No doubt Twitvid is hoping to catch the wave of Twitter users buying the new video enabled iPhone 3GS, as well as other video enabled mobile phones. Twitvid has just launched an easy to use iPhone application in which you can record a video and upload it to the site, or upload a previously recorded video. Alternatively, you can email a video to the site using a unique email address the site assigns to your profile.
Stephen Fry on Twitvid
The Twitvid web interface allows you to upload a video file from your computer or capture a video via webcam. As far as recording and uploading a video goes, it seems like all bases are covered. Twitvid also has a substantial 1GB or 20min video upload limit. Given that it’s a service for sharing videos on twitter, I assume most people will keep their videos pretty short and small in file size, but I could be wrong there.
It’s very easy to get going on Twitvid. You don’t even have to go through a sign up process, you just sign in using your usual Twitter username and password. In addition to Twitter, there are settings to cross-post your videos to Facebook, MySpace and YouTube if desired.
Many of the social features we’ve become accustomed to seeing are there. Once you’ve posted a video, people are able to make comments which, just like Twitpic, are posted on twitter with a link to your video. There are also a ‘Re-tweet’, ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ buttons and an embeddable Meebo chatroom to “Chat about this TwitVid”. When you visit the video maker’s profile you can also view “Buzz” (tweets) related to all their TwitVids.
In terms of attempting to get a lot of users to use the service in a short time, it’s a smart move to leverage a large (and getting larger every month), existing community rather than building one from scratch. It remains to be seen how many people will use Twitvid and, perhaps more importantly, continue to use it once the initial novelty has worn off. If it catches on like Twitpic has, it should do well. According to compete.com, Twitpic now has over 4 million unique visitors a month.
Graph of Twitpic unique visitors: under 1 mill, Dec 2008 to 4 270 400, June 2009
