Seesmic

Each week we will bring you a video recap of the week's tech news and events by our newest employee Pete. Don't worry, most of the time you won't hear or see her - she will be working like the other blog interns out there. But sometimes we will sit down to get her opinions on the latest topics at hand. I've given her the goal of getting more views than Justine has this week. Should online brands be targeting young children now so they become loyal as they grow? Get the kid hooked and their parents will be hooked as well. Look at how Pete talks about YouTube - she can watch Elmo all day - I wa lucky to get a few minutes of Cookie and Ernie a day when I was little.

Today Pete discusses:

• Google's potential acquisition of Digg
• YouTube - Elmo's premiere with Neil Patrick Harris
• Twitter
• The Facebook platform
• iPhone applications

Now we need to get her to stop talking about Seesmic!

Last week we wrote about the default strategy that FriendFeed currently employs. Today we are back with a video message board Seesmic testing a new default strategy.

Earlier today, Seesmic community blogger Jeremy Vaught announced that when new users signup to Seesmic, they will automatically receive a set of followers which are considered defaults. The policy would allow Seesmic to setup all new users with the top 30 Seesmic users, as well as the Seesmic staff automatically. The "top 30" would be created by number of videos posted.

Within minutes of the blog post going live, the Seesmic community reacted and reacted in a strong manner. Users responded both in text on the blog post along with videos on Seesmic. User Deek (video below) says he doesn't want anyone to follow him unless they want to. Deek's video is perfect - maybe other startups should watch it and see why defaults are such a bad idea.

CEO Loic LeMeur (a FriendFeed default) has turned off the default feature based on the community feedback. His video is also embedded below. It's good to see him switch course based on feedback from the community. I can't tell if the default strategy actually went into place and then removed or if it was just discussed as "coming soon".

Here's Deek's video.

Come inside for loic's responses »

Popular Twitter and FriendFeed client Twhirl is announcing a major update this evening. Twhirl has added Seesmic video messageboard functionality to the Adobe Air client. Today alone, Twhirl has been downloaded 400,000 times. This update including the Seesmic functionality should help Seesmic gain even more adoption and distribution. The Twhirl acquisition might just go down as one of the smartest of 2008.

This new version offers the ability to watch Seesmic videos. Owner Loic LeMeur (he actually owns both Seesmic and Twhirl) tells me that recording to Seesmic within Twhirl is coming soon. I've posted a screenshot below - I actually think following the video thread is easier on Twhirl than on Seesmic.

If you'd like the Twhirl version with Seesmic functionality, download it here. The auto-update won't be available most likely until the Seesmic recording input is added.

To be honest, I've been using AlertThingy for FriendFeed and I still use Twitter on Twitter.com. AlertThingy basically dies after about 12 hours of being alive and it typically won't restart unless I reboot. Twhirl is really slick and polished! I am going to test it further and will report back on my thoughts after a couple of weeks.

Loic also shared some brand new stats with me that Twhirl represents 12% of all the tweets being sent and 5% of all the Friendfeed comments and info shared.

Loic has big plans for Twhirl and calls it a "social client". He wants it to become the "Skype of social software".

Video messageboard and now blog commenting service Seesmic has now taken up residence inside the Drupal content management system (CMS). Unfortunately it's not a blog plugin like those fine folks using Wordpress have, it's just an API module hook. So basically what this means is that you can tie Seesmic into other modules on Drupal but you can't use this as a stand-alone module to add the Seesmic functionality. They note that the full video comment functionality is coming soon to Drupal. I will report back once I have a chance to test the full functionality.

I believe Viddler's video comment system has a Drupal option but their servers are down so I can't verify.

Check out our prior Seesmic coverage including our reasoning as to why Seesmic won't work. Though I will admit that Loic has some amazing connections that could put the product over the top. I do notice that the Seesmic video comments plugin provides Seesmic with some really juicy SEO with the way the links are setup. This could help Seesmic gain ground in the all important video discovery arena.

Earlier this week, I noted on Twitter that every startup should have a press page. A page that includes: logos in multiple formats, short bio of the executives, photos of the team and/or executives, basic stats, contact information and links to other important information. Make it easy for writers to write about you. Check out my post about Peanut Labs - the logo in the post is the only size logo they have on the site. Wouldn't it be great if I could embed a logo that was on a white background and much larger? What about including a photo of the CEO who I interviewed? Remember that you want to make it as easy as possible for someone to write about you - don't make them do the work.

Another critical page should be a status page. This page should live outside the network of the startup and should house the current status information for the startup. I don't care if it's on a shared blogging platform like Wordpress or SquareSpace, it's an absolute must.

Known for it's downtime, Twitter has no public status page. There's a developer Google group which appears to house some of the updates when the service goes down, but nothing public and so all of the Twitter users are left wondering what's up. If Twitter had more communication when there are unexpected issues, I think users would be more understanding.

Ning has a decent status page as does our host Mosso. Simple pages that provide customers a "what's up" with the servers and services they depend on.

Here's a current example -- apparently video message board Seesmic was down last evening. Investor Michael Arrington posted a semi-marketing, semi-rant piece about the downtime where he explains how important communication is between service and its partners. I assume when Mike speaks about his company's usage of Seesmic, he is actually referring to the 800+ sites using the tool (weren't they down as well???). Last week, Seesmic partnered with Disqus to push the Seesmic video commenting tool to any sites using Disqus' blog comment replacement tool. I suggested that it was too soon for a major partnership. The unfortunate thing is that so far CEO Loic LeMeur hasn't posted about what happened, why it happened and what is being done to make sure it doesn't happen again. Loic did note that he is working to make sure "it" doesn't happen again.

As soon as you notice there is an issue, stick it on the status page. It can be something as simple as, "Mooprz is currently down, we are investigating," with a timestamp and a contact form. Once the issue has been resolved, note that as well. After any investigation has completed, come back with an explanation.

I know that when your product is not functioning correctly, you want to get it back working as quickly as possible. The moment you take to update the status page will keep your customers informed on what's going on and reduce possible emails as well.

In my opinion, having a status page is a sign of trust between a company and its customers. Just make sure to put the status page outside of your network so if the network is down, the status page is still up!

Blog commenting replacement system Disqus is announcing a partnership today with Seesmic today. Not sure exactly what to call Seesmic these days - it's partially a video message board and partially a video blog commenting system. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Adam Ostrow first reported on Disqus adding video comments last week.

This deal helps Seesmic more than Disqus. Both companies are currently valley darlings but Disqus seems to have started the slow crawl to mainstream adoption. Seesmic is still in the "figuring out who I am" stage -- which is ok for a new company like Seesmic is. I would have held off on this partnership a few months until Seesmic gains a bit more traction and user adoption. Also, video blog commenting seems about 18 months ahead of its time.

Disqus currently self-reports 13,000 sites actively using their blog comment replacement and Seesmic reports over 300 sites using the video commenting plugin. Check out my commentary on Disqus where I do a deep dive into the pros and cons of using their blog commenting replacement service.

What's interesting is that Seesmic investor Techcrunch launched the video commenting system a couple of weeks ago and so far it's been barely used. And when users have posted videos, most nearly all of them have me wanting my time back. A video comment must have emotion and offer something text can't. Otherwise just post the text and let me read and/or scan and move on. Just because you have a webcam, doesn't mean you should create video comments instead of text comments.

Video messageboard application Seesmic appears to be entering the video blog comments game today. I suggested that Seesmic should get into this game last month (Loic, for the check, please spell my name Allen). Video host Viddler seems to be leading the video comments charge and currently their plugin works with Wordpress.

The new Seesmic video commenting system is live on Techcrunch (one of Seesmic's investors). Here is a screenshot from a post on Techcrunch:

Unfortunately my video camera isn't unpacked yet so I can't test it. Michael Arrington from Techcrunch commented last week that he has a lot of trolls and losers who comment on TC and that he spends an hour every day removing comments. What will it be like now that there will be video?

I am guessing that if you post a video comment using the Seesmic plugin, it will create a thread in the Seesmic application. Will video comments help save Seesmic? Perhaps it will help as I've suggested before that I like the idea of being able to contribute in the fashion you prefer on a blog (audio, video, text). With Loic's smile and charm, I am sure that many blogs will install the plugin which will lead to greater visibility for Seesmic. As for the Seesmic app itself, I still struggle as to why video is a better medium for a messageboard than text is.

At the core of Seesmic is a threaded discussion forum using video. One person starts a thread, others follow, all using video. I've written about Seesmic several times before including an initial demo video.

Earlier this week Mashable installed a new plugin from Viddler that allows site visitors to comment on articles using video. In 24 hours I've watched about 30 video comments.

Why do I believe the combination of blog/cms is stronger than Seesmic? Because it allows the content publisher and his or her audience to interact, each in their own preferred medium. I may prefer to start in text, John wants to reply with video, Mary with audio, Rachel with text. Together we are forming a combined discussion that doesn't force us into one medium, be it text (currently for most blogs) or video (as Seesmic does).

To make this model perfect, we need three things. Audio recording capabilities, mobile commenting and video/audio transcription. The transcription is important because if users will contribute in their preferred method, they should be able to consume in as many ways as possible. These new input and ouput options could bring real innovation to the blog space which has set relatively still for a couple of years.

And how will the live video services (Qik/Flixwagon) be able to play in this new blog realm? I believe Seesmic is working on live video as well.

Perhaps Seesmic could offer a plugin similar to what Viddler is offering to enhance their current video offering. Viddler has a variety of innovative features but lacks the YouTube buzz and take rate. If they could figure out how to bundle the video commenting plugin into a variety of blog and CMS platforms, it could help elevate and provide a strong distribution model for Viddler.

What's your take? Are video comments the future? Do you prefer the Seesmic video threading to the traditional blog setup?

SXSW has come to a close and sadly there wasn't that much to pick up for ya'all this year. If you watched my SXSW bag video, you will see that the bag was loaded with a lot of paper and almost nothing else. I prefer pens and mints over everything else but there were no pens to be found! Anywhoo, here is what I grabbed for you. If you would like one of the items, send in a note with which item you'd like and next Wednesday I will pick a lucky winner. If you've already received an item from CN, let someone else grab one.

view the items »

After my post about Kyte yesterday, the team asked me to swing by their booth. Let me just say that what they showed me was impressive. They showed me their 2-minute full Facebook application along with the one-minute embed option. The system works with mobile phones, webcams, and saved videos. We were able to take my mobile phone, create a video, email it to Kyte and it was online immediately in my channel. The live features work mainly with the Nokia N95 (Nokia is an investor in Kyte).

With all of the new live video services hitting the airwaves recently, I asked co-founder Daniel Graf about the differences between Kyte and Seesmic, Qik and Flixwagon. Come inside for his video response.