Video conversation startup Seesmic raised another $6 million in a series B financing. The round was co-led by Omidyar Network and Wellington Partners. The series A financing last February, which was also for $6 million, was led by Atomico (the investment vehicle of Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis), and included angel investors Reid Hoffman, Steve Case, Jeff Clavier, Ron Conway, and Martin Varsavsky. (Disclosure: TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington was also an angel investor in the first round).

Seesmic is designed to encourage video conversations among loose social groups (many of whom find each other on Seesmic). Since it launched in a private alpha last October, it’s attracted 21,000 users who post about 2,500 videos a day. Those videos, in turn, are watched about 300,000 times a day. Since last week, Seesmic has opened up its doors to all comers.

The company also owns Twhirl, a desktop Twitter/FriendFeed client that has been downloaded 400,000 times. Founder Loic Le Meur estimates that Twhirl accounts for 12 percent of all Twitter messages, and 5 percent of all FriendFeed comments.

Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay and Seesmic’s new board member, talks about his investment below:

I’m in Erick’s camp. While delighted to receive the occasional YouTube video in my inbox from friends, I largely sit things out when it comes to personal broadcasting services like Twitter and FriendFeed – they simply generate too much noise (and I have too little time to sift through it all).

So perhaps I’m not the best-suited to review the newest version of Twhirl, one of several desktop applications that help you track public conversations and the media shared by your internet buddies.

Twhirl version 0.8.2, released just moments ago, improves the AIR client’s FriendFeed support by adding the ability to comment and “like” items inline, filter by rooms, view avatars, and access links in comments. Pics can also be dragged and dropped onto the client for quick sharing.

On the Twitter side of things (FriendFeed and Twitter are separated into their own windows, unlike with Alert Thingy and MySocial 24×7), Twhirl now allows users to auto-throttle their data requests. This comes in response to Twitter’s regulation of how many times per hour 3rd-party services can retrieve data for a particular user. If Twhirl users enable auto-throttling, the client will automatically generate only 80% of the allowable requests. This prevents users from getting denied updates when they go over the limit (perhaps by manually refreshing a tad too eagerly).

Loic Le Meur, CEO of Twhirl’s parent company Seesmic, says that the newest version also supports XMPP for when Twitter decides to turn that technology back on. XMPP would allow Twhirl to receive updates instantly (kind of like push email) instead of pulling that data periodically.

Le Meur also says that Seesmic integration is coming in the next version, as is consolidation of all three services – Twitter, FriendFeed, and Seesmic – into one panel for a unified user experience. Seesmic’s API, however, means that any of the other desktop clients can add Seesmic support as well. Let the arms race continue.

Disclosure: Michael Arrington is an investor in Seesmic.

MySocial 24×7, a Friend Feed/ Twitter Firefox sidebar Michael wrote about in April has launched an Adobe AIR application.

Like the Firefox sidebar, the AIR app allows users to filter the view by type of data, comment or bookmark any entry, and users can also reply via Twitter.

The big selling point for the new app is an inbuilt movie/picture viewer, allowing users to view content without the need to revert to a browser window.

Hands on its definitely one of the nicest looking desktop apps in this space, content is rendered clearly and attractively, compared to say Twhirl which isn’t super pretty out of the box. The app though does lack many of the features that have made Twhirl popular, such as click support for direct messaging in Twitter, color customization, and easy access to archives and user details. In its defense it is an alpha release, and not all users will want for the extra features provided by Twhirl. Definitely worth a look if you’re a Twitter and FriendFeed user.

disclosure: Michael is an investor in Seesmic, which owns Twhirl

Note: Unless you are a Twitter and/or FriendFeed addict, this post isn’t for you.

Twitter/FriendFeed desktop client Alert Thingy just released version 1.3 of the software.

It is now a fully functioning client for both services (reading and writing). They’ve also added an easy Flickr uploader – just drag a photo into the application and upload it to Flickr.

The thing I like most about the new version of Alert Thingy though is that you access Twitter and FriendFeed in a single window and a single interface (Twhirl, a competitor, requires two windows). That means less desktop space is used. They are also de-duping Twitter messages (since they also appear in FriendFeed), a nice touch.

Switching between Alert Thingy, Twhirl and even the newer browser sidebar with similar functionality is trivially easy – there are no real switching costs. That means all of these products will be in a constant battle over features. That’s great for us users. And since Alert Thingy and Twhirl are more side projects for their parent companies (Alert Thingy is built by Howard/Baines, Twhirl is owned by Seesmic (a company I invested in), there’s little danger of one app driving the other out of business.

Im now planning to switch back to Alert Thingy based on the new features. The current version of Twhirl is freezing periodically as well, requiring regular restarts.

It’s my own damn fault. I should have never listened to Mike. This morning I installed Twhirl on my desktop in a failed attempt to keep up better with Twitter and Friendfeed. I was hoping it would help me manage the never-ending flow of information from those two services—which, I admit, I’ve been increasingly ignoring. Instead, it took over my desktop and I couldn’t make it stop (see image above).

Twhirl solves one problem (the need to constantly visit the Twitter and Friendfeed Websites), only to create another one (information overload that clutters your desktop). I’m sure there is some setting I could change to fix the issue, but this highlights a bigger problem with the Web today. There is too much to pay attention to and not enough ways to reduce the noise. Even Robert Scoble, the biggest Twitter whore on the planet who follows 21,000 people and receives one Tweet per second, can’t deal with it anymore.

And it is not just Twitter. Lifestream aggregators like Friendfeed are supposed to make things simpler by consolidating the activities of everyone you know across the Web into one single view. But every day a new lifestream aggregator pops up to the point that it’s gotten to be ridiculous. Now, desktop utilities like Twhirl and Alerty Thing are taking these services out of the browser so that they are always on your desktop.

But if you think it is hard enough to keep up with e-mails and instant messages, keeping up with the Web (even your little slice of it) is much worse. Putting Twhirl on your desktop and hearing the constant “ding” of new messages coming in will make you realize that this is IM on steroids. (You will quickly turn off the sound).

Bringing all of this Web messaging and activity together in one place doesn’t really help. It reminds me of a comment ThisNext CEO Gordon Gould made to me earlier this week when he predicted that Web 3.0 will be about reducing the noise. (Some say it will be about the semantic Web, but those two ideas are not mutually exclusive). I hope Gould is right, because what we really need are better filters.

I need less data, not more data. I need to know what is important, and I don’t have time to sift through thousands of Tweets and Friendfeed messages and blog posts and emails and IMs a day to find the five things that I really need to know. People like Mike and Robert can do that, but they are weird, and even they have their limits.

So where is the startup that is going to be my information filter? I am aware of a few companies working on this problem, but I have yet to see one that has solved it in a compelling way. Can someone please do this for me? Please? I need help. We all do.

A lot of people are addicted to Twitter (microblogging), and a lot of people are addicted to FriendFeed (friends’ activity streams).

While both are web services, each offers an API that lets third parties build on top of them, including desktop applications. Twhirl, recently acquired by Seesmic, has emerged as the leading desktop client for Twitter, and Alert Thingy launched days ago on the newly released FriendFeed API. Both are built on the Adobe AIR platform.

Yesterday, though, the two desktop clients started to compete with each other directly when Alert Thingy added support for Twitter as well. And even though I am an investor in Twhirl, I said I may uninstall it for good once a few more features were added to Alert Thingy. There is no reason to have both installed once they overlap completely.

Today, though, Twhirl hit back by adding FriendFeed support, including the ability to search, lookup users, write comments and bookmark items. The new version, 0.7.9, is available now here and will be pushed generally to users in a few days.

Loic Le Meur (founder of Twhirl parent company Seesmic) created the video below demonstrating the new version:

Due to the conflict I won’t editorialize further on Twhirl. Users who want a desktop application for both Twitter and FriendFeed should test both applications out for themselves to decide which one is best for them. The good news for all of us: competition, even in this very niche market, is forcing rapid innovation.

Download AlertThingy here, and (the new) Twhirl here.

Alert Thingy, the FriendFeed desktop application that launched just three days ago, just launched v 1.2 of the service, with Twitter support.

In addition to viewing FriendFeed data streams and posting directly to FriendFeed, users can now also post directly to their Twitter account as well. Users cannot directly view Twitter streams through AlertThingy, although they can get that information by following FriendFeed users who include Twitter data.

This makes FriendFeed even more useful. Twhirl, a competitor that was recently acquired by Seesmic, works with Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku, but users rarely use more than one of those services. Lots of people use both FriendFeed and Twitter, however (FriendFeed often to read information, Twitter to post), and they may find Alert Thingy a nice alternative to Twhirl.

I’m finding that I use FriendFeed a lot more now than I have Alert Thingy installed. And if they continue to innovate this quickly, I may find I uninstall Twhirl for good. Things they need to add – the ability to view Twitter directly, outside of friendfeed (including replies and direct messages), and integration with snurl to easily shorten included URLs.

San Francisco video/chat startup Seesmic has acquired Twhirl, a popular application created by German developer Marco Kaiser that allows users to access the Twitter service directly from their desktop, and also cross post to other services like Pownce and Jaiku. The acquisition price is not being disclosed.

Twhirl is considered among the better third party Twitter applications. ReadWriteWeb, for example, just yesterday identified it as the third most used method for posting to the Twittersphere, behind the web and instant messaging, and just in front of Twitterific. It has been downloaded 100,000 or so times.

Seesmic says they will continue development of the application and eventually integrate their own service into Twhirl, making it the official Seemsic desktop client.

It’s important to note that Michael Arrington is a minor investor in Seesmic and so we won’t add a lot of commentary on the transaction. Look for a company announcement soon.

Update: Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur announces his reasons for the acquisition on his blog, along with the following video: