Some people think that Seesmic is the video Twitter. They are wrong (even if they are investors in the company—Mike). The real video Twitter is 12seconds.tv. On Twitter, you have 140 characters to make your point. On 12seconds.tv, you have, well, 12 seconds. (On Seesmic, you can drone on forever or for 10 minutes, whichever comes first). We have 500 invites for the alpha launch.
The idea is to share moments of your life: sunsets, deep thoughts, funny faces. Or just broadcast your current status. You can upload the videos via a Webcam or your mobile phone, follow video updates from your friends, and even import contacts from Twitter. You can even link your 12seconds account to your Twitter account and it will automatically send a Tweet with a link your videos every time you put up anew one.
Is all of this pointless? Maybe, but no more than Twitter. Although, as a communications platform, text will always be more immediate and accessible than video.
The startup was founded by David Beach and Sol Lipman six months ago. They are bootsratpping it with 10 employees working for burritos. Besides Seesmic, 12seconds.tv also competes with the UK’s Phreadz. Here are a couple sample videos.
Why 12? on 12seconds.tv
Well signed up no email with my login in yet
sounds like a great idea
this is very good for attention seekers. so they dun have to bother me. some good deeds.
You forgot my company’s Hictu, Erik, that is the FIRST service which launched a video micro blogging… 1 minute videos (even if now we have 5, since our users asked for it). Check it out: http://www.hictu.com.
Not quite as accessible as Twitter or Jaiku since you’ve got to sit down and watch a video but it could be fun. Good luck with the service.
I’m signing up now - This will be a great way to video blog with my new cell. The idea has interesting potential, can’t wait to see where the users will take it.
finally, lets have a look at who everyone really is. No hiding now. Love it.
this would be awesome for people with expensive mobiles… or just people outside of the US in general… LOL
@John - Excited to have you in. We’ll be working on adding folks in through the day and tonight.
I have been using this for several months now and I must say that is is quite awesome. Even my wife love it. If that is not the sign of a successful technology product I don’t know what is.
It IS the real video Twitter. The website is down!
Nevermind, I guess 5th time’s a charm.
You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Yeah well, this is gonna blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7…Minute… Abs.
Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
I was reminded of this dialog too when reading the post.
Go for it! 10-seconds.com
Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
If you’re not happy with the first 7 minutes, we’re gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That’s it. That’s our motto. That’s where we’re comin’ from. That’s from “A” to “B”.
sound like great idea! I signed up for get my invite
Guys, if anyone here wants and invite for Hictu!, my company’s video micro blogging service, just leave a comment here:
http://www.lucafiligheddu.com/.....lable.html
The Web site is down now? =/
Many sites get beat up with TechCrunch hits. I think the service is pretty clean. I like it. Good luck guys.
This is my favorite video of the day so far: http://12seconds.tv/channel/shaaners/4306
yep! its down…
http://twithire.com is another site counting on twitter
Another cool way to communicate with each other via the net
Put it on the iphone or make it available for use on android, blackberry or a windows mobile phone and I would use it.
What kind of burritos are they working for, breakfast burritos? http://www.gothamtechminute.blogspot.com
Nowadays more and more people want to date online,they place their profiles online,seeking love,friendship,sex.I also placed a profile on “”" Tallchat.c om “”"”,a famous dating site for tall singles.There are many super models.I like models.LoL.
http://www.tallchat.com
Hey, this is Sol, one of the founders from 12seconds. Thanks for the post and the love, and thank you everyone for the great comments. If you have any trouble getting an invite, hit up our invite request page - http://12seconds.tv/signup - we’ll do our best to accommodate. We know the sites moving a bit slow and we’re working on it. Thanks again for checking out 12seconds!
Hi Sol - Was hoping to get an invite… When are more coming out? Already filmed the 12 second intro.
I said it once and I’ll say it again: it’s not shorter attention spans; it’s lazy men looking for easier ways to do things! Lazy Men post My last five-minute video took over 12 hours to produce and edit. Twelve seconds? This I can do!
To 12seconds.tv, please send our news site some invites so we can review your product as well. If you do, I will ask a writer to review it tonight. The 500 invites here will be gone in a few minutes, so you can make your story live on by getting some invites to our readers as well.
TL - http://www.offur.com/BetterThanTechCrunch
Wouldn’t it have been better to call it “15 Seconds”??? …as in, a play on “Fifteen Minutes of fame”??? Also, 12 seems random. I wish companies would at least ATTEMPT to get good domain names. I hate all these random names…
Also, would all these Web 2.0/goofy named companies try to make decent logos? SmugMug is downright terrible, as is Myspace, Vimeo and…oh, well, you get the idea.
Lazy men looking for easier ways to do things
Hi Eric,
Actually Sol is a ‘Phreadhead’ too! And I’m on 12seconds.tv
We’re already talking about two-way integration with eachother, which is very cool, I think you’ll agree.
Symbiotic relationships and partnerships are the way forward.
Cheers!
kosso
Founder : Phreadz Networks Ltd.
@ScottC : actually ‘15 seconds of fame’ is something I’ve been thinking about for years re: the web. A few years ago I proposed an audio app which I could build, which would only record and publish (podcast) 15 second mp3 files.
Taking it to video is a natural step
lame lame lame lame
LOL, as a typical man I dont even need 12 seconds
Shout out to Kosso - I love Phreadz. Great community, awesome product.
*high five* (and all that!)
babe spam magnet
Cool…………..I know what is coming next. Crapper.tv. Know when I go to the bathroom, and watch me too!
Been avidly TechCrunch for a while now and I’m surprised that when it comes to video applications you have yet to mention SightSpeed. I’ve been using their videochat and recording and it rocks - not as cool a UI as skype, but much much better quality. And I just found out that their software comes now pre-installed on every Dell computer too - they’re getting bigtime, so why no love from TC? Does TC have too much love for Seesmic to mention a competitor?… Just curious, it’s the first time I find myself doubting TC’s objectivity in reporting industry news.
They got themselves one butt ugly logo. Looks like it’s farting lightning bolts.
seesmic is not the video-twitter, but rather the video-jaiku = threaded(!) conversations
whoever launchs 30seconds.tv will take em outta business
why setting a time limit to the users?
This site takes 10 people to make this work? Sad.
They all did it in the spare time - working for free. Many hands make light work, mr. criticizer guy.
He’s not criticizing. There are 10 people involved because they hope to one day sell this thing (when it gets an over-valuation from all the techy types). They aren’t doing this for free but no one wants to put muc effort into it at this point.
My guess is one of those 10 isn’t a graphic designer.
Spare time or not it doesn’t take 10 people to build something so basic. That’s horribly inefficient and when it does come down to the company and valuations, who gets what and other important little details, that bloat of staff so early on isn’t a good sign. That’s reality. This site is a <3 person effort and shouldn’t take more than a 6 weeks working part-time if you have the right people. The real issue is no one has a versatile//strong enough skill set of their own to handle multiple elements of the design and development thus requiring 10 people to make it happen. That’s not efficient and that will hurt. I won’t even get into the late night informerical novelty of this site.
I’m bemused that it took 10 people to birth this part-time or not. If I needed 10 people to get a project like this done I’d feel like a pile of worthless.
I’m hereby proposing a ban on further articles that tout something as “It’s like Twitter for _____”
Not wanting to compare, but I programmed and designed all of Phreadz on my own
I hope Phreadz and 12seconds can have a healthy, two-way, symbiotic relationship
It can be programmed. So it can be done
dude, relax. you’re sounding kinda bitter. this is a side project for these guys. it’s really like 2 or 3 and they all have day jobs.
Seems like a good concept to help make video comments short and to the point - lets see now how easy they are to manage once I get my invitation email
Setting a time limit is an excellent idea - could even be a great solution for video commenting. Forces you to be short and to the point.
Oh, and looky-there - they are using UserVoice!
http://12seconds.tv/channel/marcusnelson/3112
Thrive Or Fail: 12seconds.tv href=”http://snurl.com/34etu [www_thriveorfail_com]
clickable
You should be able to add scent
Hell yes, I’ve been waiting for something like this!
@rob LOL! I actually own that!
… for those reflective, personal moments 
this looks awesome
There’s still a huge difference. A 140 character tweet takes 2 seconds to read. A 12 second video takes 12 seconds to view, plus the time to process that you need to play it. Video microblogging is still infinitely slower than plain text, or text plus images, and so it won’t take off the same way.
@David - by your own example (2 seconds to read a tweet), video microblogging is actually 600% slower, not infinite.
Great idea!
http://12seconds.tv/channel/dailyfrogshow/4669
Very cool. I like the simplicity of it. They need to integrate into Friend Feed, but I’m sure that’s coming
jw