| The last thing we all need is another lame video service vying for our attention.  Since I believe time is valuable, I do not have a Facebook account. Rather, I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter. I have a Google+ account but seldom use it as I see it as a version of Twitter where nobody can be succinct. So you can imagine what I think of Instagram. I do not feel like taking a perfectly good photograph and running it through a filter so it looks like an old lantern slide or a sepia-toned picture taken with a pinhole camera. I am even less impressed with the silly videos on Instagram, which appear to be the new thrust of Facebook. Unreported, it seems as if Facebook is banking on this sort of communication being the future since it has plans to run the videos out of a massive server farm in Colorado. It is serious about video. And why not? Look at YouTube. We all love seeing people fall on their faces. And who doesn't enjoy watching a cat play the piano or a dog chasing its tail? I'm not sure how many videos will appear of a cop bashing a protestor or kids committing vandalism, but they should be encouraged too. These Instagram videos are 15-second videos, which is actually long since most will be vapid and no one should have to suffer though anything longer. At the announcement yesterday the audience was shown a short video that consisted of clips of a guy making a coffee drink. How riveting! My idea of a crazy Saturday night is watching some guy steam milk and pull a shot from a huge machine. Look for videos of fascinating escalators next. And by golly, these videos need to be collected. I'm expecting some to end up in the Smithsonian. The stage was set for this by Twitter, whose data is being collected by the Library of Congress so historians in the year 2400 can look back and wonder why over 28 million people followed Britney Spears to read tweet after tweet after tweet about how her new song is out. (Buy it now!) The Library of Congress is nuts. The question on my mind now is what is going to happen with all these 15-second videos of pooping dogs, skateboarding tricks, children dropping ice cream cones, and pretty much any banal thing you can think of. It's good material and will end up on various "life in the 21st century" compilations owned by Facebook and sold back to you somehow. This is all because YouTube, Vimeo, and the other video sites have not been able to feed the public enough dreck to keep us all happy. So hello, Facebook. Let's worsen the trend. More dreck! I would like to advise everyone to stay away from this soul-sucking idea. Run and hide. Shake your fist and shout at people making inane videos. I hope this is the beginning of the end for Facebook but somehow I reckon it isn't.  via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFjnIQyIlzRyzZFyS-yJFn6xQyIyA&url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2420791,00.asp | |||
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