Seesmic Acquires Popular Twitter AIR Client Twhirl

April 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 pm

Talking in the third person now are we Mike?

April 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm

Any word on what they picked this up for?

April 3rd, 2008 at 6:54 pm

@James Are you OK? Must be very young.

April 3rd, 2008 at 6:59 pm

I like Twhirl as well, so congrats to the Twhirl folks, but I’m not sure what the synergy is with Seesmic.

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm

Lux: Twhirl was already adding Seesmic support in Twhirl and Seesmic was working on a client, so that is already two great reasons. More reasons to come in my own post in a bit.

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:02 pm

so is this the first acquisition of a purely AIR-based app? I can’t think of any others of consequence…

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 pm

Nice combo… can’t wait to see how it will be integrated into seesmic.

By the way, Mike you’re link to Twiterific is broken/wrong. Thought, I’d let you know.

cheers,
Armand

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:06 pm

Twitterrific is http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific not twitterrific.com, Mark.

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm

I love twhirl, I hope seesmic continues with the development. Twhirl while still lacking some features has much more than most of the other clients out there.

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:09 pm

Gabe: you got them will talk to Marco

Rick says “It’s also interesting to see that a startup, itself yet to make dollar-one, is acquiring other properties. The strategy intrigues me.”

Simple, go faster. More reasons to come on my post.

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm

Very nice. I use twhirl and just got into Seesmic. Should be fun.

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 pm

This is very interesting.

As a developer using the seesmic API I find it interesting that instead of keeping to their original mantra of building what the users want, they buy widgets etc. which I can’t personally remember anyone asking for.

I have a DB of the whole 141,480 videos and 2,768 users who have posted a video, and not one of them has cried out for an AIR client. In fact, if you look at the videos from today, what they are asking for are simple functions - a search, blocking users, etc.

Is Loic getting excited by the $$$? I hope not, I’ve lived through watching $5m funding go down the drain with RemoteApps.com, and I would hate to see a repeat.

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm

So this is job security for Critter, as he reverse-engineers Twhirl. He was a good acquisition, too.

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm

Hey Loic, if I click on your name in your comment it goes to http://www.loiclemeur.con

Better switch that to .com

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:39 pm

…actually, forget what I wrote, I forgot, it’s not about the user, it’s about the dollar. Shame that’s fucked too

April 3rd, 2008 at 7:54 pm

And will we get a blog widget one day so we can leave video-based comments ?

April 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 pm

Anyone experiencing Twhirl problems? I can’t see who’s tweets are on my Twhirl. This problem existed about 2-3pm PST and it hasn’t been fixed since. I restarted the app a few times…

April 3rd, 2008 at 8:17 pm

loiclemeur.con = very funny. Ah Ah.

April 3rd, 2008 at 8:30 pm

Seesmic, hyped as the video Twitter, is destined for the deadpool.

Voltaire said the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. And Seesmic isn’t Twitter and, in a particular way, it isn’t really video, either.

Seesmic isn’t Twitter because Twitter’s amazing utility is in its instancy. Twitter is fast–faster than email, than SMS, than a quick phone call. At the very moment of an event or news from your friends or anyone else, you are notified with a happy robin twirp (if you, like I, have the good taste to use the Twitterific application). Seesmic’s video certainly ads something–I’ll address that below–but it is not enough value to make up for losing all that speed. You can follow hundreds of Twitter feeds because they are all skimmable, fixed length and (as I say) fast.

Seesmic is chunky and slow.

Ultimately, it is a video bulletin board. A board for a species that learned to talk and then learned to really love talking, and they invented mirrors, too, and invited them into the ménage a trois. Seesmic is twenty-odd royal portrait painters and a few court stenographers at the imperial command of Seesmic user jaimiecroft discussing today’s top post: What do you do? Five thousand years of civilization and we learn that if he is not sleeping or working, his favourite thing to do is collect baseball cards. Then he shows us some cards. I’m riveted.

And you have to watch it all, because there is no ability to zip through what people are saying. They could allow for a fast-forward that kept voice at the same pitch with a close-caption. Like the ticker-taped Breaking News segment on Wonder Showzen! (timecode 02:14) Or if they wanted to be at all like Twitter, they could impose a limit. Ten seconds and then shut up. In ten seconds you could Seesmic-Tweet a haiku, our understanding of the relationship between Tom and Katie, or the person who is your everything. Or the founding so-called principles of the United States, or even the free health care/expensive data plans version that we Canadians roll with. Or a fart joke. Whatever: ten seconds then CUT! Word invention: a smoosh, ie the perfect ten-second Seesmic post.

Seesmic just opened for public use but I’ve been beta testing it for a while. It is awful. Sinister pony-tail men with lathered European accents dissecting the deep meaning of their abdomen tattoos. Faded grey people mumbling about something less interesting than the Wal-Mart family portraits on the wall behind them.

I ask myself, do I really want to see bloggers?

Even those with something to say might be better heard than seen. I cherish listening to Howard Stern on Sirius radio, but I never want to watch his gaunt Joey-Ramone face. The time and effort and aesthetics of video production that hold our cultural currency make these home-videos torture to watch. If you use YouTube to search for unwatched videos that are panned as boring then Seesmic is for you.

Seesmic is not video in the way we ever want video to be. Consider a technology or technique that makes the job harder or more annoying. It doesn’t exist for long. And in the purgatory meantime, we shout, that’s not a car! Do you call that a dishwasher? Etc.

I do believe, as with Twitter, that in addition to the fart jokes and Celtic tattoos and ponytails, humans will invent increasingly satisfying ways to use video online. And not just in the porn sense. It just won’t be the current Seesmic way.

Seesmic does offer one flash of accidental greatness: the founder’s hilarious blog. Mr. Loic Le Meur reveals to all us wannabe web start-upers the successful formula for getting a Web 3.0 up and running. (The Internet is also about sharing information; thanks for helping the little guy!)

So what’s the secret?

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (of Skype) gave him his seed money of nearly six million dollars. They are his friends. As are all the rich gatekeepers of online innovation.

So once you have amazingly rich and well-connected friends, just copy a useful superstar like Twitter, then take an inevitable variant, like video, and mix.

Presto: six million in your pocket.

What, as Oprah says, a lightbulb moment. So much for my idea about Twitter TV. The only gatekeepers I know work the doors at The Falcon Club.

April 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm

Ok so now we have the arguments on TC.com, on LLM.com, on Twitter etc. etc. All that is really awesome and we sincerely wish you all the best.

But now we want the acquisition price

April 3rd, 2008 at 9:06 pm

Is that why all the “paused” twirls lately?

April 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 pm

Yea, I’m not a big fan of Seesmic (@37), but integrating it into Twhirl sure is a smart move. Although, why acquire Twhirl since the creator has already integrated Seesmic?

Will Seesmic grow through M&As?

April 3rd, 2008 at 10:12 pm

please, post the deal terms. what I am dying to know is what it takes for one company that matters a lot to a small group of The 250 to buy another company that matters less to more of The 250.

April 3rd, 2008 at 11:03 pm

theres a post on this comments. A serious one lol!

April 4th, 2008 at 1:33 am

“Twitter is fast–faster than email, than SMS, than a quick phone call. At the very moment of an event or news from your friends or anyone else, you are notified with a happy robin twirp”

@37 - How is it faster than SMS?

April 4th, 2008 at 5:57 am

@31: Simon, check out viddler - they have a wordpress extension for video comments.

April 4th, 2008 at 8:09 am

if arrington is an investor in seesmic, then there should either be:

1) no post (remove this post, period)
2) full details (no ‘refraining from comment’ bullshit)

pick one. please. this is yet another example of techcrunch’s low journalistic integrity…

April 5th, 2008 at 9:02 am

When is Seesmic supposed to launch?

@alan p - yes i agree - a definite change in strategy.

April 7th, 2008 at 8:06 am

Not sure how I feel about this. I assume once Seesmic gets integrated into Twhirl it will be come bloatware and I will be forced to adopt another desktop client for twitter.