Seesmic Archive

Yesterday I noticed that social activity community streaming tool Seemic had relaunched their frontend website. Normally I wouldn’t write about a simple design change but the change goes deeper than just design. It appears that the original Seesmic video service has been pushed out to a subdomain (video.seesmic.com) and now only appears as a small item on the foot of the new Seesmic home page.

Earlier this year I wondered why Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur wasn’t using his own service in favor of other video tools including Ustream and YouTube. Could this shift to social stream app have been the real reason? I’ve noticed over the past month, less and less people posting videos.

Some heavy Seesmic video users have commented on Twitter about the change as well:

• iKrissi - If Seesmic is slowly pushing aside and giving up it’s ‘video conversation’ roots, can you let us know sooner than later? We miss it.
• Tellus (this is Frieda, the person with the most videos on Seesmic) - I’m very disappointed in the fact that you didn’t us or at least me a clue. That not what a friend would have done!

I’d like to see Loic address the state of the video service - while I don’t use it, I know others do. In fact, there’s a video thread going about the status. Loic has typically been upfront about his application and updates/changes. It’s important with a community tool/service that the members are kept up-to-date on the current situation.

Update 1: Loic has a video post about the changes - he notes that there has been no growth and he is focusing on the Seesmic desktop application. Here’s his video - it’s worth watching as Loic speaks openly and honestly. He says no video site is growing except for YouTube (notes 12 seconds in the same bucket as Seesmic).
Read the rest of this entry »

Swiss-based Sobees has announced updates to their two client applications: bDule and Sobees. Founder Francois Bochatay explains the difference between the two application by noting that bDule is their starter kit providing a Windows-based client combining Twitter and Facebook support. Sobees is a multi-window application that combines many “bDules” together.

Most of the updates in today’s 0.9.6.5 release are usability and performance enhancements. They have also rewritten the Flickr search. The new functionality is the addition of Digg and the Digg search along with the ability to submit items from others windows to Digg. They have also added new themed content windows for the MLB, soccer, tennis and the NFL.

The Sobees tools compete in the same space as Tweetdeck and the new Seesmic. Currently the Sobees tools are only available for Windows. The company is working on a cross-platform version which they expect to release this summer.

There are a handful of various desktop applications that can be used to track Twitter on your computer. In this article, I will be comparing two of those applications: Seesmic Desktop and TweetDeck. For the purposes of this review, I am using TweetDeck 0.6.2 and Seesmic Desktop 0.2.1.

On the surface, both applications are very similar. Listed below are some of the general features you’ll find in both TweetDeck and Seesmic. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in December I provided results from advertising on Facebook. While the results weren’t great and the company billed me just over $1 last month, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says the company, “…could not be doing better financially”.

Over the past week companies including Seesmic have launched desktop applications which allow you to access your Facebook “stream” on your desktop without ever visiting the facebook.com website. Steven Hodson has a good overview of the new Seesmic application.

These new applications are similar to the crop of Twitter applications that allow you to interact with the service “off-site”. Most power users appear to use an off-site service when interacting with Twitter. I can only assume we will see the same pattern with Facebook and off-site interaction. I am not sold that these desktop applications have a chance to actually be solid revenue generators but we will leave that discussion for another day.

My question to Facebook is…where are my ads within these new desktop applications? Are they sent as a package with the feed to the desktop applications? If advertising is the model that Facebook intends to use going forward, I would have thought ads would be included in the desktop stream from day 1. I will admit that I haven’t downloaded the Seesmic desktop application but in all of the reviews I have read, there has been no mention of advertising within the stream.

Assuming ads are not currently part of the desktop applications, when they add them, will we see the same sort of backlash that Facebook has experienced with Beacon and more recently with the terms of service changes? The numbers of Facebook users using the desktop applications is low today and will be for the short-term but as that number grows (especially with power users), Facebook will be forced to push out more ads into the stream - or they risk losing the $1 that I paid them last month since users will never have the chance to engage with my ad unit.

Yesterday social forum provider FriendFeed launched a new beta version of their application which apparently is more real-time than real-time was previously. I haven’t used it yet so I can’t give you my reaction as to it’s real-timeliness. My guess (sadly) is that they didn’t address the real issues - you know… the business side.

Last night I listened to a recording of a podcast where Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington explained that FriendFeed has no chance against Twitter. My take is that FriendFeed is not a competitor to Twitter and the FF team would be smart to get away from the comparisons. Friendfeed is a social forum software and Twitter is IRC 2.0. Everyone wants to make a battle out of the two for cheap pageviews but as I’ve said for a long time now, they are not competitors. I did find it interesting that when asked how he describes the service, FriendFeed co-founder Paul Bucheit basically said the exact same line as Tumblr uses about being the easiest way to share online.

But let’s assume for a moment that Michael is correct and FriendFeed has no chance to compete in the space. What does that mean for his investment in social sharing software Seesmic? Tonight, Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur is going to take the world through a demo of his rebranding of Twirl into the "Seesmic Desktop". Could Seesmic get further in the "fight" than FriendFeed has? I grabbed a quick interview with Loic at SXSW where he announced the first step in his Seesmic Desktop with the launch of Seesmic for Facebook. I haven’t had a chance to see or play with the desktop application and look forward with great anticipation to the demo tonight.

Later this week I will share my thoughts on FriendFeed and how they can start to move ahead and away from the Twitter comparisons.

While browsing Friendfeed, I noticed an exchange between Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur and Techcrunch writer Robin Wauters. As you can see below, Loic (who moved from France to San Francisco) notes that "almost everyone" in the Internet industry is located in San Francisco. I wonder what percentage of people is "almost everyone". He then clarifies to say that it’s not just San Francisco but the region from San Jose to San Francisco.

For everyone who believes they are an "Internet player", I’ve got a bus heading to the valley tomorrow - leave a comment if you’d like a ticket. Also check out Robert Scoble’s column where he wonders if people are leaving/will leave the valley.

This morning Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Connect for Mobile. During the presentation, Seesmic CEO Loic LeMeur announced the launch of Seesmic for Facebook. Basically Seesmic is growing today - it’s no longer just videos only. The Twirhl name is going to be replaced with Seesmic over time. Seesmic for Facebook is starting out as an Adobe Air client that reads your social stream. Over time Loic tells me the video component of Seesmic will also be integrated.

I was able to capture a quick video with Loic about the new launch today.