Comments on: Taking a Look at Seesmic and Why It Won’t Work Despite Those Behind It

By: Robert Lancer

Robert Lancer — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Seeing him and his company EVERYWHERE on every blog is annoying. Especially for this unoriginal site that is in private alpha.

By: Liz

Liz — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I just wrote about Seesmic today and found this post. I totally agree with all of your points. it’s amazing the hype behind Seesmic. i hope it can overcome the hype into being a better destination on the web. Right now the UI and the users are making it somewhat undesirable.

By: Darren

Darren — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I have to agree Allen,

The name is not easy to spell.
The mainstream will never find it or get it because of youTube.
The twitter crowd won’t use it because its not text.

I think it might work if they angle it as a video diary service and get famous people to use it.

By: Don Jones

Don Jones — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I agree that if anyone can do it, it is Loic. I would also amplify your point about the “aesthetic” side – looking at wrinkly, scruffy faced, middle-aged men/geeks spouting their opinions in poorly lit, low production value video is something I only did twice – then stopped…

By: Scott Monty

Scott Monty — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last week, I’ve seen lots of questions on how ooVoo compares to Seesmic. I think I put it most succinctly on Twitter when I said: the difference between ooVoo and Seesmic is like the difference between a telephone conversation and leaving a voicemail for someone.

Seesmic really isn’t conversational at all – it’s disjointed correspondence at best.

Full disclosure: I work for crayon, a strategic advisory group and ooVoo is our client.

By: antje wilsch

antje wilsch — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

my grammar was atrocious (sorry)

[To be honest I've actually never used Seesmic.] My problem is that video (and to a lesser extent podcasting, only because podcasting is just a bit easier to edit and put online and listen to than video is) is a problem in general. I think they may be ahead of their time, although I see this being much more normal in a “minority report” type future.

Right now video is still clumsy and inefficient, and it’s not a good idea for the majority of people at work.

By: JeanHuguesRobert

JeanHuguesRobert — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“One talks faster than writes & reads faster than listens”

If you want an audience the conclusion is that you should provide a textual transcript of what you say. Interested people will watch the video version after reading the text one.

Premium: Somebody else (aka Secretary) types it for you.

BTW : Loïc did it when he announced his investors list. The video announce and the text announce came together. Smart.

By: ThM

ThM — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

the UI is terrible, the quality is terrible, the features are terrible, using 100% flash is terrible and the folks at youtube could probably push a button and have the same functionality. but that’s not the real issue with seesmic. loic is obviously well connected with all kinds of politicians and tech guys and tries to act like this bullshit community-driven ceo who has no ideas on his own but tries to lead a company by asking the users where to go. i mean, look at their daily wannabe-funny video show. it’s just painful to watch and contains nothing but self-pr. is that what you need vc money for? what makes me sad is that there will be someone who will buy all this crap for $$$ while some hungry entrepreneurs who build real innovations or have to bootstrap with no foreign capital get ignored. it’s just the old pay-to-play game reloaded.

By: The Cynical Drama 2.0

The Cynical Drama 2.0 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

If smart people have to debate what your product actually does and what its true value proposition is, you have a big problem.

It will be interesting to follow Seesmic’s development. Loic certainly has a soap box from which he can promote this thing and he has recruited enough “influential” people to talk about it, but if Duncan Watts is right, that won’t do any good if the product has no appeal.

Personally, I just don’t see anything compelling about Seesmic. I certainly wouldn’t even throw $41,000 at it.

By: chantelle

chantelle — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I had so much to say I ended up posting it on Walrusmagazine (Canadian).

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2008/02/21/seesmic-win-6-million-today/

I’m impressed by the quality of the comments here.

By: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been lurking on the private alpha since I had a conversation with Loic a number of months ago. There are a number of reasons why we haven’t reviewed it on the blog, but the main one for me is that I just don’t like the service, but I think Loic is a cool guy. When we spoke, we were on the phone for over an hour I think, just going over a number of different topics (unrelated to Seesmic). I think he’s a genuinely good and brilliant guy, and I hate to bash the guy’s company on the front page of our blog.

Unfortunately, I think Seesmic is a hammer in search of a nail – aside from a few hardcore video enthusiasts, there just isn’t a market for time-shifted video chat, and for the small market that does exist, well, they’ve all been using YouTube for this for a good while now.

In short, Seesmic solves a problem that doesn’t really exist.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The problem with all of these sites popping up is that 99% of them are absolutely pointless. VC’s are dropping crazy amounts of money into projects that nobody would use. I’d love to see a VC just step outside their door and take a quick poll of 100 people. Ask them, “If you could receive videos instead of your normal email, you would like that?” Who in their right mind will say yes?

By: Jordan Mitchell

Jordan Mitchell — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s see. Social media advertising revenue is still very poor. The video ad market shows promise but is also very poor right now. And advertising in chat applications is not something advertisers will touch either.

Tough revenue model. Even at critical mass of users, can the model ever generate enough revenue to cover the infrastructure costs?