Jason Creighton's Blog

Can justin.tv (wikipedia article) scale?

I don't mean "can their website scale?". I mean, "Could everybody do this?" Could everybody walk around with live, 24/7 camera feeds of their life? They call it "lifecasting", as if it's something that's common, something that people do. But it's not: It's just a publicity stunt.

Right?

Run with me for a minute: Suppose this was refined to the point where you didn't have a lug a backpack full of batteries around; Suppose you had a small, lightweight camera that you wore all (or nearly all) the time that Just Worked. And suppose that everybody did it. I mean everybody. Think about that for a second.

What would it be like? I have this picture in my head: Some friends hanging out in a coffee shop, with a laptop watching other group of people across town. Who are also at a laptop, watching them, watching them. If you follow me.

I imagine nobody being able to get away with anything: Somebody, somewhere was recording the stream. There would probably be a rolling backup of, oh, the last week or so that you could permanently save snippets from. If every important event in your life was recorded from multiple points of view, funerals would probably become tastefully done video presentations. Probably weddings too: None of this nonsense about remembering the first thing you said when you first met when we can play the genuine article on the big screen.

It's not gonna happen, of course, at least not to that extent. Calling it "lifecasting" as if it's going to become an established practice is, in my opinion, mere hyperbole. Not many people are going to willing turn their lives into The Truman Show just yet. But it's kinda fun to think about.

# posted by Jason Creighton @ 4/15/2007 09:56:00 PM