Photos are so 1990s
A friend was telling me about his girlfriend this afternoon. He asked if I wanted to see a picture.
For the first time ever, I’ve actually responded, ‘well, no, don’t you have a video?’
He didn’t — but he’s getting himself a Nokia N93 soon so soon he’ll have the facility. I don’t really want to view static images any more. Why take a picture when you can take a video? It’s a trillion times better and it’s the way of the future.
I know this for sure. There’s definitely a requirement for static images of course, but when you’re talking memories, you want video. Well, I want video.
Here’s a case in point from last night. If you recall, I was out with friends Jo & Nat, celebrating Nat’s birthday. (Incidentally I used Google Mobile to look up a flower shop in Chelmsford for Nat’s flowers).
You remember I tried live blogging that wedding recently with the Nokia N90? Unfortunately there was no mobile signal for most of the weekend. However I have the videos on my handset (and most of them I’ve also ShoZu’ed up to various blogs and emails). So I tried an experiment with the girls. I asked if they’d like to see some pics from the wedding.
I handed over the N90 and they flicked casually through the various static pics I’d taken. THEN I showed them some video. They were both hooked. For 3 minutes while the video played out. They loved it.
Why? Well, it’s ‘real’. They could see the bride, groom, the lovely wedding car, they could hear everyone talking (doing the ‘doesn’t she look nice’ bit) and they could actually see and hear the laughter. Phenomenal.
Jo & Nat are accustomed to ultra poor quality video. Every handset on the market with a static camera can also take videos. They’re usually rubbish. When the next generation of N90-quality video handsets finally get into the hands of your average mobile users… well, that’s going to be exciting.
Here’s a demonstration.
So, at the top of this blog you’ve got a picture of Jo & Nat deciding what to order last night. Fair enough. It’s not exactly painting a thousand words for me.
Now, have a look at the video I took on Youtube at about the same time. It doesn’t compare. Video is brilliant.
What does this mean? Well, if you own a service that hosts mobile videos, it means good news across the next few years. 🙂
