[Posted on April 4, 2008 - 2:33 PM]
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DiggCommenting on Seesmic's acquisition of Twhirl, Om Malik says he doesn't quite "get" Seesmic and poses two quite reasonable questions about the video blogging service: What is its utility, and what "pain point" is it seeking to alleviate.
I think it's premature to answer the former, which if true obviates (or at least delays) addressing the latter. Few people have had a chance to try communicating via short video messages, so it's difficult to gauge whether it might tickle some fundamental human impulse that leads to wider adoption. Before Twitter, the utility of a service that lets people share idle thoughts while standing in line at the grocery store wasn't immediately apparent. Even the technoscenti still occasionally question the value of Twitter, just as people once scoffed at the purpose of adding a camera to mobile phones. But Twitter's growth indicates that the underlying technology taps into some basic wish to communicate in a way that was previously hard to conceive.
In other words--and it's difficult to state this without sounding banal, but it's worth recalling--people's communication and informational needs change under the influence of emerging technologies, meaning they don't know what they want until something exists to inform them of that desire. Is Seesmic a solution in search of a problem, as Malik suggests? Hard to say. For now, Seesmic's real "utility" may be that it gives form and action to an idea--dialogue through video. But how does the usefulness of the service, which remains in beta, change once it goes fully mobile?
As for making predictions about the future value of a tool, that's trickier because the drivers are as much sociological as technological. And the social aspect of video blogging has yet to be fully understood. Malik's questions about Seesmic are certainly germane in judging the company's future as a business. And obviously the jury remains out on that, although a host of prominent investors think its prospects are bright.
Anyone have any thoughts on what distinguishes a micro-video post from a live video conversation or a Twitter chat? I suspect the answer to Seesmic's ultimate utility resides in such distinctions. - Alain Sherter
See April 4 post from Tech Confidential
See April 4 post from GigaOm
See January 16 post from Louis Gray
See January 2 post from Tech Confidential
See Feb. 14 post from Tech Confidential
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Comments
From: Alain,
I think you've answered your own question. Twitter IS a novel idea--add video, a feature that Twitter doesn't offer, and you just may have something.
As I said in my post I think the overarching question is whether micro-video blogging has the same fundamental appeal as Tweeting, and that's tough to gauge until people's online sensibilities catch up with technology. As for the biz model issue, you're right to say that's tbd, although obviously reaching scale would open up various possibilities.
Alain
Tech Confidential
Posted on:
April 8, 2008 11:26 AM
The big issue is obviously: how does it make money. Twitter is still asking itself this question and the answer isn't very clear right now, though Arrington stumbled across a possiblity in a post yesterday (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/06/comcast-twitter-and-the-chicken-trust-me-i-have-a-point/).
Seesmic seems to be Twitter + video. I'm not sure what's so novel about the idea, but perhaps, the founde and investors + VC are in the know about a potential model that's just in the wild right now.