New Tools Let You Vadalize Any Website or Video (sort of)
In the last few weeks I’ve discovered two sites that are pretty cool on the one hand and a little scary on the other. Tynt.com is a website that lets you “share the web as you see it” which you can translate into “put funny faces, notes, and other commentary of your own on any website you want.”
Tynt is just waiting to be used for playing a joke on your less than web savvy coworker or boss. You could really freak them out and tell them your site got hacked. Of course the way Tynt works is that it’s allowing you to do anything to the actual site but it’s giving you a mirror site to do with as you wish. It doesn’t take long to see the negative aspect of this either. Though technically someone’s website isn’t being hijacked here it kind of gives you that feeling.
I can really see the benefit of Tynt if you found an article or blog post and wanted to make notes on it to send some people so they could both read the article and see your additional thoughts. Like I said, this is pretty cool…and a little scary.
If adding your commentary to a video is more your speed then you’re going to love BubblePLY. BubblePLY is kind of the same idea as Tynt, only it’s specific to video. I discovered it this week as the Nashville gas shortage video was making the rounds here locally. Again, I can see an upside and downside to something like this. The video I saw was quite funny (especially if you’re a Nashvillian, you’ll relate to this stuff…if you’re not a Nashvillian…you probably won’t like it) and shows what a little humor and creativity can do for a minor crisis many people are experiencing together. Likewise, you can see how someone could provide some negative commentary on a video you did.
In the end I think Tynt and BubblePLY are kind of like superpowers. In the hands of the right people it can be very good. In the hands of the wrong people it can be very bad.
Tags: BubblePLY, online video, tool, Tynt, web tools, webapps, YouTube
September 24th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Thanks for your thoughts on Tynt. (I work for Tynt and we are happy to see people discussing our technology!). I wanted to try to clarify one key point in your article. You indicate that Tynt lets you make your enhancements to the content on a mirror site. This isn’t actually how Tynt works. Tynt creates a virtual blank canvas over the existing site, but it in no way interferes or harms the operations of the existing site. By saying ‘mirror’ it might be interpreted that we are copying the page, which we are not.
We’ve seen lots of great uses for Tynt including political commentary, satire, research, editorialization and more, but given that any platform technology can be abused we attempt to address that with strict terms of use and quick action on any reported abuse.
Please do let us know if you have any thoughts on how we might make Tynt better. You and your readers can reach us at feedback[at]tynt.com!
BTW, for fun I Tynted your blog! Check it out at this link: http://tynted.com/0LWBh37q30Y
September 24th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Thanks for the comment Derek. I suspected that the phrase “mirror site” wasn’t technically accurate. Thanks for the clarification and for Tynting this blog too.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Very cool tool Bill. Nice find. I guess you could make powerpoint slides based on the new production. Very cool.
September 28th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Thanks Nathan. Yeah, I didn’t think about that but I suppose you could have some powerpoint applications here. Good thought.