Google 'Peanut Gallery' is a brilliantly-conceived Web Speech API demo

If you want to get any more work done today, read no further! Google unveiled the "Peanut Gallery" a fun, silent-move-making tool showcasing the Web Speech API released with Chrome 25 last month. You could fritter away hours creating and sharing funny clips.

"We thought it would be fun to demonstrate this new technology by using an old one: silent film", Google's Aaron Koblin explains. "The Peanut Gallery lets you add intertitles to old black-and-white movie clips just by talking out loud while you watch them. Create a film and share it with friends, so they can bring out their inner screenwriters too".

I quickly -- emphasis rushed -- made a movie on Chromebook Pixel, dictating text. The process is fast and simple, and the results can be fun. Expect to see lots of silent clips today and the next couple as people share them across social networks. Google makes it easy for Facebook, G+ and Twitter.

There's real viral possibilities here, and time tells whether there will be any. If the Peanut Gallery hits a viral chord, Google just might achieve its broader objective.

"We hope that developers will find many uses for the Web Speech API, both fun and practical—including new ways to navigate, search, enter text, and interact with the web", Koblin says. "We can’t wait to see how people use it".

I want more! Let me use dictation to create Hitler clip parodies. Can you imagine?

I posted my clip to Google+ while writing this story. There Russell Holly makes an important observation: "The text is in the URL, which means it can be edited and the text in the video changes. That's just begging for trouble".

He's right. Perhaps that's more fun than trouble. Editing the text doesn't change the destination from the Google shortlink. On the other hand, it would matter using the full URL -- meaning someone can change your movie and redistribute. Does it matter?