Investing in Seesmic
Something is happening here:



That's a video by Efisia on Seesmic.

I started videoblogging in 2004 when almost no one was putting video in blogs. There weren't any free hosting sites. You had to figure out how to record, optionally edit, compress, and upload your video somewhere, then figure out how to embed it or a link to it in a blog post.

Throughout 2004, there were so few videobloggers, that we all got to know each other. We all watched each others videos. Visited each other's blogs and commented on everyone's videos.



It was an amazing time, which culminated with us all getting together in January of 2005 for the first vloggercon. A gathering of videobloggers in NYC.



In 2005, things changed. Free video hosting sites popped up and more people started videoblogging. When the sites weren't free our fear was that one of our videos would get popular, and then it'd end up costing us a lot of money. At the end of 2005, RSS 2.0 with enclosures started being used so that we could subscribe to each others videos and have them automatically downloaded for offline viewing.



2006 saw the popularity of community video sites like YouTube, where you could post video to the site without necessarily posting to a blog.

The videoblogging community did not embrace YouTube because it didn't allow access to the source QuickTime video or support RSS 2.0 with enclosures. We were all happy to use desktop aggregators like FireANT to watch all our friend's videos.

While were were all in our little bubble doing that, a YouTube community was growing, and it was growing quickly. People were subscribing to each other's videos, making comments, and developing a community of people.



That brings us to the emergence of Seesmic. Seesmic allows a new user to login and painlessly post a video. The first time I've ever seen some of my social media friends on video is on Seesmic.

Seesmic made it easy for them to post video to the web. That's something I've been speaking about for years, helping people share their stories through video on the web.

I missed it the first time when the YouTube community was formed around online video, outside our videoblogging circle, but I can clearly see it this time. Seesmic is unique.

Although still in Pre-alpha, whatever that means, Seesmic has a few features that make it a powerful tool that will help people connect with each other.

1. Easy to record
Recording a new video is easy. All you need is a webcam.

2. Timeline
The timeline lets you see what people are talking about and you can click on someone's video and see it on the same page without having to load up another webpage. Everything is right there in a dashboard.

3. Threaded Conversations
Recently added threaded conversations allow you to step back one video at a time. New features I can see that will enhance this are allowing you to also step forward.

Jim Kukral solicited Seesmic users to post a video explaining why they love Seesmic.

Here's one that starts off with, "I love Seesmic because it's the first application that I've found that makes videoblogging easy."



That's Christian Payne aka documentally on Seesmic.

Much like Twitter, where you can participate in conversations in a central spot, Seesmic introduces a new spin on things by including video. Seesmic isn't a replacement for Twitter, just a communnity site with a rich membership that's growing every day.

Like in the early days of videoblogging where we could all watch every single video that every other videoblogger made, right now on Seesmic you can watch all the videos, but it's getting to the point where watching everything won't be possible anymore.

That's where the friends feature will come in handy to allow you to follow selected people, without restricting you from watching the public timeline.

You can also follow threads of interest.



That's another video by Efisia where she joins in on the conversation about Seesmic users collaborating to make a movie.

And while we're at it, here's Efisia's fiance, my friend, Kosso:



The possibilities are endless. That's why I'm excited to announce that as of today, I'm an investor in Seesmic.

Seesmic is People.

Let me know if you want a Seesmic invite, I've got a few.

Labels: seesmic

posted by Steve at 5:38 PM | link | (12) Join the Discussion

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