Filed under: TV & Video, distribution, peer-to-peer | Tags: distribution, Miro, openaccess, opensource, openstandards, peertopeer, RSS, TV, video
Miro is a brilliant idea, a free, all-in-one, opensource desktop video application that plays almost any file format and allows you to search and download videos from pretty much anywhere. How good is that!
But, yet again, I’d never heard of it before Re:publica08 last week. I’m starting to think this may beacome a bit of a repetitive theme. To be clear, I agree with the principles behind it, openaccess, openstandards, opensource. To quote their site:
“With the decentralized structure of the internet, there is no reason to have gatekeepers that limit who gets to show their videos to the world. Miro is built to connect with any online publisher that has video RSS feeds, whether they are individuals or video hosting companies.”
https://www.getmiro.com/about/mission/
But I’m not sure (a) who it’s for, or (b) who’s using it. It seems to be yet another product built on good intentions and a lot of assumptions.
The company behind it the Participatory Culture Foundation is proud of its non-profit status and its mission to create tools for broader, deeper engagement with culture and politics. Being non-profit means that the employees are signed up to ‘the Miro cause’ and that the company is more accountable to its user community and the public. All well and good, but to me it seems that the cause is more important than producing a product that people want/need.
If you’re young and techy, or even just a bit techy, you’ve probably got your peer-to-peer software of choice installed and configured exactly as you want it. You’ll also know all of your favourite video sites and probably have RSS feeds configured to tell you about all the new content. If you’re older then TV/video probably means entertainment to you. You probably don’t want to fuss about with an application like Miro, and you probabaly want something that provides more of a TV experience, e.g. Joost or iPlayer (not that either are in any way perfect).
I’ve also yet to see anyone outside of the usual slashdot, boingboing, techradar websites discussing the product. Any product needs to be sustainable in the long term to support the company, that develops it, charitable or not. Where’s the publicity mission? The current mission is far too technical and idealistic; how are they going to get it out there? However much you dislike the big corporates of the world, they do know that sales (or in this case give aways) are ultimately what counts.
PS If someone from Miro can prove me wrong I’d be glad to hear from them. Although ultimately only time, uptake, and the company’s survival will tell us.
