By Andrew Fornier
When basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal publicly announced his intention to resign, he did so in several different platforms, one of which was an as-yet obscure new social networking site. The site, known as Tout, can best be described as the bastard love child of YouTube and Twitter, taking the video-sharing format espoused by the former and casting it in the bite-sized message bursts of the latter – video tweets, if you will, allowing no more than 15 seconds of airtime per “tout”. I suppose this latest evolution of social media had to happen eventually, with more and more people everywhere linked by wireless web access, carrying powerful phones that can also capture video with the press of a button. Which raises a couple of questions: was this concept really necessary? And will it reach the heights of its predecessors, or will it simply plunge into oblivion like so many other dubious interactive innovations?
Oh, and what the hell is a “tout”, anyway?
To answer that last question first, English dictionaries define “touting” as soliciting, promoting, or some other similar activity that involves broadcasting to an audience. This is essentially 
what all social network platforms do nowadays, so the word is a good fit, and easy enough to remember without being too common. Soon enough, we’ll be “touting” just as commonly as we “tweet”, or so the developers of the site are hoping. Technical quibbles aside, the gamble that Tout is taking with modern society is that people will be more inclined to share recorded tidbits of their lives than string a few words together to make a coherent thought. According to Tout, people may struggle with tweets and status updates because not everyone is a writer, but since everyone has a unique audio-visual perspective, “touting” will come across as much more natural.
And this is where I think Tout hits a few roadblocks. Sure, not everyone can compose sentences with the flourish of a world-class author, but you don’t have to be one to tell people that you had peanut butter on toast for breakfast today. If half the status updates and tweet feeds I catch are any indication, healthy chimpanzees could come up with more intelligent banter. It’s not as if 
we have large underground gatherings of semi-literate people who are waiting eagerly for the chance to finally express themselves video style the way their “smarter” counterparts have been leaving status messages for years. Really, the point of the Twitter character limit and the boundaries set by other social networking sites is to keep things short and simple. It doesn’t matter if you misspell every word, or if you have nothing profound to say about the state of the economy. Sharing, no matter how trivial, is the main objective.
So it goes with video sharing. Certainly, there are plenty of people out there who are shameless enough to take the video plunge, just from taking a look at YouTube. But if those are the people that Tout is targeting to sign up, then its war for popularity will be over before any online battles have been waged. YouTube denizens aren’t content with a mere 15 seconds of fleeting fame, when they need at least ten times that period to properly sing a cover song, review a product, or share their latest insight.
No, Tout’s success will most probably hinge on its ability to attract two subgroups of net dwellers. The first obvious one is that of the celebrities, the people whose photographs we can’t get enough of, whose exploits we follow fanatically, whose mundane moments somehow seem that much more interesting by reason of their star status. Shaq’s enthusiasm for Tout was definitely a big step in the right direction, as the connection seemed much more real when you were actually seeing him and hearing his words, as opposed to reading his status update or a news report on his retirement. Tout will allow us to feel even more involved, vicariously, in the lives of the people we idolize, and the direct, responsive nature of the touts will be the closest thing that most of us will get to video chatting with the stars. There’d also be an authenticity to the communication that you can’t get from Facebook or Twitter, which are littered with thousands of fake accounts and false statements. It’d be much harder to fake Shaq, or Katy Perry, or Brad Pitt telling you how delicious his breakfast was today, directly through a tout.
The second group of future “Touters” would be, strangely enough, the folks who aren’t hooked on the existing social network chain of interlocking websites, the ones who maybe have something to say or show but can’t be bothered to take nice pictures or write prose or compose documentary-level videos about it. Tout is a gateway site, a place for those with the technology, but not the diligence, to take a chance at finally putting themselves out there. Indeed, the chance of embarrassment is relatively low considering the brief length of each tout, and the intimidation factor is considerably lessened due to the current relatively small Tout community. Less members means less people to ridicule you or make nasty comments, and it’s always a nice feeling to join something at its early stages.
If I were to make a prediction today about whether Tout will rise to the levels of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, I would give it a cautious thumbs-up. Modern society’s naturally voyeuristic tendencies, coupled with our undying fascination with celebrity types, may well prove to be a devastating combination if Tout plays its cards right. But it has got to strike now and expand its network of famous faces quickly, or risk fading away as just another web-based fad that, if truth be told, does not offer anything particularly revolutionary.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Tout’s videos may well be worth far more, and collectively comprise the gallery of perspectives to which its developers aspire. As Shaq has demonstrated, it only takes a few moments, captured at the right time, to make a lasting impact.
[Tukkolabs]
Tout and About: Arrival of the Video Tweet?
By Andrew Fornier
Oh, and what the hell is a “tout”, anyway?
To answer that last question first, English dictionaries define “touting” as soliciting, promoting, or some other similar activity that involves broadcasting to an audience. This is essentially
what all social network platforms do nowadays, so the word is a good fit, and easy enough to remember without being too common. Soon enough, we’ll be “touting” just as commonly as we “tweet”, or so the developers of the site are hoping. Technical quibbles aside, the gamble that Tout is taking with modern society is that people will be more inclined to share recorded tidbits of their lives than string a few words together to make a coherent thought. According to Tout, people may struggle with tweets and status updates because not everyone is a writer, but since everyone has a unique audio-visual perspective, “touting” will come across as much more natural.
And this is where I think Tout hits a few roadblocks. Sure, not everyone can compose sentences with the flourish of a world-class author, but you don’t have to be one to tell people that you had peanut butter on toast for breakfast today. If half the status updates and tweet feeds I catch are any indication, healthy chimpanzees could come up with more intelligent banter. It’s not as if
we have large underground gatherings of semi-literate people who are waiting eagerly for the chance to finally express themselves video style the way their “smarter” counterparts have been leaving status messages for years. Really, the point of the Twitter character limit and the boundaries set by other social networking sites is to keep things short and simple. It doesn’t matter if you misspell every word, or if you have nothing profound to say about the state of the economy. Sharing, no matter how trivial, is the main objective.
So it goes with video sharing. Certainly, there are plenty of people out there who are shameless enough to take the video plunge, just from taking a look at YouTube. But if those are the people that Tout is targeting to sign up, then its war for popularity will be over before any online battles have been waged. YouTube denizens aren’t content with a mere 15 seconds of fleeting fame, when they need at least ten times that period to properly sing a cover song, review a product, or share their latest insight.
No, Tout’s success will most probably hinge on its ability to attract two subgroups of net dwellers. The first obvious one is that of the celebrities, the people whose photographs we can’t get enough of, whose exploits we follow fanatically, whose mundane moments somehow seem that much more interesting by reason of their star status. Shaq’s enthusiasm for Tout was definitely a big step in the right direction, as the connection seemed much more real when you were actually seeing him and hearing his words, as opposed to reading his status update or a news report on his retirement. Tout will allow us to feel even more involved, vicariously, in the lives of the people we idolize, and the direct, responsive nature of the touts will be the closest thing that most of us will get to video chatting with the stars. There’d also be an authenticity to the communication that you can’t get from Facebook or Twitter, which are littered with thousands of fake accounts and false statements. It’d be much harder to fake Shaq, or Katy Perry, or Brad Pitt telling you how delicious his breakfast was today, directly through a tout.
The second group of future “Touters” would be, strangely enough, the folks who aren’t hooked on the existing social network chain of interlocking websites, the ones who maybe have something to say or show but can’t be bothered to take nice pictures or write prose or compose documentary-level videos about it. Tout is a gateway site, a place for those with the technology, but not the diligence, to take a chance at finally putting themselves out there. Indeed, the chance of embarrassment is relatively low considering the brief length of each tout, and the intimidation factor is considerably lessened due to the current relatively small Tout community. Less members means less people to ridicule you or make nasty comments, and it’s always a nice feeling to join something at its early stages.
If I were to make a prediction today about whether Tout will rise to the levels of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, I would give it a cautious thumbs-up. Modern society’s naturally voyeuristic tendencies, coupled with our undying fascination with celebrity types, may well prove to be a devastating combination if Tout plays its cards right. But it has got to strike now and expand its network of famous faces quickly, or risk fading away as just another web-based fad that, if truth be told, does not offer anything particularly revolutionary.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Tout’s videos may well be worth far more, and collectively comprise the gallery of perspectives to which its developers aspire. As Shaq has demonstrated, it only takes a few moments, captured at the right time, to make a lasting impact.
[Tukkolabs]