[fr]
Le texte et la vidéo sont fondamentalement différents. Je ne pense pas qu'il soit possible de "recréer" un dynamique comme celle de Twitter avec du contenu vidéo.
[en]
So, now that I’ve discovered what Loïc’s startup, Seesmic, is about (thanks to Ben twittering his tests), here is my initial reaction to reading about it on Techcrunch.
I’m not certain a “video-based Twitter” is a viable concept: the huge difference between video and text is that the latter is scannable, and that’s precisely what allows the presence/flow dimension in Twitter. You can “keep an eye” on a stream of text, but can you “keep an eye” on a stream of videos? Also, it takes much less time to keep up with a stream of text than with a stream of videos.
Now, not to say that Seesmic is doomed (that would be a bit pretentious of me) — and I haven’t checked it out directly — but I do want to go on record saying that the dynamics created by Twitter and other flow/presence apps with text cannot simply be transferred to other media.
If it turns out I’m right, I’ll be able to say “I told you so” — and if I’m wrong, nobody will care.



4 Comments
I completely second your comment, that was also my first thought when reading the TechCrunch post. Youtube “conversations” give a clear idea of what makes sense in this area - and it does not include quick and reactive exchanges on daily activities. Things may evolve, but for now it sounds like it’s a “twitter works, online video is a hit, so let’s do twitter on video” kind of idea.
Video FaceBook anyone?
Never thought about this issue, but this seems so obvious : it’s easier to read twitts than to watch videos. Especially if you follow many friends.
Let’s hope Seesmic is not only a video-twitter (and I guess it’s not).
By the way, I’ve discovered your blog lately and I just want to say : très bon blog, merci !
It actually is also easier to write twits while e.g. at work than to record a video. I watched some of Loic’s video and he seems to have trouble himself to get motivated for the one video per day.. And Twitter is not about one tweet a day but about well, 100s?
But we will see
The ability to take a quick look in the video is a minus. I just did a Seesmic post today on the need for tags (and categories) since it’s so hard to tell what stuff is about. You can’t even have much of a description and the titles get cut off (not much info for the search engines either).
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[...] [fr]Je suis accro à Seesmic. En français, regardez mon gentil message à l’attention de Loïc, ainsi que les vidéos consacrées à mes deux premières victimes (enfin, coupables de service clientèle merdique): la poste et la FNAC.[en]Similar:Seesmic Doubts [...]