Seesmic 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.”

Continue reading “Seesmic To Shut Down Video Service” »

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” »

Yesterday we took a look at 10 terms that are out for 2010. Today I’d like to share three Twitter apps that could be acquisition targets in 2010. If these acquisitions do take place, it would say a lot for the value of the “ecosystem”. I have no knowledge of any potential acquisitions past my own research and panel discussion with several friends who build social apps. Overall I see Twitter focused on acquiring two types of companies: 1. companies where they want the talent (see my 2010 predictions) and 2. companies that can help with expansion outside of the U.S.

Acquisition #1 – Tweetdeck

Potential acquirer: Twitter
Tweetdeck continues to remain a top Twitter desktop application and founder Iain Dodsworth is popular with developers within the Twitter app community. The company has raised just over $2 million in funding and the majority of the funding comes from NY-based Betaworks. Anything that has a Betaworks stamp has an increased multiplier on the odds of a Twitter acquisition. The acquisition of Tweetdeck would provide Twitter with an in-house strong desktop client which should help new users get past the poor UI of the current Twitter.com interface.

Continue reading “Three Potential Twitter App Acquisition Targets for 2010” »

Social client software provider Sobees is announcing the launch of their web browser-based client today. The new Sobees web client (which is in Alpha) combines Twitter and (soon) Facebook access. There is also real-time search via OneRiot, Twitter and Friendfeed.

As you can see in the graphic below, you can setup the Sobees web application with as many panels as you would like. The panels can be setup as Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts (soon) and real-time searches. For example, I could have one panel for my @centernetworks Twitter account, one for my @cloudcontacts Twitter account, a search for “web blogs that don’t link”, a search for “great web startups”, etc.

Sobees is based in Switzerland and competes with London-based Tweetdeck (which moments ago announced a new round of funding in the amount of 2 million pounds) and valley darling Seesmic. Seesmic has been talking about a browser-based version for a while now but it hasn’t launched as of yet.

The big issue with Sobees in the past was that you needed a windows machine and some runtimes to get the service to work. With this new web-based version, you need only Silverlight which works on both Windows and Mac in any browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc.).

The tool also offers an anti-spam function which allows you to enter a variety of terms that will be blocked in your timeline and/or search results.

My only real suggestion for the Sobees team is to consolidate their product names – get rid of bDule and just offer Sobees Web, Sobees Lite and Sobees Full. I think it’s a bit confusing that bDule = sobees Web.

Update: Seesmic Web client is now live as well – read a very in-depth review by Frederic Lardinois at Readwriteweb.

Continue reading “Sobees Beats Seesmic to Browser-Based Twitter/Facebook/Real-Time Search Client” »

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).
Continue reading “Seesmic Relaunches Website; Video Service Pushed to the Bottom” »

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. Continue reading “In-Depth: Comparing Tweetdeck and Seesmic” »