Having discovered the story- and photo-sharing site and iPhone app Whrrl at BlogHer, I was eager to give it a try for the next tweetup, which happened to be the #fairmont5th mashup. The Tweetup was to promote the Fifth Avenue Theater, now premiering a new musical set in the 50s, Catch Me If You Can, which is reportedly lush with costumes and catchy musical tunes. And it was hosted by the lovely Fairmont Hotel, which offered room and suite tours as well as a generous prize of a stay at the classic hotel.
Before the event, I went to the site to create the #fairmont5th story and invited about half of the event's guests to participate. Currently, guests must be added individually, which is rather time-consuming for an event like this, with 80 RSVPs. Note: could we combine somehow with EventBrite or the event's TwitVite to simply import the guest list?
However, once I arrived at the event and logged in to the nifty Whrrl iPhone app, my created story didn't appear anywhere on the app, so I had to create a new one, with no guests. And I quickly discovered that photos and captions posted via Whrrl didn't cross-post to Twitter. So let me get this straight: I have to Tweet a photo and then send it to the Whrrl story separately? That's too much work for this Gen Xer with a bent towards efficiency. I'd much prefer that Whrrl simply be able to import all the Tweets and photos that I've tagged with the event hashtag automatically. Now THAT would be useful!
To me, the biggest benefit of Whrrl is the lovely, interactive slideshow presentation after the event. Guests can comment on the photos or add their own photos and comments to the stream and then post the slideshow to their own blogs as well. And the presentation is just lovely:
Before the event, I went to the site to create the #fairmont5th story and invited about half of the event's guests to participate. Currently, guests must be added individually, which is rather time-consuming for an event like this, with 80 RSVPs. Note: could we combine somehow with EventBrite or the event's TwitVite to simply import the guest list?
However, once I arrived at the event and logged in to the nifty Whrrl iPhone app, my created story didn't appear anywhere on the app, so I had to create a new one, with no guests. And I quickly discovered that photos and captions posted via Whrrl didn't cross-post to Twitter. So let me get this straight: I have to Tweet a photo and then send it to the Whrrl story separately? That's too much work for this Gen Xer with a bent towards efficiency. I'd much prefer that Whrrl simply be able to import all the Tweets and photos that I've tagged with the event hashtag automatically. Now THAT would be useful!
To me, the biggest benefit of Whrrl is the lovely, interactive slideshow presentation after the event. Guests can comment on the photos or add their own photos and comments to the stream and then post the slideshow to their own blogs as well. And the presentation is just lovely:
At this point, the end result isn't worth the hassle of double-posting during an event. However, if Whrrl gets its integration on, this could really be a killer app.
