Seesmic Archive

During my trip to the west coast, I sat down with Seesmic CEO Loic LeMeur for a demo of the new Seesmic mobile application. I was able to grab an exclusive video demo with Loic and I’ve embedded the demo below. The Seesmic mobile application allows Seesmic users to record videos, watch videos and reply to videos in the normal Seesmic message board threaded fashion utilized on the Seesmic Web site.

The service works on the Nokia N95 and other Symbian mobile devices. I asked LeMeur to compare the application to live mobile video streaming applications Kyte, Flixwagon and Qik. LeMeur explained that the Seesmic mobile application isn’t a live streaming application but rather a way to interact in the video conversation. When a video is uploaded via the mobile, users can select to have a message sent to their Twitter account information their friends of their new video upload.

If you are interested in learning more about Seesmic, check out my video interview with LeMeur from earlier this month. Here’s the video demo:

I met with Seesmic CEO Loic LeMeur earlier this week. Loic describes Seesmic as a video conversation platform. Loic and I discussed the Seesmic platform, video comments on blogs, service status, the Seesmic business model and his thoughts on mobile integration. Loic shared that Seesmic has over 500,000 videos and just under 1 million visitors a month.

Here’s my chat with Loic – note that I planned to put this video on Seesmic but it was over 10 minutes which is the Seesmic length.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Seesmic/Twhirl CEO Loic LeMeur at their office in San Francisco. We discussed the Techcrunch50 conference including which startups Loic liked, which startups he didn’t like, the expert judging process and how the winner was selected. We also talk about dead people. Loic also reviewed the first anniversary party for Seesmic.

Here’s Loic:

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.

Here’s Loic’s responses – there’s no way to link to the thread but you can watch the thread in the video.

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".

Update: Here’s Loic speaking about the new update — you gotta watch this to see how he shows off the URL for downloads – hilarious!:

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.