What Are You Going to Tout?

Monika Jansen Jun 2, 2011 Tweet

By now, we’ve all heard that Shaq announced his retirement on Twitter.  Because I’m not a basketball fan, my reaction was a big “So what.”  But the video technology he used to do so could change the way we tweet and update our Facebook status – and that is really interesting.

Tout is a free mobile app that allows you to share videos socially in real-time (those updates are called touts).  The year old company, based in San Francisco, is still in beta, and the app is only available for the iPhone now (they’re working on Android and iPad apps), but it is really simple to use.  You just take a video of up to 15 seconds and post it to Twitter or Facebook from your phone.  That’s it.

The network also allows you to find and follow friends, family and people who interest you and stay up-to-date with their touts.

How much more interesting is it to share life as it happens in color with sound and motion, rather than some text?  And because we are all tethered to our smartphones (and tote around tablets), I can see this technology blowing up into the next big thing.

Back to Shaq: In an LA Times article, it was pointed out that he sits on Tout’s advisory board.  Apparently, he heard about the service and approached them, and no, he is not being paid for using Tout.  However, you cannot beat that kind of publicity with a stick, so good for Tout.  (If you haven’t seen the tweet yet, here it is.)