Seesmic Doubts [en]

[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.

So, now that I’ve discovered what [Loïc](http://www.loiclemeur.com/)’s startup, [Seesmic](http://www.seesmic.com/), is about (thanks to [Ben](http://benmetcalfe.com/) [twittering his tests](http://twitter.com/dotben)), here is my initial reaction to [reading about it on Techcrunch](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/08/loic-le-meurs-new-startup-launches-seesmic/).

> 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.

Me, commenting on Techcrunch

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. 🙂

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6 thoughts on “Seesmic Doubts [en]

  1. 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? 🙂

  2. 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 ! 🙂

  3. 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 🙂

  4. 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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