Aussie Geek Podcast

Today I learned of what might be the real twitter equivalent, but your going to have to be quick, because all you get is 12 seconds.

12Seconds is in invite only public alpha. The site invites you to post video status updates in 12 seconds or less. It is a side project by self described “nerds” from Santa Cruz, CA. I’ll ignore the nerd thing, since it is just us geeks here.

They state in the about page that any longer than 12seconds would be boring. They also make claims that scientists came up with the magic number but this is unsubstantiated. I am thinking that this applies to user generated video only, otherwise the movies of this world would be damn short.

I am not convinced that you can share anything meaningful in 12 seconds, but then they said the same thing about 140 characters. Then I guess it all depends how quickly you can talk. You can post your 12 seconds of fame from most mobiles as well. No mention of a web interface.

The site is open, you can view the status updates from users. The video and sound is reasonable quality. One glaring omission is the lack of RSS feeds both on the front page and individual user sites. But then it is alpha. But in my opinion RSS is a basic feature and one that no site should overlook regardless of their developmental build. But then this is me; the RSS junky talking.

If you want in, then you’ll have to request an invite. Let me know how long it took. Check out the about page for more info.

So, can you say something meaningful, content rich and worth listening to in 12 seconds?

UPDATE (28/7/2008): It looks like some users pages have RSS yet upon checking others (most) do not. It may well be an option in user settings. Anyone know? Front page remains devoid of RSS.