Tag: Blab

A Former Blab User’s Observations For Tik-Tok


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The video conferencing service Blab may one day be looked back upon as the Amiga of such things. It was way ahead of its time and it definitely gave a sense of the community building potential of video conferencing when combined with discovery.

On paper, at least, Blab was a multi-functional platform that could have been used for everything from a “video Reddit” to online dating to a robust podcasting platform, to you name it.

But the very thing that made it so great — it’s very cool discovery feature — was ultimately its downfall (in a sense.) Once hateful trolls got a hang of the service — and were willing to be on camera — that was the end of Blab at least from the community standpoint.

I use Tik-Tok a lot these days and occasionally — when I’m not worried the service is, like, fucking reading my mind — I wonder if they could somehow crib the best bits of Blab and give Facebook a run for its money.

The answer is I don’t know.

The reason is, Tik-Tok is a handful as it is. Throwing in four way video conferencing with discovery would face the exact same problems that Blab had. So, on paper, yes, adding Blab features to Tik-Tok would probably take it to the next level and make it potentially a Facebook killer.

But, in reality, you would have to be a lot and I mean A LOT smarter than me to figure out how to cherry pick Blab’s best bits without it slamming into the bonkers troll problem that Blab experienced. So, in the abstract, yes, it would be great for Tik-Tok to bring the Blab experience to the masses but it would be seriously playing with fire on a practical level.

So, I don’t know. I do think there is a way that Tik-Tok could grow as huge as Facebook under the right conditions — Facebook is a utility that is hated by a huge swath of if its user based. Whenever we move from Web 3.0 to Web 4.0 everything will be “disrupted” again and new titans will arise. It may be that we skip the video and VR phases altogether and go directly to MindCaps.

Or something.

Anyway, I miss old Blab. We hardly knew yuh.

A Blab ‘Show’ I’m Proud Of

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

No one cares and I’m just lighting matches and throwing them into the void at this point, but if for some reason you’re interested in me, here’s a really long, really interesting Blab.im “show” I did with the guy who at the time was in charge of it.

A Very Out-Of-The Box Vision For Saving SnapChat

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have already mentioned this, but it’s fun to talk about so I’m going to write about it some more. If SnapChat were to re-imagine itself completely in the manner I have suggested, that of turning itself into something akin to a video discussion service with a new text aspect, I think something pretty cool could happen.

Here’s how I would do it.

If it were possible, I would base the new SnapChat on video conferencing. I used the now defunct Blab.im a lot a few years ago and if SnapChat were to leverage its existing user base to go in that direction I think it would reap significant rewards. But there’s a lot I don’t know.

Video would still be at the core of the service, but there would be so much more than that available. The whole point of this new SnapChat would be to get you to have video conferences with your friends that others could watch. It wouldn’t be so much about sending video email to your existing friends as it would be making new friends. That’s a pretty powerful concept, I think. If you had a robust discovery feature you could make all kinds of new friends.

But the point is, there would also be a powerful IRC (AOL Chatroom) text feature in this new service. And threaded Usenet-like post discussions. All of this wouldn’t be rolled out overnight, of course, but you would gradually work towards a completely new vision for SnapChat that I think users would really love. Again, the only reason why I even suggest SnapChat doing this is if it doesn’t innovate and innovate quickly, the whole thing is doomed.

I don’t know if its even technically feasible to do a massive amount of video conferencing in the way I suggest. Blab was never able to get more than, maybe, 100 people in a room to watch a four way video conference, so it may not even be technically possible to get thousands of people watching even a two way video conference. But let’s suppose they used proprietary technology or something.

They would have to expand onto the desktop to truly have this vision become a reality. It would be really cool to have a service whereby you had not only recorded video conferencing with an audience, but a feature rich text environment as well. I have talked at great length about my vision both on this Website and on Instagram. Like, I’ve done thousands of little Instagram videos about this subject. I just take a lot of pictures now, but the videos are still there on my account for better or worse.

The only reason why I even think SnapChat would be interested in such a completely different vision for their service is they’re in serious risk of becoming moot and if they did something really, really dramatic and revolutionary it may be the only way to survive at all. They have the means, motive and opportunity as they say.

They wouldn’t even have to worry that much about their userbase revolting. SnapChat is dying and if they don’t innovate their way out of this deadend, there won’t be much for them to worry about at all in the first place. But whatever. Like I said, I only even wrote about this because it’s interesting.