Yahoo just took the lid off its new audioless livestreaming app, Livetext. The idea is similar to what Skype would be if you Skype was muted and you can see the texts overlaid atop your video chats.
During Yahoo’s announcement,many of virtual newsroom were skeptical. With Periscope, Meerkat, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Vine and Skype already crowding the market, it seemed odd that Yahoo decided to create an app for the internet generation who are used to the noiseless world of GIFs.
Really, go ask the next teen you find and see if they know what Yahoo is.
I get the idea of Livetext. There are many times where having calls just isn’t convenient, or people just don’t feel like speaking out loud. It’s why apps like Seamless and the basic premise of texting work so well.
But if Livetext is meant for you to be natural, uninterrupted and covert with your video livestreams, pray tell who would want to watch me text my friends from virtually the worst angle ever.“People understand expressions better,” Yahoo says during the announcement. “You don’t have to use LOLs or OMGs with video.” So why bother with offering it as an option?
During the demo, you can also see Livetext’s senior product management director Arjun Sethi fumbling to text properly without making typos. Maybe it’s a simple case of stage fright, but this much holds true: It just feels unnatural. There’s nothing sexy about watching someone text from under their chin, but watching them move and emote while looking at the camera might be. Why would you want to try to do both at the same time?
We already have a problem with walking and texting at the same time. Now we have to worry about walking, texting and livestreaming all at once.
The fact is, we like GIFs because they’re often better at expressing our thoughts than our faces. Also, GIFs don’t have unflattering angles. And on the Web, all we ever want is to put ourselves in the best light.
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