Sunday, April 01, 2007

Scrapblog just blew my mind!

Hat-tip to my author friend, Shel Israel, on what Techcrunch.com calls "the real scrapblog". But Shel (who also consults for Scrapblog) says the service hasn't gone 'live' (as of this post).
screenshot: Scrapblog, 1 Apr 07

Check out their Preview site instead.

Uh, what's Scrapblog again?

Shel says it's a "cool online multimedia tools that lets you use what you are doing with Flickr, YouTube and on your desktop in ways that are entirely new".

OK... getting there...

Techcrunch.com says:
"Scrapblogs are Flash-based slide shows made up of pages of photo or video layouts you can jazz up with a myriad of designs and effects. Transitions can be added between each page and you can set the mood with some background music as your show plays. You can publish a Scrapblog publicly or by invite only and embed it as well. If you choose, viewers can leave Flickr like embedded comments on key spots of the show."

Ah, tell you what -- check out the video tour by Scrapblog. I dare you to say you're not impressed by the idea!

Obviously I've not tried Scrapblog yet. But the video gives me a very good idea what it can do. I've invented a term for a service like Scrapblog -- a "Online Editing Publishing Synthesizer Service" (OEPSS).

It's an editing and publishing platform (like a blog, with comments features). And it integrates on existing social media services for photos and videos, like Flickr and Youtube. It's like a step-up from Vox.com (which is a blog service that provides a good integration with photo & video services like Flickr and Youtube). But Scrapblog goes one step ahead by allowing the user to edit the content online, very much like creating a movie or powerpoint slides.

It's use is independent of computer OS or software (excluding the web browser). All you need is the minimum computer hardware, a compliant web browser and broadband connectivity (of course when the Internet goes down, that turns into a disadvantage, but that's a different issue).

I'm definitely a lot more excited about Scrapblog than Twitter, maybe 'cos I'm a RightBrained kind of guy. I'd expect Scrapblog to be every bit as good as the tour says it is.

P.S. I see this as the next wave of "Web 2.0." development. Services like Flickr, Youtube, and blogs have become widespread and "normalised". Next stage of developments would be services that integrates such standalone services. We won't see a convergence as such, 'cos not everyone will need such services to be integrated. Instead we'll see more of such "Synthesization" (call it "Synergy" if you will). On the business side of things, we can expect such services being bought over by powerhouses like Google and Yahoo!

3 comments:

  1. I think twitter is more for presence or status info.. Just tried out scrapblog. It looks cool. I will be interesting to see if it catches on. There were couple of similar ones before..mostly intending to be add on slideshows to a blog. What I feel is when a lot of your friend start using it then you sort of get bored and move on to the next one. Hope they allow end users to create and upload templates etc.

    ReplyDelete
  2. True, about the "bored" thing. Ultimately, it's about what users REALLY need, rather than what is cool.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:00 pm

    Hey – since you’re a YouTuber, you might want to check this out… There’s a video company that’s recruiting
    YouTubers and if they like your stuff, (and they should) they will actually pay you when your video gets a hit.
    Here’s their link… www.flownetworkproductions.com/videorevenue.htm. It’s about time the people who make
    the videos get some of the money instead ng to YouTube!

    ReplyDelete

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