Seesmic Look Archive

Former consumer social media aggregation software Seesmic (they are now apparently targeting the enterprise market), will shut down their video service effective December 1st. The Seesmic video site features the following message at the top of the site, “Seesmic TV will close starting with the 1st of December. If you want a copy of your videos, please email (redacted).”

Seesmic began in late 2007 described by CEO Loic Le Meur as a, “video conversation platform.”  Many called it the video Twitter. I interviewed Loic in September 2008 (video here) where he shared that Seesmic had over 500,000 videos and just under 1 million visitors a month. Eventually Seesmic morphed into what it is today, a social media aggregation tool.  I am sure it costs good money to keep the video site running and that money can be better spent on their new direction. The newest version of Seesmic, which launched in September, allows developers to build plugins that can be utilized by users of the Seesmic Desktop tool..

It will be interesting to watch how Seesmic moves going forward with their new enterprise focus. Few startups have been able to get the press and excitement Seesmic has — for example, they were able to get an exclusive, standing room only, Facebook executive-led, launch of their Seesmic for Facebook client at SXSW 2009. In another example, Loic was able to get a large press crowd for the partnership with Microsoft on the Seesmic Look launch at the Times Center in NYC. Whatever happened to Seesmic Look? – I haven’t heard much about it since their launch suggesting that it was the new “phenomenon.”

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This morning I attended the Seesmic Look launch in NYC. You can read reviews of the new tool on Mashable and Louis Gray’s blog.  Before Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur took the stage to demo the Seesmic Look product, Razorfish VP Shiv Singh provided a good presentation about “social influence marketing” and how brands will utilize this form of marketing. I assume the video from Shiv’s presentation will be available online and I will add it to this post once ready.

One slide from the presentation stood out for me. Shiv provided a definition of “a business” from Peter Drucker. The quote reads, “The Purpose of a Business is to Create a Customer”. You can read more about Drucker on ZDNet. Shiv added to the quote to create his version of the definition for social influence marketing:

“The Purpose of a Business is to Create a Customer…who creates customers”

Take some time today and think about this definition. I believe it’s the best (and simplest) explanation of what social media marketing is all about.

Updated! Josh Weinberger has come up with an edit to Shiv’s edit that’s even better! Here’s the update:

“The Purpose of a Business is to SERVE a Customer…who creates customers”

Hats off to Shiv for putting together one of the strongest presentations I’ve seen in a long time.

Continue reading “The Best Social Media Definition To-Date” »