"We'll be much bigger than Twitter" An Interview with Tout CEO Michael Downing
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 10:48AM 
I wrote a post recently about Tout, the new social network that allows users to share 15 second videos or "moments" from their iPhone or via YouTube to their followers. Since its launch, I've been using the service extensively and have found it to be a lot of fun but not without a few limitations.
The current network of users are varied and fun and casual browsing of recent Touts is certainly a lot more fun than scrolling through a text-based Twitter stream. Being very new, the service doesn't feel that busy yet. Logging in this morning it seems that a lot of the same users appear in the Today's Touts section and most updates were delivered 1-2 hours ago rather than Twitter's "moments ago". That said, I hope posts like this one will begin to excite more and more users to get involved, especially those on this side of the pond.
On the whole, the process of sharing moments via Tout is as simple as launching the Tout app and pointing your camera and, after a few launch day teething troubles as well as becoming victim to the Amazon server crash, the system now works flawlessly. The issues I have are fairly minor and can and will likely be remedied with updates soon. The first is no access to the iPhone 4's front-facing camera. While the higher quality main camera is fine for filming others, shooting yourself is a tricky affair better suited to contortionists than regular users. With only 15 seconds available, the last thing you want is to waste three of them triggering the recording and getting into position. I'm assured, however, that this feature is on its way.
Second on my list of bugbears, but most likely to be fixed ASAP, is the lack of support for iPad when viewing the Tout.com site. It works, but only just, whereas the iPhone page offers a simple Cover Flow-style video viewer.
Finally, and I think this is the real kicker, while following other users is an option, directing moments "at" (@) them isn't possible. One would assume that this is a conscious decision with Tout providing more of a viewing platform than a back and forth messaging service. However, there is the option to "tag" your videos into specific channels that can also be followed, so perhaps that's the way forward rather than feeding your back and forth messages to the wider network.
Recently, I had the opportunity to put some questions to Tout's CEO Michael Downing to learn his thoughts on the service, its goals and how he sees it progressing. As you'll have already read in this post's headline, he's certainly not afraid to think big...
Interview: Michael Downing, CEO of Tout
BH: How did the idea for Tout come about?
MD: The original idea came about from research done at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) around the potential of real-time video/social communications, and people's ability to engage and communicate with each other through real-time video status updates.
BH: How did you hit on 15 second moments?
MD: We tested multiple short durations, working to achieve the optimum "capture" duration for communicating an idea or updating people, and the optimum viewing experience on the viewing/consumption side of things. We tried 7 seconds, 9 seconds and 11 seconds, and found 15 seconds to be the optimum based on feedback for our users.
BH: Tout lets you add 15 seconds of a larger YouTube video, do you worry that it might just become a preview service for YouTube?
MD: We see it more as a social communications tool, as opposed to a lean-back viewing experience like YouTube (YouTube averages 4+ min videos), the real-time character makes it possible for people to get instantaneous relevant updates from people they care about or follow - so effectively getting a "window on to their life/experience". Think about 6 of your friends who are separately attending a Rolling Stones concert in your city - and you get real-time links to each of their unique perspective on great moments at the concert. Or consider my actual use-case, I had a baby 15 weeks ago - and as you can imagine, I have 2-3 opportunities per day to capture special moments (first giggle, first crawling, first banana sludge food) - but my parents are in Texas, I have cousins in New York and a sister in Chicago. With Tout, every time I "Tout" a moment of "Archie", they get an email with a link to see the newest cute development with him - and they watch those short videos in many cases just a few minutes after they were taken. That is pure magic for a grandparent, sister/aunt etc.
BH: Will you be providing an API for developers?
MD: Yes, absolutely. It’s scheduled to be released within the next 45 days, pending some more testing.
BH: How do you see the service developing?
MD: In the near future, we think examples of reach and influence driven by personalities will show people what the potential of the platform truly is. Shortly beyond that, the Tablet/IPTV proposition figures in quite prominently to our strategy and that further delivers on the macro-movement. At that point this is really all about a real-time media network, not just a social media application.
BH: Was it a conscious decision not to include the ability to direct a Moment at another user (like Twitter's @Replies) or do you feel the tag/channel option works better?
MD: We are actually deploying the @tag for identifying/tagging people to support social dialogue in the coming weeks.
BH: Do you see brands as well as individuals making use of Tout? Would you welcome that?
MD: Yes. Already the Marketing VP from a large software company along with multiple other businesses are using Tout.
BH: Will we see a front-facing camera option as part of the Tout app soon?
MD: That is being deployed to APP Store as we speak.
BH: There have been a couple of glitches recently, some Touts went missing on launch day and when Amazon's servers fell over. How are you addressing these issues?
MD: We had a 30 minute period just prior to the "CloudPocalypse" where in some cases Touts were lost. Our new failover system will prevent that moving forward.
BH: Are you happy with subscriber numbers since launch? Are they moving as you expected?
MD: We have seen consistent growth day by day since launch with excellent and helpful feedback from users which is informing our feature release schedule.
BH: Do you think Tout could be as big as Twitter or will it simply grow alongside it?
MD: I actually think we will be much bigger than Twitter. Humans are biologically tuned to process information and communications visually - we are born with that ability from day one. Processing text on the other hand is a learned skill that typically takes 7-8 years for us to learn and many of us still aren't that good at it. Twitter has done an amazing job educating us all on the value of the Real-Time web. With Tout, we combine those benefits with our instinctive ability to translate the world visually. In general the web is undergoing a major evolution wherein Chapter 1 (the last 17 years) was all about the Traditional Publishing Metaphor (Home Pages, layouts, text links, Footers), today in Chapter 2 we are moving closer towards the TV metaphor and Tout is a big part of that movement.
Visit Tout.com to find out more and download the Tout app via iTunes.
You can view my Tout stream here
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