The rumors were correct. Loic Le Meur, a well known European entrepreneur that recently relocated to San Francisco, will unveil his new video startup, Seesmic, this morning into a closed beta.
The service is very much in “alpha” and they’ve only given away a few test accounts. They’ll start to give more over the next few days – just sign up on the Seesmic home page to get one. Look for a full launch
I’ve been testing the service over the weekend and, even though it is yet another video startup, I think Seesmic is both fun and addictive.
Screen shots and full review are below.
A Video Twitter
The service can be described as a video based Twitter, although it is also much more than that. The grand vision behind Seesmic is for it to become a very open online video/television service where people are constantly interacting around both user generated and professional content.
A lot of the functionality behind that vision won’t be built for a while, though. For now, they are sticking to the basics. But a key foundation of the service, right from the start, is that the service is very open with user data, both inbound and outbound.
Here’s the current functionality:
Video Twitter: Each user has his or her own page and can create videos directly from a webcam and publish them to the site as well as other social networks (see below for more on that last point). Or, a user can simply add a URL to a video on any of the major video sharing sites and add that to their stream.
To the right of the main video viewing area shows a list people you follow and/or who follow you (similar to how Twitter handles friends). Once both sides follow the other, they become “friends.” To left of the main video area is a list of videos with three views – all user videos, videos from friends, and your videos. See the screen shots to get a better understanding of this.
The videos listed on the left are not just videos uploaded to Seesmic; the service is also indexing Twitter to find all links to videos that people have posted, and are including them in the list. The idea, Le Meur says, is to find not just popular videos, but videos people are actually sharing with friends and discussing with others. Using Twitter videos is a good way to seed that content.
Social Network Integration: Users who choose to do so can enter their YouTube or Twitter credentials (and soon Facebook and other sites). When you upload or create a video on Seesmic, a link to it is automatically posted on Twitter, uploaded to YouTube, etc. As they add more services, their hope is that users focus all their video attention on the site and distribute those videos through other social networks.
“The aim is to help gather, collect, comment and share the best online shows today spread on numerous platforms and sources of data,” Le Meur said today. “It builds on successes such as YouTube, Facebook, del.icio.us, Twitter or Skype rather than trying to create another video site.”
Coming Soon:
Soon users will be able to add Seesmic as a friend on Skype and other instant messaging platforms that support video. Click on the friend name and record a video from that service, and it will be uploaded to your Seesmic account.
Even better – when you and a friend have a video chat on Skype, you can add Seesmic as a friend and the conversation will be recorded and posted on Seesmic as well.
There’s also some basic stuff that they haven’t added yet but will be in place very soon – RSS feeds for users (with iPhone-compatible MP4 enclosures), video phone uploads, comments (text and video) and ratings on videos, etc. Le Meur also says they will be launching a Joost widget that allows users to interact with stuff they watch on Joost, too.
In what Le Meur calls the second stage of the startup, the team will create an “open, crowd sourced and community driven online TV.” The user generated videos gathered on Seesmic will be gathered to produce topical daily shows around communities. The best authors, Le Meur says, will get a revenue share from shows.
The company will also have an open studio in San Francisco (more cities coming) where people can drop in and create video content.
Overall Thoughts:
One way I know I like a service is if I find myself messing around with it long after I have gathered enough information for a review. I’ve been clicking on Seesmic videos all night when I could have been done with it hours ago. It feels like it has the simplicity of Twitter (v. say, Kyte, which seems like it tries to do possibly toomany things at once). It’s way too early to call Seesmic a winner, of course, but I think both video creators and video consumers will like hanging out on the site.
Sounds like a good concept, congratulations Loic!!
When looking at video startups, I usually ask “Is it better then Youtube”?
Not being able to actually look at this, I can’t say, but from what you describe it sounds like the answer is, probably not.
Sounds fun …. but it is really much more than a video indexing site with some extra social features thrown in ?
One could argue, YouTube is effectively already a video twitter by creating an account and uploading videos regularly ?
The revenue model seems based on Revenue sharing by discussing popular video’s and articles by creating shows, and no doubt some Google advertising or inline video advertising.
While it sounds fun, not sure how they will match YouTube once they launch they full blown revenue sharing video arrangements.
Good Luck Though!
It has yet to find a killer feature…
does a service actually need a killer feature? why can’t services just compliment each other?
isn’t this what web2.0 is about?
Wow, a web 2.0 site with a sexy black look? Say it ain’t so. Is this the start of web 3.0?
Is being able to video twitter someone really necessary?
Internet startups are now becoming the equivalent of what biotech was a few years ago — a million companies each with a single, narrowly-targeted product. These startups could never function as real companies, because their product offerings were too meager to create any revenue.
Congrats and good luck for this new venture.
One question for Loic (si tu nous lis…): how were you able to establish a US company being a French citizen?
He most likely has an investor’s visa.
The site is pretty much useless given that Youtube is already sufficient for crappy low-content videos of poorly recorded webcam sessions.
it is in close beta,i can not to test it.but i think it is fun.
what a way to kickoff, have been watching Loic Le Meur’s vdeo podcast, so he just moved here, and was looking for office space, hiring programmers, and now he’s got an alpha site up already?
I thought he was suppose to announce funding this morning as well? no news about that? Also, being a “high profile” entrepreneur with possibly a good idea, did he submit for TC40? or his startup was just not selected?
Bravo, Loic, je te souhaite beaucoup de succès.
Mais les videos de la page d’accueil sont lourdes à charger.
Je vais tester ce nouveau service et te donner mon point de vue
Good luck
Another video site? Best of luck!
Mobypicture does a similar thing with mobile content.
You can post this to their server and this automatically gets distributed to different social platforms like Twitter, Flickr, Netvibes, Tumbr, Hyves, RSS and they’re adding new platforms frequently.
http://www.mobypicture.com
A similar platforms for video content would be great.
Good luck Loic!
You can already publish directly video into Twitter or Jaiku, using podesk.
It’s state of the art h264 codec and videos are directly downloadable & Compatible iPod/Phone. It works out of the box on any mac with built-in iSight
et voilà !
http://www.podesk.com
http://www.pode...-Publisher.html to download the publication software.
Bertrand
I bet we can help with studio space in Washington, DC
congo for the new venture
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
Hictu is a video micro-blogging platform, available since June. It can surely be considered a Video Twitter. Any well known blog and online tech magazine covered it already, except TechCrunch… Is there something I’m missing, Mike ?
Luca
On the geeky side, I would be interested to know if they are using Flex to build their UI (it does seem Flash based), and what server they are using to capture the video streams (e.g., Adobe Media Server or Red5).
Anybody knows?
@luca
The important thing to me is that it isn’t simply Twitter that allows video uploading, which is kinda lame. Everybody can do that, but video isn’t text, so it needs differentiation.
This product has a bold vision. From one of the videos I saw, it was mentioned that there could be press conferences in their offices, being recorded to video. This not only adds a possible revenue stream, it adds maturity and professionalism.
I think that this company could actually work. It’s a very Silicon-Valley-specific product, though. I see several possibilities of creating revenue streams, but Loic Le Meur has the advantage of Google actively researching how to monetize videos – he won’t have to do THAT, too. (Especially considering that Google will very likely offer AdSense for Video at least to certain content partners.)
It’s not a video-Twitter. It’s much more. That’s why it deserved being mentioned on TechCrunch.
I think its pretty cool but you have to ask whats the connection with TC? first you have a random post about his youTube stuff and now a fairly long post that no other video startup would get in this day and age. Lets not get into the TC uk mess of last year and Loic…
Luca: I wrote about Seesmic vs. Hictu on my blog: http://scobleiz...-bootstrapping/
A few other things: the design of Seesmic is TONS better than Hictu. Second, Seesmic’s CEO came to my house and showed it to me. Are you ever coming to San Francisco?
Sebastian: I totally disagree that it’s a Silicon Valley specific product. You must have missed that Loic runs a conference in Paris, France, with 2,000 attendees. Also, if you think Twitter is a “Silicon Valley specific product” I’ll call you particularly clueless and say that you need to visit http://www.twittervision.com and watch it for more than 10 minutes.
It seems to me it could be a winner model! Congrat Loic.
I am looking forward to testing it.
reminds me of viddler.com and their me today contest
can i just comment how annoying it is when you link to a company…and the link takes you to a techcrunch page about the company and not the actual company.
this is stupid seo trick- thanks for your regard for users. it is minor, but misleading and annoying.
As his last exil in Belgium, LLM tries to create TV
Is there dumminvestor to invest in this “project” ? How much LLM invested in project ? Nothing as usual ? 
)
The only question I ask to myself in such cases is “would the project have raised funds if the founder hadn’t 1/ brought the money from previous (un-revolutionnary) successes 2/ marketed his name as a brand 3/ influencal network in industry and politics (Sarkozy, etc…) ? In other words, is this a fundable idea for the average Joe?
Personaly, I doubt it.
Earlier today I was introduced to a company called Broadcaster (http://www.broadcaster.com) that seems to be in the same space as Seesmic).
I’d be interested in anyone’s informed opinion on the similarities and differences between the two – and why one or the other seems like a stronger play.
Thanks!
@cedric: sometimes yes, sometimes not. Certainly if you get funded by a well known VC, journalists pay more attention on your company. And VCs pay more attention on you if you have been running a successful business previously.
How can you put money in this project ? The “techno” is quite simple and available. Every blogs system or video system can have plug-in for it.
Big expenses for hosting and bandwith (the same in netvibes projects 1 million USD per month) and no money back, except if you can find buyer for the firm but this time has already been.
I agree with the fact that the idea itself is probably not that super revolutionary. But the way Loic is planting his “seed” in the market is pretty smart and impressive. He already has created a lot of buzz (including TC) around his next ‘big thing’. And something tells me he is on to something big… He sure has my appetite to wanting to try out his ‘video conversation platform’.
The name ’seesmic’ also seems powerful in terms of brand potential…
I like it. So, let’s see in 2008 around this time – a winner or not ?
I dont get the value proposition here.. it sounds like a ‘Digg/YT hybrid for video’ only the recommendations come from your circle of friends? So you post vids that are private not public..n’est pas?
What’s the barrier to entry…
Congratulations Loic.
Who are the investors?
Beware anything so-called “european”!
I must restrain myself here….. (or so the lawyers say):
My opinions of European governments, laws, culture, socialist dogma, infrastructure, deodorants, styles and stupidity are well known. Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-european, I am just against stupidity! Whether it comes from Apple, IBM or the EU Competition Commission.
How can we stop people from buying our products?
How can we cease to be a monopoly when our customers make us that?
If we are put in a position of dominance, shouldn’t we dominate?
Shouldn’t we crush the small companies which threaten what our customers clearly want,- US?
“Microsoft must now comply fully with its legal obligations to desist from engaging in anticompetitive conduct. The Commission will do its utmost to ensure that Microsoft complies swiftly,” – Neelie Kroes (EU greasy lawyer) said in a statement.
Hey Neelie! “Neelie”, lol, What cha’ gonna do if I just close down all of our operations over there?
That would solve a lot of our problems, wouldn’t it?
You would no longer have to worry about MS and we would no longer have to worry about guys like you constantly whining and sucking us dry!
I’m gonna give this option some serious thought. Who needs that funny pink, green and blue money of you people’s anyways?
Just thinking out loud.
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
(Did someone read the fake Steve Ballmer post entirely?) thinking out loud…
Anyway I can’t wait to be a alpha tester to make my own idea about this new service. If Scoble and TC took time to review it, then it should be something I should check for sure!
Too bad I am located too far from Seesmic offices to shoot a video or too with good quality and light settings!
Way to go Loic! I hope I can make it to your conference in Paris LeWeb3.com!
“[...]a video or TWO![...]“
Seesmic great name plus already some very decent buzz, experienced entrepreneur… a good start if I ever saw one. Bonne chance Loic!
@Jeremy Chone We are indeed using Flex to build the UI
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.
Congratulations Loic.
when it start ?
thanks
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