Seesmic Blog

Even in pre-alpha, go figure.

Thanks to Mark Forman for pointing out this post on every dot connects by Sheila Scarborough where she is explaining a conversation that is going on. It is an important conversation, thus the strong opinions.

If you are interested, follow the link and follow along. It has been great to watch this unfold. However the purpose of this post is to point out how Seesmic is officially part of the conversation, thanks to Eric Rice.

As my own comentary on ‘The Conversation’ I love that it is all over the place in terms of platforms. As the linked post points out, it is on Twitter, Seesmic, blogs. I’m sure shortly it will podcasted, vloged, and then Twitterd, Seesmiced, and blogged again.

Join the conversation, platform optional.

This is from a twitter. Can a twitter be blogworthy? Well, it depends on if the twitter is blogworthy. Makes sense right?
Well in this case, it is blogworthy. Loic just said in a Twitter that they hope threading in Seesmic will arrive next week. This is a fantastic development and something that Seesmic desperately needs.

text of tweet: @ResPres threads are coming on Seesmic, we hope next week http://tinyurl.com/29d75h

I was laughing the entire time. And I’m sure most of you have seen it already, so I wasn’t going to blog it, but then I found this video commentary by Whit Scott, the cameraman in the video, and the video editor for the videos.

He is asking some important questions about what you are looking for in the video and he is looking for your feedback. So don’t comment here, go to his blog and comment.

He is doing a heck of a job by the way, kudos to Whit!

Here is the video in the off chance you have not seen it yet.

Another, “Seesmic according to Jeremy Vaught,” post. I know you love ‘em.

Here is the genesis of this post. Because I still use my digital camera to take my videos for Seesmic, I have to get creative in how I get the videos into Seesmic. I can’t upload directly, so I use YouTube. What I get out of this is a hit counter. I like knowing how many people see my videos. Now clearly, I can’t tell if they are seen on YouTube or Seesmic, but that number is better then nothing, which is what Seesmic gives me.

Again, I realize Seesmic is still in development, and I don’t expect this right away, but while in the planning stages, I would like Johann to think on what I’m about to say. Because while I want a hit counter, ultimately I want more then that. What do I want? Well, everything really. And this could mean two things, ‘everything’ needs to be built into the Seesmic UI, or it needs to be available in the API and someone else can write it.

Ok, enough messing around Jeremy, what is this ‘everything’ of which you speak? Well, it’s everything. So think of everything in the context of a counter for your Seesmic videos. When you have thought of your ‘everything’, continue and I’ll give you an idea of my ‘everything’.

You are ready now?… good! Here is my everything. I’m sure you just thought of these things as well, but I would like to see a full analytics of people watching my videos. I would also like to see a fully analytics of how everyone as a whole watches videos. I don’t want this to be a popularity contest, but I want to know the numbers. I want to know how many people click on my video, but then don’t watch it. I want to know how long they watch it. To the end? Stop after 30 seconds? This is valuable information. Also, how are they watching? On a standalone player? In Seesmic, in my their friends tab, in the public timeline, in an embedded player and from what site?

If you don’t want to provide all this data yourself, Seesmic. Please put it into an API, so I can extract it, or a 3rd party site can extract it and supply me with that data.

As far as I know, Loic twittered the news last night. And then he seesmiced.

I didn’t follow the link on the tweet and didn’t realize right away that he had blogged this as well. So I resisted blogging it thinking that Loic might want to keep this between those who follow Seesmic and/or his Twitters. And then right before writing this, I find that Techcruch blogged it, so the cat is WAY out of the bag now.

So here it is. You can get a free plane ticket from NYC to Paris, entry into LeWeb3, and then get back to NYC. You still have to come up with the hotel while you are there. I won’t be putting my name in the hat even though I am infinitely qualified and would be a sure thing to get it, but alas, I don’t have my passport. I guess I need to get on that.

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.