Blogging

Twubble, which helps you find new friends based on the attributes of your current followers and followees. Find even more tools on Jon Clark’s list of the top 75 Twitter tools, applications and plugins.

And there’s no shortage of new ideas, as evidence, for example, by Lee Odden’s wish list for Twitter.

Twitter is like to become the next Netscape, as “they’ve definitely staked out too much territory, they’re spread too thin” and are vulnerable to being overtaken by a better, more open alternative. MG Siegler disagrees, however, noting that “Certainly a big player, maybe even Microsoft again, could move in to try and make a new version of Twitter that is fully open. But if Twitter hasn’t died by now, I’m not convinced that it’s ever going to die.”

One problem is increasing competition. In Building a Better Twitter, Douglas MacMillan list several microblogging platform competitors that offer Twitter-like capabilities but with unique twists, such as video (Seesmic) or music integration (Blip.fm). These sites pose a potential threat to Twitter not like a shark able to kill with one big bite, but more like a school of pirahna, nibbling around the edges of Twitter’s dominion and taking away share bit by bit. Still, MacMillan is bullish on Twitter, noting that “Soon after Twitter raised $15 million in funding, Silicon Alley Insider blogger Henry Blodget speculated that the site may be worth as much as $1 billion.” After all, alternative search engines have been trying to take the death-by-a-thousand-small-bites approach to knocking off Google for years without diminishing the search giant’s dominance.

The biggest concern, however, is Twitter’s revenue model—or lack thereof. As CNet’s Caroline McCarthy points out, “Twitter remains Silicon Valley’s poster child for hyped companies without revenue models. With the financial crisis continuing to unfold daily, that simply isn’t acceptable.” Popularity alone won’t sustain Twitter (a lot of popular sites disappeared in 2001). But Twitter is a product of insight and creativity, and one has to conclude there is at least a good probability that those attributes will enable Twitter to continue offering a platform for news, links, wisdom and commerce mixed among a sea of trivial but very human chatter.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Read more from the original source:
Twitter Twaddle, Part 2: Best Practices, Tools and The Future of Twitter

Loic Le Meur, CEO and founder of video community service Seesmic, announced publicly on Friday that the company is laying off seven people from the start-up. Citing “market conditions and the recession,” Le Meur disclosed that most of the let-go staffers are “behind-the-scenes” people who were building out the service. Le Meur said, “The worst is, we love them all.”

He says that “Seesmic is moving on and will continue to innovate and provide a stable platform.” The company has “years ahead” of funding to keep things moving, he said.

Seesmic also owns the Twitter and Friendfeed client Twhirl.

Le Meur’s style of announcing this change in his company is unusually open, but it is likely the beginning of a series of similar announcements, some more public than others, about restructuring and retrenchment in start-ups. The founder of a different four-person company, whom I met with Friday, told me he had just cut salaries at his company in order to stretch the company’s “runway” of survivability on the money it currently has in the bank.

See Le Meur’s confessional video on the topic, below:

View original post here:
Fallout takes hold: Seesmic publicly lays off 7

Movable Type users looking to get simple video comments on their blogs have access to a new plug-in today from the folks at Seesmic. Once installed commenters can add both text and/or video underneath someone’s blog post, similar to what’s been available for WordPress users since late April. The plug-in joins similar ones for Disqus, DotClear, and Cocomment. One for Drupal is also right around the corner.

Personally I’ve never been a big fan of video comments on blog posts solely for attention’s sake. I just can’t tell if a comment is worth viewing from the thumbnail, whereas I can eyeball text far faster. That hasn’t stopped some of our competitors like Mashable and TechCrunch from adding video commenting to their sites though.

What do you think?

See the rest here:
Movable Type users get Seesmic plug-in

The video conversation service Seesmic, now better known for the popular Twitter client Twhirl it acquired in April, has secured $6 million in series B venture funding, bringing the total amount raised to $12 million.

The new funding round is led by two companies: the Omidyar Network, the venture form of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar; and Wellington Partners. Omidyar will join the Seesmic board in an observer role and Wellington GP Eric Archambeau will take a board seat.

Seesmic raised an A round of $6 million in February of this year.

In Seesmic product news, the company also updated its embeddable video player. It now supports message threading and replies from the embed. It’s a useful and interesting feature, although it does make Seesmic a bit of a competitor to existing comment services like Disqus. Seesmic CEO Loic LeMeur says, “We are partnering with them, in fact.” Will be interesting to see how that goes. And as TechCrunch points out, the new embeddable video conversations could “hijack” blog-based user discussions.

See more Seesmic posts on Webware.

Excerpt from:
Seesmic secures $6 million

It's like Twitters that talk.

Seesmic founder and CEO Loic LeMeur is circulating an early release of Twitter client Twhirl with Seesmic support. Seesmic, if you have forgotten, is Twitter in video. Download the new release here.

The test client only plays Seesmic videos at the moment. It doesn’t let you record them. Seesmic won’t be updating the Twhirl client for everyone until recording is added. That’s due in a few weeks. Following that, although it “will take a while,” will be a version of Twhirl that lets users show their Twitter, FriendFeed, and Seesmic feeds in one window. That’s the version I’m waiting for.

Twhirl was a brilliant acquisition for Seesmic. Not because it makes Seesmic better. Seesmic.com itself is already an attractive and useful site that doesn’t really need a desktop client the way Twitter does. Rather, embedding Seesmic support in Twhirl gives the service exposure to all the Twitter users on Thwirl who would likely otherwise never pay attention to it. The real question for me is how any of these services are going to make money, and especially how those revenue plans will be reflected in aggregating clients like Twhirl.

Read more here:
Seesmic’s Twhirl finally getting Seesmic support