What is Double-Beta Anyway?
Written by Jeshii on 2008.12.19 – 01:19 -
If you follow my blog at all, you know I love me some ニコニコ動画 (NicoNicoDouga). People in the English speaking Intartubes seem to call it the “Japanese YouTube.” I can’t disagree more. The Japanese YouTube is the rest of the world’s YouTube; Japanese people use YouTube as much as anyone else.
BUT ニコ動 (NicoDou) is different. It is a special sort of community of otaku sharing videos with each other. On YouTube, people post videos of themselves for Internet fame. On ニコ動, they put masks on so you specifically never know who they are.
The comments on YouTube are labeled with your name and lazily put at the bottom of the video. ニコ動 has the comments streaming accross the video. It really captures the Anime Convention mentality. Basically, you are with a lot of other people enjoying a video. If you’ve never been to an Anime Convention, you might not get how different it is to watch something with other like minded people. Think of a movie theater, but more personal.
Well, ニコ動 has grown into version (ββ) (say “double-beta”). What is new about (ββ)? Well, they have recognized that it really is the community that makes the site so special. While the regular videos give you the feeling that you are simultaneously watching it with others, the new features will take this to the next level and make it so you ARE watching it with others in REAL TIME!
First off, they have a new feature they have announced called 「ニコニコ広場」 (“NicoNicoHiroba“):
【ニコニコ大会議2008冬】ニコニコ広場デモ動画
The idea? Gather in a place and talk using the ニコニコ動画 system. And it will hold thousands of people! I can’t wait. It will open sometime this month.
The other feature is something called ユーザー生放送 (Yuuzaa NamaHousou):
【ニコニコ大会議2008冬】ユーザー生放送デモ動画
This is basically making your own live program to be shown on ニコ動. Sounds like fun! This feature is open now in case you want to go see what people are putting on. I personally have never been able to get a seat since I’m not a premium member… yet!
Anyway, this looks like it might be the dawn of a new era. But I can’t help but wonder if these will have any real effect on my ニコニコ動画 usage. The 広場 sounds like fun, so I can’t wait to try that out. I will report back on how it is.
Tags: ユーザー, 生放送, double beta, hiroba, Internet, ββ, live, NicoNicoDouga, NicoNicoHiroba, nicovideo, plaza, user, version update, websites, 広場
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