Togethertube (https://togethertube.com/). What a great idea! It was great fun today (Sunday) for the matinee showing attended by six people on the #MSCEDC course today. The opportunity for text-based discussion opened up a lot of communication, and a sense of community (at least in my mind it did) that’s missing from Twitter.
I’m converted to operating, chatting, forming communities online. I frequent (and indeed have founded and have run) a number of online communities, mostly surrounding the topic of online gaming. There’s been a huge shift toward a new platform called Discord (https://discordapp.com/). It’s very robust, userfriendly, non-obtrusive and generally more convenient than Facebook, Twitter and (for those that remember) Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
Watching videos “together” is something that often happens in online gaming communities. For example, a You-Tube content producer releases a new episode, someone links it in the real-time chat (such as Discord), and those in the room at the time pick it up and watch it, usually on a second screen. Comments and critique usually follow, depending on the impact of the video.
Another platform used in the online gaming community is Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/), a real-time screen-casting and chat environment owned (now) by Amazon. This very much follows in a collaborative environment. However, in this case, it is more akin to a lecture, with one person offering their screen as the source of entertainment and the comments from those receiving the transmission.
Certainly, learning is never far away from such communities: A You-tuber talking about the updates to a new game passes on the knowledge they have gained to those listening. A streamer via Twitch will help others understand the game they are following, or at least the discussions around the game will lead to discussion. And even real-time chat in channels such as those offered by Discord can be a great source of information about a game, a programming language, video production and so on.
Togethertube offers agency for the users with self-moderated channels, with user voting on the playlist and the ability to invite users and so on. It’s very much social media. In the next week or so, I will be to checking out how similar products available for Virtual Reality, in my case a HTC Vive HMD with Steam VR, work (e.g. http://store.steampowered.com/app/364380/) and to think a bit more about whether or not there could be application through to the classroom such as Engage (http://store.steampowered.com/app/449130/).