Bubble Comments

Every once in a while a technology comes along that captures my attention and I start using it. In early 2007 it was Twitter. I immediately saw something in it—the way you could quickly get started, the instant gratification and the fluid conversation. I quickly dubbed it a "conversation ecosystem". Today, I just spent less than 10 minutes of my time playing with Bubble Comment. While I can't predict it's success—there is something here.

In mere seconds, anyone has the ability to leave a video comment on most sites. Here you can see that I've left a video comment on Seth Godin's blog (which ironically does not allow comments).

Will this new service alter our behavior? I really don't know. But it has a few things going for it:

1. Immediacy
2. Convenience
3. Multimedia
4. Ease of use
5. Accessibility

And as Stacey pointed out, this type of application could come in handy for deaf individuals (you can use sign language). Most importantly, it put a face, voice and personality to this whole Web 2.0 game. And as you already know, giving people a voice goes far nowadays.

Comments

[Karl Long]

Wow, that is an extremely compelling demo grizzly adams :-) I guess that's one upside we get to see what your wearing.

Seriously though, combine this with twitter and you've got an incredible conversation ecosystem.

It would be nice to see multiple comments on posts, I would have liked to have added one to the same page in response.

Peace K-)

[Bill Bulman]

David,

Other than seeing the bear, I mean beard in the demo, I think it is really cool. it would be neat to see people having back and forth conversations instead of the comment->respond->reply model currently with blogs.

very cool!

[sara_mc]

You broke the wall of Godin!

[Ski Sullivan]

At first it's surprising and funny -- everyone loves the bubble (remember VH1's first airing of Pop-Up Video?) -- but then it begs the question, how much clutter will this create?

I can see folks bubble-proofing their sites in a hurry as it falls into abusive hands.

For sure I'm going to use it for awhile but once it hits a critical mass I think it will become an intrusion that viewers tune out, or publishers guard against.

BTW, it was fun following you on Twitter and watching you bubble your way across blogdom.

[Jeremy]

that looks pretty groovy. I should try this out on some friends blogs a blow a mind or two.

[Simon]

I like the concept but does recreating someone's blog within the infrastructure come under fair use? It should be at least opt-out, and ideally opt-in.

[David Armano]

Simon,

you bring up an interesting point. In a way, it's like putting graffiti up on someone's site. Not to mention, what if someone uses hate speech or profanity? Let's follow this and see where it goes.

[Blog Expert]

Great article! However, I tend to love bubble comments. I guess we all have our opinions though.

[Gavin Heaton]

http://www.bubblecomment.com/id/mdzt

[Vitaliy Levit]

Looks like an interesting new way of communicating - should be fun to see how this technology evolves...

On a side note - couldn't those that are deaf just read the comments... what's the point of of video and sign language??

[David Armano]

Vitally,

Good point.

@servantofchaos, that was a pretty funny clip. :-)

[Sean Howard]

Be cooler if you could have multiple bubbles and a way to sort and find them on a page. Plus your request to have them not auto-play. But agreed it's a very interesting technology.

[Morgan Coudray]

Clearly a neat idea. Something that will be embraced by some and clearly a tool that that some will not use because of the time constraint and environment constraint: you can't do it at work.

[kate]

Wow this is better than the bubbles you blow as a kid.

Of course I have @servantofchaos' face frozen on my screen but I'm sure the experience improves ;)

[Asi]

Fantastic. So simple.

However, thinking about altering behaviour - not so sure about that.

When you said "Most importantly, it put a face, voice and personality to this whole Web 2.0 game", I was thinking that perhaps the massive success of blogging, SNS, micro-blogging, WOW, IMing, SMS etc is due to all the reasons you talked about, yet we are still somewhat hidden behind our keyboard..

We get all the social and emotional rewards/gratifications yet these platforms are still very different from face-to-face communications.

Bubble Comment is a step in that direction and I'm not sure people beyond the geekirati will follow.

Case in point: everyone thought that video calling on your mobile phone will be massively adopted and yet people shy away from it. Because we want to achieve the same communications goals without putting ourselves completely out there. We still want to be in control -to edit, delete or simply to hide behind our words and BC might be a step to far...

Happy holidays my friend!

[Rahel B]

I followed your Twitter post to see the bubble comment you made, but couldn't see it on the target site. Makes me wonder how reliable the service is.

[Suzanne Lainson]

I'm concerned about the potential for clutter as well. Just as MySpace has gotten overwhelmed by every aspiring rock star, I think you will find everyone who wants to be TV will now be able to broadcast on blogs with this application.

Any blog that has a big following will give bubble comments an immediate audience. At least with YouTube, you don't have to seek out what you don't want to see.

Seems like a great opportunity for spam.

It's clever, though.

[Julian]

They have URLs with ".php?id=" in them. Looks like some kid is at work there. _not_ good.

[Luc Debaisieux]

David,

Excellent! Just love blobs and bubbles.

Agree about Rachel B's comment. How can we find out about bubble comments on target site?

Question : will "Bubblecomment" update actual system with a series of blog widgets? Could be interesting to let people "open bubbles" directly from their blogs and eventually have some kind of control over spam or abusive content (like we have now on blog comments).

I imagine an embedded button at the bottom of each post to "play/stop" the flow of bubbles. Another one to "add bubble comment". And eventually a 3rd one with an automated "bubble mapping" of the comments to find your way through the bubbles and conversation left there (like some sort of index to access one or another bubble you'd like to jump to).

Anyway, there seems to be a great potential behind this. Looking forward to see its evolution.

Thanks for sharing David.

[Paula Thornton]

A number of very interesting dimensions illustrated by this technology (some alluded to here):

1. It shifts the control again to the masses (Here Comes Everybody).

2. With that shift it brings to question the ability to manage/control a brand experience (particularly in the ways currently relied upon). [Bringing to question even a brand as intellectual property.]

3. It adds another channel to the possibilities...and an inexpensive one at that (thus accelerating the adoption and experimentation)

4. The graffiti aspects reinforces what Disney was talking about at FASTforward '07 -- that companies need to begin to find ways to leverage their IP from the perspective of ANY attention adds value if you can tap it in some way.

[Steve Hal]

I like it but it would be better if it was a publishing tool a blogger could offer all readers directly from a blog...just like normal comments. Now that would make it take off.

[kevo]

They can...just check out the bottom of the Bubble Comment home page for more information on how Bloggers and web site owners can have their visitors create Bubble Comment directly from their sites...Super easy to use.

http://www.bubblecomment.com/id/tb9n

[Charlie Rapple]

David - thanks for sharing this. I love it! Sure, I can think of lots of questions (what happens if lots of people post bubbles on the same page - do they all start playing at once? does this really add sufficient value, above and beyond regular comments, to gain widespread traction?). But it's nicely executed (php strings aside). I'd love to see a web page with bubbles popping up one after another to form a more human comment conversation. Off to play with it more now ...
All the best,

Charlie.

[Chris Leone]

I see the opportunity for value, but like many others have said, abuse. It immediately takes the focus away from site, which encourages site owners to block the service. Ideally, you could leave a mark somewhere on the page or post which opens your bubble (similar to Viddler's comment feature, but now two dimensional) but even then it takes the focus away from the page.

I guess the bottom line is this: should readers and commenters be confined to one section of the page or be allowed to graze freely? I think allowing other people to take over such prominent visibility on someone else's site dilutes value so I lean towards the former.

[Alan Wolk]

I've already started referring to you as Gazoo ;)

The fact that it follows you around the page makes it 50% more annoying.

Seriously though-- it's like Seesmic - the places and times where we watch video and read text are two universes that rarely overlap. Video requires far more commitment than we're willing to give comments-- you can't scan video (and you can't even scroll past this one!)

It comes off like the party trick it is.

[Ike]

Two things...

1) For "free" users, there are only 50 views. Not helpful for comments. And for paid users, the video expires after 2000. Not helpful for permanence.

2) The original site is not "spoofed" in any way. The bubblecomment fetches the entire page in the background, and does not store it anywhere. Just like hotlinking an image, but instead an entire site.

[Chris]

Everyone brings up a key point that can be summarized like this. Technology used correctly when appropriate works for everyone. When abused or forced into the wrong application, it will fail no matter what features it has or doesn't have.

http://www.bubblecomment.com as it is now, offers a simple easy 'add on' enhancement to one's comment(s), or when forwarding a URL to a friend, business associate or even sales prospect.

I've used it to successfully 'be there' in virtual personalized 1-to-1 bubble messages with clients, and potential clients throughout the sales process for my consulting firm. I don't use it every time, but I know first hand it helps put a face and person with the email communications I send; and it gets attention.

I think of it as a 'disposable' tool, and therefore the videos just have to be me, not perfect, nor live on the page forever.

...just a thought.

PS: Notice I chose not to use in this post, simply b/c I thought it would be too cluttered for my full message to get through - but doesn't mean I won't use next time if the response would be enhanced with sound/picture motion of my facial expressions.

PSS: I also love the sister site's http://www.bubblejoy.com free ecard service - now that's something we can all have fun with!

[kevo]

Based on the last few "text" comments...

I think some of you might be missing the fact that Bubble Comment is designed as more of a peer-to-peer type of solution in which you might create a video comment about a web page you like or want to point out features to...and then send it out to 20 of your friends.

The fact this it is now starting to be used within comment sections of blogs is an interesting new dynamic of the base service...and no doubt will create new interaction issues and concerns (as some of you have pointed out).

But to simply brush the base idea as a "party trick", I feel is a bit narrow minded.

The ability to "quickly and personally" connect with other users about a web page and point out features or aspects on it in a very direct manner is a powerful concept.

The fact that is so ridiculously quick and easy to use (especially if you use the bookmarklet tool) is going to provide a powerful new direction of opportunity for this early stage group to explore.