To this day, people are well adept at announcing news while using only 140 characters. When Twitter first debuted in 2006, some might have wondered how one could possibly express oneself with such a limited number of letters. But the 140-character limit is now easily managed.
Now we have Tout, an app that a reviewer had called “Twitter for Youtube.”
What would you do with 15 seconds of video?
Tout is a free mobile app for Apple products, founded in 2011, that allows users to announce their status updates through videos. According to a recent article in USA Today, the site receives 13 million visitors monthly. Shaquille O’Neal and Whoopi Goldberg are two well-known celebrities who are using tout as a social media platform. But what is the app really accomplishing? The Mirror wonders how possible it is for someone to express him/herself in such a short amount of time.
Just look at the definition of the word ‘tout,’ which is a verb that means to describe or advertise boastfully and aggressively. Not a great connotation for this new social sharing app.
We went on Tout’s website to check out some examples of the videos that it supports. One video recorded a toddler eating. Granted, the toddler was really adorable, but … eating? If we wanted to see that, we could just creepily observe people in the Main Dining hall.
We are not debasing apps. Phone apps actually have the potential to save lives. Look at UMSkinCheck, which works to identify symptoms of skin cancer. Why can’t people make more of these types of apps, rather than crowd the Apps store with vain innovations like Tout? We already have Google Hangout, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – all of which feed into the egos of society.
As one of its advantages, Tout says that users will get to interact with celebrities in real-time. Well, they can always try, but we’re sure they will not get any personal replies. They might be too busy for that. Also, Tout advertises that the app is “changing how people interact, delivering a rich social sharing experience in full color, sound, and motion.” That sounds lovely, but don’t we already do that with face-to-face interaction?
Sit back and watch to see if Tout becomes the next Twitter. Scary thing is: it just might.
Leave a Reply