seesmic

Seesmic, which recently acquired the AIR Twitter client Twhirl (download), has shipped a new version of the software. There are minor improvements in Twitter functionality, mostly designed to keep it from requesting too many updates from the Twitter API, which produces the dreaded "limit exceeded" message if you use the app too enthusiastically. The Twitter service, which used to allow clients like Twhirl to fetch updates 60 times an hour, dropped its limit to 20/hour during the Steve Jobs keynote; it's only back at 30/hour as of this writing. Twhirl can now adjust its update … Read more

In the blogosphere of early and ardent technology adopters, sites like Twitter and Seesmic have justifiably gained the attention and buzz. Twitter has had a series of well documented outages, and this weekend Seesmic seized up when videos of movie celebrities, such Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford, were posted to the video sharing site.

It also caused problems at partner sites, like TechCrunch, that embed Seesmic video comments (vomments) on their pages.

These recurring problems once again demonstrate that the much loved Web 2.0, consisting of many start-ups lacking adequate infrastructure and stable code, is unreliable. The larger start-ups … Read more

Video and text don't always go together, but that's not stopping video and audio microblogging service Seesmic from partnering with the distributed comment tool Disqus. Starting Wednesday, users of Disqus will get the added benefit of video commenting alongside the text entry field.

The option is turned off by default in Disqus, and must be enabled by whoever is administrating the account. We've gone ahead and turned it on in the Webware 100 winner pages, where we've been using Disqus since unveiling the 100 winners late last month. I've also added it to the end of this post, where you can add your own video comment after the break.

One small hiccup I've found is that Seesmic won't pull in your Disqus account information. You've got to be registered with the currently private alpha service to have it linked up with any sort of account. Otherwise you're limited to leaving an anonymous comment that can later be reclaimed when you get Seesmic access. Disqus founder Daniel Ha tells me the two companies are working on deeper integration for user authentication, but in the meantime anonymous recording is the easiest option for people who don't yet have Seesmic accounts.

I'm still not sold on the trend of video commenting. It's a bit gimmicky, and as others have said, it makes conversations difficult to parse. Ideally I'd like to see services like Seesmic partner with Jott to add a small transcript under the comment that would save me some time, and improve the experience for search engine bots, the deaf, and others who don't feel like watching and listening to what could be a simple sentence or two of thought.

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Seesmic (review), which is working towards the public release of its video nanoblogging and chat service, has acquired Twhirl, an AIR-based Twitter client. Twhirl is the most popular third-party client according to ReadWriteWeb, accounting for about 7% of messages sent on the service.

Twhirl was developed by Marco Kaiser in Germany. It's the first AIR app he wrote, and he did it as a side project. Kaiser will stay in Germany as a new employee of Seesmic. It's been a busy week for him, apparently: His wife also had a baby this week.

In my opinion, Twhirl (review) … Read more

Seesmic, aka video Twitter, is still in private beta, but CEO Loic Le Meur is here at Demo 2008 anyway, showcasing a few new features. Nothing revolutionary, just a few nice tweaks. First, you can now easily see video responses to a video post, and in fact play all the responses in a continuous stream. It's like Friend TV.

Also, there's now a mobile application (Nokia N95 only so far), from which you can create and view Seesmic posts. Mobile Seesmics aren't streamed live like they are with Qik or Flixwagon, but it does make it easier … Read more

Seesmic, currently in private beta (see end of post for access), appears at first glance to be a video version of Twitter. It does a good job of being that, but there's more here, as I learned about from founder Loic Le Meur.

Seesmic lets you easily record a short video (up to five minutes, which actually isn't all that short) directly from your Webcam, and it inserts that video, along with a title and brief description, into a Twitter-like feed. Just like on Twitter, Seesmic users can view all posts (the public timeline) or posts only from people they are following.

Users can link their Seesmic account to a Twitter account, if they have one, and every time they create a video, a link (with the title) will automatically get posted to their Twitter feed. In future updates, Seesmic will also post to other services: e-mail (see also EyeJot), blogs, Facebook, and YouTube. And you'll be able to specify, for each video you create, which of those services get your post. Also upcoming: The capability to create a Seesmic video via a Skype call. One feature that's available now but that Le Meur is considering removing: video file uploads. No one is using it, he says, and removing it pretty much guarantees that people won't post copyrighted content.

Seesmic could become much more than a utility to post videos if Le Meur's plan to turn it into a hub of video conversation bears fruit. When the site officially launches in February, it will support tagging and grouping of videos, which will make possible the creation of asynchronous video conversations, or forums. Now, it's true that YouTube already does this: You can respond to a YouTube video with another video. But Seesmic's design and interface feel more intimate than YouTube's, and it encourages participation in a way that YouTube does not. Le Meur even plans to open physical Seesmic cafes where users can gather to participate in these conversations. (We met in a bare room in San Francisco that will be remodeled into the first of these cafes.)

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