People who don’t follow Loren Feldman are usually surprised when he takes aim at their startup and lets loose. He combines valid points with a highly confrontational approach (he once called me a “pompous elitist asshole” and I still consider him a friend). The results are usually entertaining and combustive. Quite often they also cross the line and could be called offensive.
Today Feldman went off on new video startup Seesmic (I am an investor). Since Feldman is a video guy, I would have assumed he’d like Seesmic. But he most certainly doesn’t. He posted a video attacking the site, its founder and its users in a highly aggressive way. Apart from the parts making fun of Europeans, I found it to be funny and included some valid points. The video is below - it is definitely NOT safe for work.
Founder Loic Le Meur, hot off a very successful Le Web conference in Paris, didn’t take it very well. You can sense his frustration in his blog response. The frustration is warranted, but this kind of thing is going to be occurring regularly, Loic. Time to get used to it.
any press is good press, that goes w/o say.
as for that french dude, loic le meur, getting hot and irate - lol, french - the french are very anal. they can’t take nothing lightly
Damn… what a b*tchslap! Tip to all commenters: now this is how you talk sh*t! Well done Loren!
“You’ve got VC money, hire a f***ing designer” was my favorite line.
He does make a point about flash. I absolutely refuse to allow flash popups in my browser. Then when you click on something the back button on your browser doesn’t work. Just killed the site for me.
I actually had some fun watching it
watching this guy reviewing seesmic was quite grueling. he needed to belch or something and he could have been much more concise.
i think guys connect to this kind of long-drown out, bonding techno speak?
sincerely,
angela hayden
art goddess
Wow. This was fast (from post to response to Techcrunch). I don’t think I got up from my bed since it started. Anyway, Seesmic (I’m a user) has a growing dedicated user base whose biggest complaints are *not* being able to develop for it (for free) just yet. I think they’re in a good place and, you’re right, Loic should just take a look at the Seesmic timeline for five minutes and chill the hell out. As long as it remains quasi-exclusive, there’s going to be a market for bashing it.
PS. Yes, Americans are too quick to *give* offense.
Loren at his best, real.
Loic dont take it too personal, this is part of the feedback process and you guys are already listening well.
The comments toward Europeans and French were not need, but he makes good points about the flash loader, flash usage on the site (iPhone can’t even see the site), video quality, and the model of short video clips as a way of having a conversation. Loren didn’t mention the weird logging on screens you witness when opening a video for the first time. Seesmic has potential. Take this a learning experience and improve the service. Good job so far though.
bout time for seesmic post - been a week!
in addition to the fun yeah, he has valid points.
the funny part, “It is ridiculous to have conversations via video clips. It is idiotic.” What about doing a review in a video clip! It’s really seesmic like! Hillarious dude!
It’s a pre-alpha release i’m sure that they are working on few issue mention in this review.
Is all publicity good publicity? I doubt it.
ChrisP - yeah, I was thinking that too.
Loren adds on Twitter “wtf does Pre-Alpha mean, to me it means you shouldnt release a shit product. Pre-Alpha. You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”
hehe I love him now. Totally. Lots of fun tonight.
Grrrrr~!
by the way there is another hilarious point is that Dailymotion is a european video service while he “hates europeans” why not use YouTube
Never trust the French!
fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I want that 3:03 of my life back.
darius
Not verbatim but he said something along the lines of:
“I don’t want to click on a video and hear some douchebag going off on random stuff, they’re all unattractive people”
He must be talking about his own video
@ChrisP @Michael Arrington I think you’ll find on the 1938media post that Feldman defends his use of video:
“I wasn’t starting a conversation, I didn’t ask for or care what your opinion is. I was lecturing you. Understand the difference?”
Still, it was yet another unfunny piece, devoid of any nuance and boring as batshit. Clearly we foreigners require a little more sophistication in our humour. Or fart jokes. Take your pick.
@mia - totally. i was laughing my ass off at that point.
i’ve never been to the site, and really have no desire to, but if all the stuff he complains about in the video is true it must have some other killer feature if it hopes to survive. it truly sounds horrible.
I agree with what he said: “… I do not want to click on a video to hear some douchbag talk about nothing …” and that is what I feel about the clip.
The video has, as the french say, a certain “I dont know what” quality about it.
I almost felt like this guy had something intelligent to say considering the all too common unshaved entrepreneurial look but then after ten seconds of listening to him I found myself looking for a brick near by to throw into his face and shut him up. I like my 24-inch wide screen too much to do that.
Dude, lighten up!
guys great. funny shit. tellin it like it is……
If I didn’t know MA as a man of integrity, I would have though this was just a PR ploy
I don’t think it was fair to post it here. Why did he deserve an article, Michael? He has some minor good points on the design, and so what? All tiny stuff…on a beta service.
Also, there’s no intelligence without respect.
This guy might be your friend, but he’s not anyone I like to read/listen to. This is tech-crunch not a racist blog.
thanks for not giving him anymore space in the future.
thsi shouldn’t be posted. just gossips.
afterall, i think he got a point, but could have done it in a better way.
This is why I come back to TC day after day. It’s not the ribbing (avoce vid) or the demise of a company (edgio) but presenting the news with no bias! Awesome!
Oh and Loic, it’s people who care about your site which drives them to take time out from their lives to comment about it.
Pretty mild for Lauren in my opinion!!! we are friends a while and his Techcrunch40 good wishes to me involved calling me a big headed Irish bar-steward.
Best user of the video medium out there.
Maybe it will turn into a Mahalo and we will see Loic going for dim sum with Lauren.
Nothing like watching an Israeli go after a French guy. Geez!
This guy is a little rough around the edges, eh. Frankly, he deserves a ass whooping:)
hehehe… Tough Love!
I still don’t beleive in bad advertisement! - it’s just advertisement. This story made more than 2 of my daily RSS feeds.
Base my opinion on seesmic from the guy who talks twitter up? I have no idea about seesimic, but your comment about twitter lost all my creditability in this douche bag.
“frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
Dood, twitter? What are you, 17? People who use twitter have time on their hands. Fucking nerds get a life.
How do you like that smack down, you middle eastern looking egg headed bag of donkey cum?
Ok, so what’s seesmic? Yeah it looks ghay.
He should have posted his hilarious review of seesmic on sessmic LMAO
@BostonGirl: It was worth posting here because people take themselves way way too seriously. Anyone who wants to do anything in web tech has to pass through the Loren Feldman rite of passage which is to get skewered by video. Those who don’t take themselves seriously past the test and garner a lot of respect (Arrington, Calacanis, Winer, etc). Those who take themselves too seriously end up looking like morons. Mike does a public service by noting this exchange as it’s an example: Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Loren’s methods are eccentric but he has a massive following, he’s funny and he will truly ignore the things he really hates. The things he rails on and does satires on are probably getting a pretty good endorsement.
So relax and laugh and enjoy the 1938media videos. End of the day… they’re funny.
European OR French OR British. LoLK
Hopefully blogger will make it viral.
Loic, could you get this video on Seesmic and start a conversation on it, just to show him how it works? I had a good laugh.
Ouriel : Conversation seems to be too much for him. It must be typically european to “talk”
.
Psst : preaching alone is ten times better isn’t it Monsieur Feldman
ok. rewatched the video. “Americans hate foreigners” -> I wonder why he calls himself “americans”.
The good point is that he says he won’t use it so I guess the other users wont have to suffer the presence of this racist user…….
Thanks for this crappy Buzz Lesson Loren… Pathetic…
Ouriel, I am tired about this guy… The Seesmic community does not give a shit and I should have probably taken the same approach
I am too anal.
How can you call this guy a friend and expose such a lame video of his to the world? He has nothing worth to say (1 minute on the colors of a pre-alpha service?). He even feels like he’s trying to be rude, but has a hard time at this.
Discarded.
This guy Feldman is so sick and I’m genuinely disappointed that TechCrunch is giving any space for him. Don’t you guys have any filters?
Thats what happened when people have too much freedom. They think they can throw shit on everybody without having any consequences. And he is making money from it. Thanks to TC and all others who publish him.
Please guys put some filters on…
haha i love this guy, mike you need to step it up a notch, bro
Loren: Did you get paid for that?