Yes, well, you must be a tech guy/girl.
No, you are like me. Or like I was until three weeks ago. That was when my husband, who is interested in all new technical developments told me about Periscope, a live video broadcast application for your smart phone, that allows you to send live videos to anyone who knows your twitter user name. The live video streams are also available in the mobile application itself. My husband thought that it would be a great application that I could use to broadcast live and globally about our garden. First I dismissed it, but later changed my mind. The possibility that I could invite all of you for a garden tour, even though it is only a virtual one, was way to tempting.
So about two weeks ago I pulled all my courage together and produced my first live Periscope broadcast about the White Garden Bed that I also blog about monthly. You have to know that I am a pretty shy person and doing this is way out of my comfort zone, but I think it is good to try out new things and sometimes you need to push yourself a little bit beyond your limits.
I don't want to discuss the technical possibilities of Periscope here on my blog, since I feel that would lead too far and it looks like that even the experts don't know yet. Periscope is still very new and seems to develop itself further every day. If it will be top or flop, only the future will tell, but I thought that it would be interesting for gardeners, who want to share their gardens, plants and experiences with a broader public.
Surprisingly I discovered that I enjoyed the experience of doing the broadcast and for the very first try ever, I think it didn't go too bad. There are a couple of things that I would like to change: first of all my strong German accent (yikes, I didn't know that it was that bad); that I was mixing up words, because I was so nervous; that I could focus more on the content of what I was about to say and not be so distracted by holding the phone camera and lastly refine my overall camera skills. So there is lots of room for improvement, of course, but I believe with more practice it will get better.
Periscope only saves the broadcasts for 24 hours, but my husband uploaded the video on YouTube. If you would like to see it, please click on the video below.
Last weekend I gave Periscope a second shot. This time I was broadcasting about part of our front yard and I think, I was already doing a little better. I spoke more slowly and the camera movement was not so erratic anymore. Here is the video of the second Periscope broadcast:
I intend to continue with these live broadcasts from my garden and other gardens that I visit. They will later appear on YouTube, so that if someone missed the 24 hour Periscope window, one still can see them.
If you want to watch my next live Periscope entry, please follow me on twitter (@csgardendreams). Then you get a tweet when I am going live. In case you are not able to watch me live, you can see the broadcast on Periscope within 24 hours after you got the tweet. After that you can visit my YouTube channel and watch the video there.
I am curious what you think about this new media? I would be thrilled if we could have a little discussion in the comment section.
See you in the garden!
Christina
