YourTrumanShow is a video blogging initiative which allows ordinary people like you and me distribute great stories via video diaries.

In September 2007, we took a look at the new application coming from YourTrumanShow: The VideoMap widget, which launched at DEMOFall07 and has since been in private alpha mode for development and testing. 

YourTrumanShow is known for giving you a place to video blog your life story. Today marks the release of VideoMap on FaceBook.

Does It Live Up To The Promise?

We wondered if the application’s official release would live up to the promise of its debut, and the answer is mostly yes. During DEMO the creators of YourTrumanShow promised the VideoMap would offer a widget that would work with YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace and more. 

They said the widget would offer a graphic representation of your video connections and collections across social networks.

No Application Spam

I installed the FaceBook application as soon as it came out this morning to give it a whirl. As with any FaceBook application it was fairly simple to install. To its credit it did not want to spam every friend in my FaceBook account with invitations. 

On every screen where invitations were possible it gave a very clear and simple way to opt out or skip the process and go right to the application to start playing.

Importing From YouTube

Once the application was installed it took me to a screen to import any videos I had on YouTube. I don’t have many, not being a video blogger, so the process was fairly quick for me. As soon as the upload was finished I was taken to the VideoMap screen, where I could see my user icon in the centre and my videos in a neat row below.

Once you’ve added your videos, you can click on the little Contact icon in the upper right corner to add your friends. This is where the ease of use started to slide a bit. It offered me a way to integrate friends from FaceBook and YouTube, which is fine. I wondered where the promised MySpace integration went, but decided to just try it out. 

Limited User Friendliness

Clicking on FaceBook called up a list of my friends with their user icon next to their name. Right away I was disappointed that there was not a way to bulk add people. It’s nice that they don’t force you to spam your friends and invite them, but it went very slowly having to add everyone one name at a time, clicking several buttons and options to do so. 

If an application is going to make it to my permanent use on FaceBook, it has to be easy, not spam my friends and above all, be fast. I have very limited time to play on FaceBook.

Once I had the basics handled, I decided to try it out. One thing I noticed right away: VideoMap resizes YouTube videos into a larger view. That isn’t good. YouTube quality is poor enough in its original window size. Blowing up the video only makes it worse. I did not like that at all.

Relationship Bubble Map

Once I’d had a chance to add some friends, their icons surrounded mine in a kind of relationship bubble map, complete with trails back to me.

Holding the mouse over any of their icons reveals any videos they may have and gives you a chance to tweak how they interface with your VideoMap. It is a bit visually cluttered once you get past 20 or so friends - it will be interesting to see what happens once they start adding more videos and playing with VideoMap more themselves.

I was quite disappointed that the MySpace integration isn’t included yet. The promised portable widget seems to still be in development as well.

That might prove to be the selling point for me, being able to take my VideoMap and place it on blogs or other social profiles, adjusting who it displays as I move it to each one. As of now that isn’t on its capabilities list.

Conclusions

I found the VideoMap to be a bit visually displeasing as far as colour scheme goes. It is quite a loud shade of pink that isn’t easy on the eyes at all. I looked for a way to change it to a custom colour scheme, or at least to FaceBook’s default, but that isn’t offered yet either. 

All in all, I think the concept is good, and the release isn’t bad. They definitely could improve it by offering a way to take it portable, a way to bulk add friends, and a way to change the colour from hot pink to… just about anything else, really.

This article is based on a Profy post written by Leslie Poston.

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