Lifecasting (Justine Ezarik’s Journey) - continued

Justine Ezarik’s Journey

Justine is freelance graphics designer and video editor from Pittsburgh. She is also known for everything from her slapstick comedy videos to hosting productions and representing other firms commercially. This industrious tech-savvy young woman may also be on a new technological social wave. She’s also very talented, attractive, photogenic, charming, astonishingly witty and obviously smart—a great combination for success. At age 23 she has plenty of time for opportunities to formulate and explore them as they arise.

Many people have come to know Justine for the widely publicized video she produced and posted on the Internet featuring receipt of her first iPhone bill, a 300 page one that included nearly 30,000 itemized text messages, that was shipped to her from AT&T by mail, that was so large it came in a box! Even mainstream media picked up the story and interviews of her ensued by CNN, NPR and several others.

Getting very curious about lifecasting in general, I monitored this innovative site for a while, especially Justine’s since I knew who she was. After viewing her stream at various times during the day and night over several days, I noticed something about lifecasting on Justin.tv that you might not notice at first that made it unique and interesting. This caused my technical article to morph into one about a new social phenomenon riding on the crest of current technology using inexpensive equipment, albeit somewhat low in quality generally.

With a live chat room adjacent to the video widow, an interesting element to what Justin.tv brings is that people in the chat room can now comment on the video as it is happening in real-time. The synchronization and interaction between the chat and the video is where it starts to get very interesting because the two are now allowed to relate to each other and lifecasting takes on a new perspective that has not received much attention. Also, since the lifecaster has audio, they can respond verbally to the chat interactively, such as answering questions or just commenting on what is being said by the participants.

continued...