Seesmic Blog

I’ve been cruising the web tonight, and it is hard not to find tidbits here and there discussing Seesmic. So I’m just going to throw some down for your enjoyment.

Find it here at forum.seesmicblog.com

Full disclosure is I have zero to do with Seesmic as a company other then using their product.

However, as I discussed in yesterday’s blog, Seesmic needs a forum. And outside of Vinvin posting a message on this blog the day I started it up, I have had no communication with Seesmic. It is painfully obvious they need me, but alas, they float along in blissful ignorance.
Please join me in making the new forums a useful place. I have never run a forum before, I just installed this one today and messed around with the permissions hoping I got it right. So why don’t I just say these forums are in beta, cuz I guess they are. But you don’t need a code to join, just register, and you are in. (although I think the email is still not working, still not sure, so I took that off the registration process, but please use a valid email and play nice)

Thanks everyone and I’ll see you here AND on the forums.

hint: http://forum.seesmicblog.com

This was all in my previous post, but I feel it needs its own post. And yes, I understand this is all in beta. So please don’t go on about that. Ok, here comes the rant.

I can’t stand the current “Add a feature request”. It should be more of a forum. As well as report a bug.

And while I’m at it, the “Contact us” button is horrible. And the reason it is horrible, is because I can’t contact you through it. I use gMail, I don’t have Thunderbird or Outlook or some other stand alone email application which clicking the ‘Contact us” link insists on opening. I even use a plugin in firefox so that when I do click on an email link, it opens a new tab in gMail, but that doesn’t work in Seesmic. And normal websites will tell me the email address in the bottom of the browser when I mouse over the link. Not is Seesmic.

I only point these things out because I love you Seesmic <3

Update: I rant in video too! Yipee!

So I was out and about town today. I wanted to Seesmic, but alas, I was away from my computer and wifi even if I did get my computer out. However I did have my phone with me, all day. I’m not kidding, I had my phone with me all day, and it has the ability to take video with audio and send it magically to the internets.

So this is my official request. I know it is on the list. I’m just sayin’. And I’m not using the “Add a feature request” button. I can’t stand it.

I’m normally a really nice person, I swear
Ok, this is my chance to say something nice…. umm, I love how I can watch videos in Seesmic. They play pretty much every time I click play. Just heaven forbid I try to change the menu category…. scratch that, this is the nice part. When I log into Seesmic, the menu looks fantastic. Right, when I log in. I’ll stop now.

This is an interesting genre of social media. All social media tend to cross over each other anyway. There is only so much you can do with text, audio, and video. And as one well known person in this space told me, Seesmic is only getting the buzz because someone famous, Loic, is behind it. My response is that may be true, but Seesmic is also getting community, and that is the big enchilada.

So another startup is entering the fray of the twitterish/seesmicish/jaikuish/utterzish/powncish Social Media, and that is Poodz.com. Also a frenchmen, is this the beginning of the French takeover of Socal Media entrepeneurship?
I would be remiss if I didn’t mentioned I found this information from JeromeB at fr.blognation.com.

In my mind, Seesmic came from Twitter. When I have to explain Seesmic, I generally say it is a video Twitter. The more I use it, the less I think that is true. However, Seesmic may not ‘be’ a video form of Twitter, it has ‘come’ from Twitter. But then it is full circle, and a certain percentage of my Twitter friends and content comes from Seesmic now.

So Twitter clearly came first, but without Twitter, I likely would not have cared about Seesmic. When I first saw Twitter, I thought it was silly. However, I immediately grasped the value of Seesmic. I credit knowing Twitter first for this. I have learned to not write off any technology because at first it seems silly.

If indeed Seesmic is a video Twitter, knowing Twitter first helps people understand Seesmic. Ok, scratch that… I’m thinking out loud here. I’m picturing my mom. She has seen Twitter in fact, and has no purpose for it. But I bet she would see the value in quick videos, especially as they relate to grandchildren. (and this leads to the fact that Seesmic needs privacy functions, more on that later) For now let’s just say that my mom would love quick little updates from her grandkids who live in Ohio and Arizona, while she is in Alaska.

Ok, not the conclusion I thought I would end up with. Wait… I had a conclusion? No, I guess not, more a collection of thoughts. Now it’s your turn, what do you think?

UPDATE: My Seesmic about this post:

All of the sudden I feel like the voice of doom, the negative Nancy. I’m just pointing out everything that is wrong. So let me backtrack a bit, and pick a little salt back out of those wounds.

First. I only say these things because I am enjoying Seesmic, and I want it to get better. (which as I have mentioned before, is why you need to hire me and we can speed this right along. If I were working for you helping to fix this stuff, I would have less time to blog about the problems I’m experiencing. Wait, that sounded like a threat So along that line of thought, let me tell you what I like about Seesmic.

Community: It’s all about community no matter what. This is why Twitter is so successful, even in it’s simplicity. This is why myspace is so successful, even though it looks like a Web 1.0 application. And why Facebook is uber successful. If it bring people together, and doesn’t have major bugs, nobody cares how it looks, just so long as the community is there, and it works. (which go together, if it didn’t work, the community would move on)

On a sub point, I see community as happening in two different ways. 1. The community comes already together. This is largely Seesmic right now. We each have enough connections to others in Social Media, that we know others on Seesmic, and those we know, know others, and so on and so on. You drop someone in the middle of this, they are just going to be lost if they don’t make friends quickly. This is one of the primary problems with Second Life. It is so big, and has a such a large learning curve, that if you stick around long enough to figure stuff out, you may just find a community, otherwise, you fall away. 2. You come alone, and find community. I would say everyone on Seesmic right now is very Social Media/New Media savvy. This is a commonality we all begin with. We all talk to each other and can talk about myspace/facebook/twitter/utterz/seesmic/youtube/google talk/talkshoe/podcasting/blogging/viddler/vimeo/iJustine and on and on. There is talk of a running club in Seesmic. This is fantastic, but right now the technology does not support this. I’m sure it is coming. Seesmic also needs location based grouping for the same purpose.

Ok… so this is horrible blogging technique. But as I sought out what comes after community, I realize it is all about community. The beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega as they say. Début et la fin, l’alpha et l’oméga. And the technology is merely there to facilitate community.

This post is getting long, so I’ll talk about what technology I like in a separate post.

I researched Adobe Flex back in the day, but ended up using straight PHP. (for the geeks in the audience, I’m using the Zend Framework now on my personal stuff) After reading the wikipedia entry and the flex.org website, it looks like it has come a long way, and some pretty high traffic sites use it. And yes, I’m fully aware that Seesmic is labeled as pre-alpha, but in reality, the amount of users says it is more of a beta.

Well, I can see that Flex *should* be able to handle what Seesmic throws at it. I’ve used Coldfusion in the past as well, and Coldfusion just struck me as a too simplified to get real work done, perhaps that has come a long way too.

One of the points that Flex has that makes me think it could possibly be enterprise ready is that you can use Java EE with it. Java of course has it’s ups and downs, and I’ve certainly shared in the joy and pain when coding in Java, but this give me hope for Flex.

So after doing this research, I’m definitely interested in working on some projects with Adobe Flex. It has potential. And as a guy that tends to code back ends, and leave the front end to the graphically non-challenged, Flex seems to create a nice front end, even when you don’t really have those genes. Just look at my header on this blog. Anyway, I’m always looking to learn new things, and Flex looks like a great one, although, I think it will be pretty easy to pick up.

I use Wordpress, have for years now. I came across a blog post by Amanda Mooney today which reminded me of a problem I solved years ago, but realize that as more people pick up Wordpress, and need to embed stuff like Seesmic, they will run into this problem. The problem of course is that it may not work. heh

This is due to trying to put actual code into Wordpress in fancy edit mode. I always edit my user account, and uncheck ‘Use the visual editor when writing’ checkbox. So I never use the visual editor, cuz I don’t feel I gain much from it but problems. But I believe if you have it on, you can go into a non-visual-editor-mode, but if I recall, I still had problems when doing that. Hence why I turned it off permanently.

Ok, too much verbage. Here is the bottom line. If you can’t get you videos to work, turn off the visual editor. My original problem was youtube, but facebook also gave me trouble as well in visual editor mode when I was embedding a picture. I haven’t had any trouble with Seesmic of course, because I don’t use the evil-make-things-pretty editor. I keep it ugly, and it just works.

So go forth, and embed.

An example that happened right after I finished my last post.

I was in the public timeline, and was watching a video from @deek, and clicked on ‘All deek’s videos’ and this is the result. Happens all the time.

oooh, and now look at what happened when I clicked on ‘MyVideos’, my ‘Public’ is grayed out.

I know it is pre-alpha. But it seems like it should be the stuff in the back end that is struggling, not the front end.

I only point it out because I care
But seriously, it may be time to find another solution to the Adobe Flex menu.