my30seconds

Mobile phones have now permeated the market such that virtually everyone has one and they are no longer simply phones, but advanced electronic devices that people use everyday as MP3 players, schedule planners, email inboxes, instant messengers, and digital camera/camcorders. In addition to these powerfully versatile functionalities, a particularly exploitable fact is that people carry their phones around wherever they go. My30seconds is a project that takes advantage of this: using mobile phones to take and immediately share videos whenever and wherever you are. That's the tagline: "Your Motion Memories Captured, Shared anywhere, anytime".

My30seconds would consist of three main components: the website (my30seconds.net) the SMS and the MMS function on mobile phones. The website serves as a portal where users can store, manage, and share the videos that were taken and sent from their mobile phones using the MMS functionalities. MMS also allows a real-time sharing experience by sending videos to other mobile phones seconds after their capture.

Although this use of existing technology is not new, my30seconds attempts to distinguish itself by presenting several designed functions. First is that all videos are limited to 30 seconds in length. This is intended to force users to submit original and creative content that only captures salient highlights of their day. These videos would then be automatically mapped onto a "personal calendar", forming a kind of video-based profile/diary of the users. These videos can further be socially linked. A user can initiate a SMS message to his friends and call for a particular kind of video to be recorded, for example, to send a birthday message. This collection of videos centered on a particular theme can then be viewed by the recipient successively or even concurrently on mini-streams on his screen.

Another method of organizing and sharing the user videos would be to divide them into geographical locations where they were taken. Videos organized this way would add an extra dimension above that of the individual user by presenting a video profile of the community/locality/city/country. Users can both present and learn about their own and others' communities by sharing these video clips of themselves and events in and around their communities. This snapshot in videos of the particular community would be of interest to both locals and tourists. Finally, local small business owners can also use my30seconds to post self-made advertisement videos for their businesses, adding a commercial and convenient facet to my30seconds.