Yahoo just took the lid off its new audioless livestreaming app, Livetext. The idea is similar to what Skype would be if your Skype was muted and you can see chat texts overlaid atop the video stream.
During Yahoo’s announcement, many of us in the TNW virtual newsroom
were skeptical. With Periscope, Meerkat, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat,
Vine and Skype already crowding the market, it seemed odd that Yahoo
decided to create yet another an app for the internet generation who are
used to the noiseless world of GIFs.
Really, go ask the next teen you find and see if they know what Yahoo is.
I get the idea of Livetext. There are many times where having calls just
isn’t convenient, or people just don’t feel like speaking out loud.
It’s why apps like Seamless and the basic premise of texting work so
well.
But if Livetext is meant for you to be natural, uninterrupted and
covert with your video livestreams, pray tell who would want to watch me
text my friends from virtually the worst angle ever.
“People understand expressions better,” Yahoo says during the
announcement. “You don’t have to use LOLs or OMGs with video.” If
anything, Livetext will prove to your friends you are not actually
LOL-ing when you sent that
emoji.
During the demo, you can also see Livetext’s senior product
management director Arjun Sethi fumbling to text properly without making
typos. Maybe it’s a simple case of stage fright, but this much holds
true: It just feels unnatural. There’s nothing sexy about watching
someone text from under their chin, but watching them move and emote
while looking at the camera might be. Why would you want to try to do
both simultaneously?
We already have a problem with walking and texting at the same time. Now we have to worry about potentially walking, texting and livestreaming all at once.
The fact is, we like GIFs because they’re often better at expressing
our thoughts than our faces. Also, GIFs don’t have unflattering angles.
And on the Web, all we ever want is to put ourselves in the best light.
The premise of Livetext might work well if it was incorporated as
part of Yahoo’s Tumblr blogging scheme. I can see this possibly working
in-line on a user’s Tumblr stream, and it would better target the
correct demographic.
At best, it would be ideal for the deaf community or those in
emergency situations (i.e. kidnapping, domestic violence) where audio
cannot be used. It’s potentially quite useful, but the marketing on it
seems off. Yahoo’s got the right idea in mind, but it seems to be unsure
of what to do with the concept.
