Public text messaging is a thing now

[Harold Mansfield]

We're having a pretty spirited conversation about privacy in another thread. One of my statements was that many people freely give up detailed and personal information about themselves across social media every day.

And then this launched today. It's literally allows you to post what used to be personal text messages, publicly to the world.
I can certainly see some marketing or media applications for this. Quick interviews, people texting at events and so on.

And then of course many people will use it without thinking and will willingly expose personal or security info about themselves in real time.

Talkshow is texting in public.People text amazing things.
Talkshow (https://talkshow.im/) is a simple messaging app that allows you to text these things in public. With Talkshow, individuals, groups of friends, entertainers, creators — anyone! — can have conversations in public, to be viewed by others in real time or after the fact. Every Talkshow can be shared outside the app and embedded into other websites.


https://medium.com/talkshow/talkshow-is-texting-in-public-c063b591596e#.gcush6n6o

What do you think?

[Freelancier]

One more step into the narcissistic future.

[vangogh]

many people freely give up detailed and personal information about themselves across social media every day.

I completely agree. They'll also give up information if the product is offered for free. In the end though, this product isn't all that different from any other social site. In fact it looks a lot like Twitter.

One thing in defense of people using apps like these is they grew up with them. We didn't. To us this is taking private text messages and making them public. To another generation this is one way to have public conversations, while they have their private conversations elsewhere. I'm sure there will be people who post things publicly they should have kept private, but I think the generation that's grown up with social media is better able to compartmentalize many of these sites and apps. They have a better sense of who uses each platform and who will possibly see what they post.

If they don't mind their parents seeing it, they post to Facebook. If they want to post something temporary, they post to Snapchat. And so on.

I think the internet also makes us more narcissistic out of necessity. We now live in an attention economy. The whole world now competes against each other online and the first step in that competition is to attract attention. Think about all the questions here about increasing search traffic or how to gain social media visitors. Those are all essentially the single question "how do I gain the attention of potential customers."


I can certainly see some marketing or media applications for this. Quick interviews, people texting at events and so on.

I can see that too. The question is will enough people use Talkshow to make it worthwhile. Should we take bets on how long it takes for someone to start a thread here asking how they can improve their Talkshow traffic?

[Harold Mansfield]

One thing in defense of people using apps like these is they grew up with them. We didn't. To us this is taking private text messages and making them public. To another generation this is one way to have public conversations, while they have their private conversations elsewhere. I'm sure there will be people who post things publicly they should have kept private, but I think the generation that's grown up with social media is better able to compartmentalize many of these sites and apps. They have a better sense of who uses each platform and who will possibly see what they post.

That is a very good point.




I can see that too. The question is will enough people use Talkshow to make it worthwhile. Should we take bets on how long it takes for someone to start a thread here asking how they can improve their Talkshow traffic?

I'm actually optimistic. I think it could last. With a little publicity with say news teams using it, comedians and celebrities, reality TV starts, and so on..I can see it working. Especially if it works with group texts which it looks like it does.

Imagine the Kardashian sisters jumping on board and publicly showing their communications with each other. Every 12 year old girl and gossip mag would subscribe.

[Fulcrum]

Imagine the Kardashian sisters jumping on board and publicly showing their communications with each other.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

The nightmares. They come back.

Seriously though, why are they famous again?

[Harold Mansfield]

Seriously though, why are they famous again?

It's hard to remember, but their father is the late Robert Kardashian, friend to O.J. and part of the dream team, as well as other celebrity clients. So they grew up in "Hollywood".

Kim Kardashian was friends with Paris Hilton (after Nichole Richie went to rehab, got married and had a kid), so she was part of that Hollywood club kids crowd.
Then "someone" "leaked" a sex tape of her and Ray J ( singer Brandy's brother) that catapulted her across the tabloids, and launched her modeling and endorsement career.

Then she and her sisters got a reality show at the height of reality shows, and launched and endorsed a whole bunch of products.

Khloe married Lamar Odom from the LA Lakers, and the younger kids are Bruce Jenner's kids, (Kylie Jenner is a fashion model), who is now transgendered and has his/her own reality show.

And Kim married Kanye West and they now have kids.

It was reported last year that Kim Kardashian's app made $1 million a minute.
As much as I despise them, they've been very clever in the way that they've leveraged the tabloids, reality TV, and social media into an empire.

You may now go ahead and throw up in your mouth a little. (and stop judging me :) )

[Fulcrum]

I've got a prescription here to help with that Harold.

1) Eat more red meat.
2) More cowbell.
3) Die Hard.
4) Any guitar music by Slash.
5) Come out to my shop, put on a plaid shirt, and cut some wood for 8 hours.

Repeat as necessary. No need to see a doctor for refills.

[Harold Mansfield]

I've got a prescription here to help with that Harold.

1) Eat more red meat.
2) More cowbell.
3) Die Hard.
4) Any guitar music by Slash.
5) Come out to my shop, put on a plaid shirt, and cut some wood for 8 hours.

Repeat as necessary. No need to see a doctor for refills.
In my defense, I used to be a Limo Driver here in Vegas at a very popular celebrity hot spot. Not that I knew the people I drove personally, but when you drive certain people (and their entourage) regularly it's easy to put what you see together with what you talk about with other service people around town.

Plus I'm old enough to remember the history going back to the OJ trial. It's just circumstance. I'm not sitting around watching TMZ or E every day.

[KristineS]

The Kardashians and everything about and associated with them make me ill and sad for the state of our world but, that said, I have to agree with Harold that they have done a very good job of staying in the public eye and taking advantage of trends as the come along. Personally, I have zero interest in anything they do, but a lot of people are interested, and they've done very well at exploiting that interest. It does make me throw up in my mouth a little to say this, but there are some marketing lessons that can be learned from them.

[M.Ehrmantraut]

The Kardashians and everything about and associated with them make me ill and sad for the state of our world but, that said, I have to agree with Harold that they have done a very good job of staying in the public eye and taking advantage of trends as the come along. Personally, I have zero interest in anything they do, but a lot of people are interested, and they've done very well at exploiting that interest. It does make me throw up in my mouth a little to say this, but there are some marketing lessons that can be learned from them.

I feel the same way, it is really hard to accept the fact they've become so rich and famous for their accomplishments, or lack, thereof, and speaks multitudes about our society but you've gotta hand it to them for amassing the fortune they have. The mom, Kris Jenner, is definitely the mastermind behind their whole empire.

[David Hunter]

It's all crazy!!!

One thing I never understood was the foursquare thing where you'd tell people where you are. Seriously... why would you want to tell the whole world you're away from your home?? Or, if you're a woman and some crazy guy wanted to attack you they'd know exactly where you're at.

Crazy!

[Harold Mansfield]

It's all crazy!!!

One thing I never understood was the foursquare thing where you'd tell people where you are. Seriously... why would you want to tell the whole world you're away from your home?? Or, if you're a woman and some crazy guy wanted to attack you they'd know exactly where you're at.

Crazy!

I never understood it either, but apparently younger people like letting the world know where they are, and where they've been. Businesses also offer incentives for checking in. I've used the check in feature on Facebook to let people I was meeting know that I was in the building, or let others know where we all are. But not many people know where I live anyway, and it's not exactly easy to access.

[tallen]

Public Text Messaging -- don't we already have this? I mean, isn't that what Twitter is?

[Harold Mansfield]

Public Text Messaging -- don't we already have this? I mean, isn't that what Twitter is?
Not exactly. This is a direct way for people to subscribe to your one on one, or group conversations. Twitter is more of a bulletin board, and is limited to 140 characters.

[tallen]

... limited to 140 characters.

Because it is based on SMS Texts, no? Or has text messaging in general moved beyond the 140 character limit?

[Harold Mansfield]

Because it is based on SMS Texts, no? Or has text messaging in general moved beyond the 140 character limit?

Twitter is not a native text messaging function of your phone. It's actually not an SMS or text message based. It's more like Facebook in that it's a social media platform.

This would be more like Snapchat, but it allows you to follow conversations, not merely just outgoing posts from one person.
If you and I were sending texts back and forth to each other on our phones, we could allow others to subscribe and see our conversation.

[nealrm]

I tried out the talk thing. The interface is generally good on the computer. I see if it helps draw any traffic.