What do history buffs, Twitter geeks and Leonardo DiCaprio fans all have in common? They may have an interest in adding updates from @TitanicRealTime to their tweet-streams. In honor of the historic voyage’s 100th anniversary, The History Press, a U.K. history publisher, will be recounting the doomed journey via Twitter on April 15 from the first-person perspective of the officers, crew members and passengers.
The account is already nearing 26,000 Twitter followers, a month prior to the April 10 “Bon Voyage.” Current posts describe the lay and the land of the ocean-liner – some more more ominous than others. Even now, the tweets are haunting, given we know exactly how it all “goes down” in the end.
The History Press blog assures us that we can expect “historically accurate tweets drawn from reliable research” (so maybe this won’t be too interesting for the Leo fans). Never mind the fact that Twitter, nay, the Internet wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of existence yet. This will be a creative way to use social to share history in an engaging way. I’ve always enjoyed reading first-person accounts of history versus textbooks: it gives life and a personality to the subject matter. The Twitter recount will go a step beyond, giving us the opportunity to not only to hear it right from the horses’ mouths, but to hear it as if it were happening right then and there. Brilliant!
There are 190 tweets planned for the telling of the Titanic’s tale, and I can’t help but wonder if there will be any engagement with other Twitter users. I imagine that for the sake of keeping the documentation untainted with spoilers, it won’t. My other thought is if The History Press, or other societies, will take this approach to other events that have shaped the course of history and where we are today – Civil War reenactments, anyone?
What do you think of the modern retelling of this iconic voyage? Will you be following through the last tweet on April 15?
First and foremost: Amanda Knox has been acquitted. The live-stream of the verdict was scheduled for 3:45 p.m. EDT today. All (or most all) of us at Racepoint Group were wired into our computers eager to witness history. Being perhaps a little unhealthily addicted to Twitter, I went a step further and plugged “Knox” into a search column on Tweetdeck: For comparison, I searched “Bieber” shortly thereafter. While that column also updated continuously, the Knox updates were even faster and furious…-er. It’s no surprise that Twitter explodes with breaking national and global news. However, I’d never tried doing a live search on such a hot topic. As you can see, anyone who wanted to read the tweets of the masses couldn’t possibly hope to catch them all without having supersonic reading abilities. It’s become so easy to publish content that for events of this magnitude, you have to know what you’re looking for – be it via a more specific search term, or a more limited pool or resources (just folks you follow, for instance). As more and more content becomes more readily accessible at rates that we can’t pace, we need to learn to be way more discriminating of our resources.
Ustream, the Silicon Valley based live-streaming service, has taken in 20 million in funding from Japan’s Softbank Corp. Softbank is aiming to invest an additional $55 million in exercised shares, which would make them to top shareholder in the company by July 2011.
“Assuming all available options granted to the Company to acquire additional shares are exercised by July 2011, the Company’s total investment is expected to be approximately USD 75 million (investment ratio expected over 30%) and will result in the Company becoming Ustream’s top shareholder.”
According to the press release, and comments by the founders in the mainstream press, Ustream will use the funding to move into Japan, China, Korea and India. All of which represent a huge opportunity based on consumers use of video-equipped smart-phones in those countries.
Ustream, which was founded by two former Army officers to better communication in the field, opened in its doors in March 2007 with services that enable users to distribute and watch live videos anytime by PC and mobile phones. Currently, Ustream has more than 50 million monthly viewers. While these viewers can watch feeds as ridiculous as “Ocho Cinco” asking for Xbox help and showing off his fish tank, the service has also struck up deals with all the major networks as partners in live-video broadcasting.
For instance, Ustream worked with ABC and NBC to stream the American Music Awards and Golden Globes respectively on Ustream. It also has collaborations in place with premium content holders of movies, music and sports. Users can also communicate with each other while enjoying videos through Ustream’s collaborations with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.
As we covered before, Ustream’s tie-up with Facebook has created a huge opportunity for brands and celebrities to broadcast live to consumers on the social networking site. According to Facebook, a live following of one of the first Jonas Brothers’ Ustreams led to 1.5 million updates – averaging 23,000 posts per minute – and more than 100,000 viewers.
In addition, Ustream is also highly concentrated on making the mobile, live-streaming experience better. Something that will be very important in Asia. Downloads for the Ustream iPhone application has exceeded 1.5 million and the number of users is surging, driving expectations for further growth going forward.
