relatively easy to produce and upload, and the snapshot sequence is interesting because it is about as near as you can get to live-TV-broadcasting from your mobile phone WITHOUT lots of extra gear.
Here are the comments (only about the mobile version) that I just sent to Kyte.tv:
1. On the mobile interface, when you select ‘create lifestream’ the menu LOOKS accidentally like it is embedded underneath ‘Watch’, which is very confusing… it looks like you’re now selecting something to watch rather than create
2. When creating, a ‘timer’ comes up somewhat magically… with numbers like “10:00, 5:00, fastest, manual”… it was only by trial and error that I learned that what it was actually doing was uploading a JPG at the fastest ‘plausible’ interval, or after N minutes… or manually if I took one myself… this is GREAT, but I just need a 1-line aide-memoire before the lifestream begins saying something like
‘Upload sequential photos at time interval listed below:’
anything simple like that is better than guessing…
3. The site strongly implies live streaming mobile video, which of course bandwidth doesn’t really allow… no problem, as long as this is stated… sequential snaps live, or emailed video… no problem, but it needs to say that!
4. the java app download requires disabling security on my N70 – I knew this already from other java apps,… but worth pointing this out somewhere in an FAQ
5. I never received the SMS… but manual link to mobile.kyte.tv worked fine (second time at least)
6. adding my OWN audio in post-production to a my just-uploaded stills is a pig … again some kind of tip sheet would be useful; I consider myself pretty experienced at this, but I failed.. in fact I could not add my own audio clip so gave up..
[you can only select from pre-stored tracks... the preferred method right now is to shoot your own video clip on your phone and email it to a custom address you obtain from Kyte.tv, or use a simple drag-n-drop interfact on your computer]
7. wasn’t sure if I could do private channel viewing… e.g. to chat only with family… I set up my 4 digit code for only private/allowed UPLOADING, but within moments found many lurkers which I didn’t actually want – no problem, as long as we know… in fact I luckily found you there so it turned out to be quite handy..
[UPDATE: 8. Some clarification of the role of 'episodes' within 'channels' would help, too: this is a great idea, but just needs another 1-line explanation for the user].
[FURTHER UPDATE entered after the video upload: note that in the video clip, when I say 'walk over to my computer, upload the video', the computer has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the interaction, but was just for an atmosphere shot and for editing this blog... the video was shot on my Nokia N70 mobile phone and emailed straight from the phone to my kyte.tv email address, in fact the mobile email continued as I walked down the stairs on my way home.]
This has enormous potential… I wish Kyte.tv the best of luck!
Technorati Tags: kyte, mobile, video, citizen, journalism, youtube
