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The Francofous Seesmic Skype call

Byrichard

There are two communities on Seesmic, those that are English speakers and those that are French speakers. The French speaking seesmicers can be recognized by two things. The first one is the Racoon avatar, the second is that they refer to each other as the Francofous, the crazy french.

Last night Seesmic went down due to an upgrade gone wrong and as a result many seesmicers didn’t know what to do with their time. One seesmicer decided to create a skype conference call where over ten seesmicers were chatting for quite a few hours. I only found out about it via the discussion between Fred2baro and Sizemore and added Fred2baro. Quite a few of the French seesmicers were there and we discussed many topics and it lasted for at least three hours before it was cut short.

What made this conversation so interesting is how people came in and left at various points and how at one point Eric Rice and Purplecar joined the conversation. A few more people joined in including Loic Lemeur although his presence was short due to children in the background playing on a PSP.

I think that this is what the future of web interactions is about. It’s about a global community of people, at the moment early adopters, who have strong ties with friends and family in various parts of the world and no particular illustrated that such as the one of Kosso and Ifiz. They like to advertise that they met “in 140 characters or less”. That was a nice story and it shows the point of the new age of social interactions. I won’t give all the details here as you can easily ask them in person at a later date.

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The week ahead: Blog Wars, Seesmic meetup and more

Byrichard

This week should see me dropping by the Frontline Club in London for the first time in weeks. I want to see Blog Wars which could be quite interesting. “Blog Wars provides a sharp and funny look at the explosion of political blogs, which have become the loudspeakers for a new generation of activists speaking out and picking fights across the political spectrum”

I’m looking forward to yet another Seesmic meetup and I’ve heard that some interesting people should be present although I haven’t seen this written on paper yet. The usual London suspects should be there so that should be a really good evening. That will be on the 17th and more details are to follow.

I’m not sure whether there’s another Social Media Cafe but if there is then there’s a very good chance I’ll be present. I’ll keep you informed.

SeesmicAIR

Byrichard

SeesmicAIR developed by Critter looks like a really fun application for those already using Seesmic. It looks quite similar in appearance to twitter but rather than be based around text content this is based around video. You see the video timeline and as you see a video of interest you click on it to watch.

There are two things I love about this. First it’s built in AIR and that’s a great platform. I’ve been using Twhirl a lot over the past two days and it’s working really well for me. There are no caching issues, even after almost 3800 tweets over the past two or three hours.

The second reason I love it is how fast it looks. Of course it’s fast because it’s running off a machine that’s been used to trial it before and the connection might be better than the one I’m using.

That’s really the type of app that would encourage me to use seesmic far more freely than I do currently. If as Christine suggested it could be brought offine for our viewing pleasure then that would be even better. I think being able to download at least the friend’s timeline would contribute greatly.

Now I’m really enthusiastic both for seesmicAIR and Seesmic and how this would improve how people interact with the too

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Plaxo Pulse and Facebook

Byrichard

For all of those privacy advocates I’m on your side for this issue. With a lot of communitis you create a profile and friends can see it. What you give them are both your name and possibly phone number but no more. When you’re building a database of contacts you must ask for it.

When you add friends to outlook, address and other applications you’ve done research and the users have given their consent. That’s not the same as harvesting them direct from facebook. No one said they wanted you to have their e-mail address. No one chose to give you those details.

If you want them ask for them. Taking contact details from 5000 people is unethical and wrong. That’s very similar to spam behaviour.

What makes this worse is that Plaxo is associated with this. I use Plaxo pulse and you can see it on the right side of this column.  I don’t mind their services but for people to harvest their friend’s data without prior consent will help increase this feeling of insecurity.

We’ve had that debate on Seesmic, on Facebook and other online communities. If we want real communities transparency and trust are key. Stop abusing it.

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The Seesmeetup

Byrichard

It’s taken no more than a few days from the time I first saw Fred2baro on seesmic to our first meeting with Deek in London for the first Seesmeetup… so called. In fact it was both Sizemore that had the first meeting although more private in nature.

One of the questions that one of Fred2baro’s relatives asked was why would you want to be part of Seesmic? Aren’t people pretend and fake? Aren’t you uncomfortable with this?

My answer was the following: When you go to a bar or you meet people face to face rather than via twitter or Seesmic you’re quite often in a bar under the influence of a drink or two. As a result you’re not as genuine as you’d be if you met in another place. In other words Seesmic and twitter are a way of getting to know people before you meet them in the physical world.

What this means is that you can generate some great friendships, some strong ones. It’s also a new contemporary method of networking than the bar. We’ve got too many distractions at home. Whether it’s from the computer, the phone or the television to feel the absolute need to go out to bars where we’d sit and be bored anyway.

The point is the following. To me the social media, especially twitter and seesmic are a great way of creating new friendships in the physical world where limitations of time and travel distances are cancelled out. If’ we’re part of an international society why not meet people online and bring it to the physical world rather than the other way around. How many times have you been sad to see a friendship disintegrate because of distance?

I have, many times. Time to enjoy these new toys.

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Seesma Forum – Seesmic as a video based forum

Byrichard

When I first saw seesmic I thought of it as a video version of twitter but that point of view has shifted. I now think of it as an online video forum where video messages have replaced both text and pictures. I would expect many more websites of the sort to grow and it will see in a new era in social interactions on the web.

What I question is how long this video chatting website will last. Is there much demand for such a product and will it see itself become a valuable web success or simply another stepping stone in the road towards an increasingly digital lifestyle. What are your thoughts on the topic?

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The new social scene – Seesmic and Twitter

Byrichard

How many of you have a wifi enabled laptop. How many of you have a wap enabled phone. How many of you have msn messenger. The reason I’m asking you this question is the following. I’ve been using twitter for several months now and it’s whilst working on my dissertation that I wrote the most. Now I’m trying Loic Lemeur’s new video website, Seesmic.

It’s based off the twitter principle, that you leave a short video clip, no more than a minute in length about anything, or at least that’s my impression. You can add content in one of three ways. Record it straight from the laptop, link to it from youtube or upload a pre-recorded segment. The two latter options aren’t that interesting but the first one is for one simple reason.  It’s about snippets.

When you talk to someone you usually say a sentence or two and then the conversation switches back to you and there’s that back and forth of a lively conversation. In so doing there’s little or no chance of you switching off and going to find something else of interest. It’s also a dialogue between people in different countries and timezones, reflective of the new media landscape as seen by those on the cutting edge of social interaction.

What’s so special about this site is that it’s visual and auditory. With twitter you can read twenty tweets in twenty seconds whereas with seesmic you’re condemned to listen to a person go at their own speed. That’s why less than a minute is more than enough for most conversations. Everyone that’s a member participates and in so doing creates their own social group with a difference. Mainly you can see and hear whether they’re happy, lonely, tired or bored. It mans that you can see that little twinkle in their eye, that relaxed stance or their accent. It’s personal. It’s most of what you get from meeting someone in person in other words and that’s what makes it great.

I’m looking forward to all the conversations I’m going to have with the people I’m meeting at the moment, whether exclusively online or living in a mixture of both as I am. I’m enjoying this.