If you listen to my podcasts you’ll know I talk about Seesmic and Loic often. Before I had a beta account I was interested in their approach to transparency. I have a master’s degree in Business Management and I have a natural interest in business issues. What is Seesmic? Think of YouTube and Twitter combined, conversation via video. Now that I have a beta account, I decided to take Seesmic for a spin. I have great timing, what can I say?
Talk About a Disconnect…
When I first logged in last week I encountered drama; it was the first thing I saw. I do not remember the original drama because there has been daily drama ever since. I will talk about the current drama over the weekend. A woman showed cleavage and that started a series of conversations that branched off into another conversation where the same woman made an off-comment. Yes, you guessed it…this prompted another set of conversations.
The common denominator in this fiasco: the female was “really” talking to one or two people, yet it was broadcast to the entire community. She kept saying “…but the one or two people I was talking to totally understood…” in which pondered the wisdom of publicly broadcasting something meant for one or two people to thousands. Does that make sense? Perhaps Seesmic needs to integrate the ability to respond semi-privately (or privately) to the specific individuals one is responding to?
Private communication is a band-aid to the real issue. Seesmic users need to understand the simple concept of thinking prior to posting a video and it is Seesmic’s job to educate their users. Currently, Seesmic users are running about doing whatever they want, which brings me to my next point.
I also want to say that less than 50 people are having these conversations, in truth it might be less than 25.
Where is the Terms of Service?
In the beginning the “heavy-weights” of the technology community were using Seesmic. Over time more non-technology focused people were invited to use Seesmic, which was a very good idea. The problem: because they were with the heavy-weights of the technology/Web 2.0 communities, people were very “aware” of what they were saying and how they were saying it. Is it fair to hold new users to a standard they were not around to experience? Is it okay to show your boobs or your ass? Is it okay to curse? What topics are off-limits? If someone takes their video down, can I put it up on my Seesmic space? Implementing a ToS would help guide new users (and remind previous members) in the appropriate direction. Funny how this ties together…
Hierarchy of Users
Let me blunt: the originating users aren’t better than the new users. Do the members saying Seesmic is turning to crap or that there is too much noise realize how insulting that can be? Scarier thought: they do realize and don’t care. Will it be the handful of previous members that will make Seesmic a success? No, it will be the combined effort of the entire community. Making new users feel bad for being there creates a greater rift in the community. Let me be clear: I do not feel “bad” about being a new user or feel like I am unwanted because I know better. I cringe for new users excited about experiencing Seesmic and those discussions are the first thing they see. Will those users still around? Why should they? What a wonderful first experience, huh?
The two-faced part of this (intentional or not) is the focus on the new members not acting appropriately and not calling out the previous members who, under their definition, are creating noise. I looked at Robert Scoble’s videos and very few of them add to the conversation or initiate a conversation. He imports a large amount of QIK videos from Twitter (I think). If Seesmic is about conversation and interaction between people, then why import from any outside service? One of the conversations going on now is about people who imported YouTube videos (and ironically were discussing them) and how YouTube videos are “noise”. Um, hate to tell ya but so are QIK videos imported from Twitter if they do not add to the conversation. There is a disconnect on what users want and what Seesmic provides. I could care less if Robert imports videos just like I could care less if people import YouTube videos. I don’t feel it is my place to decide how someone starts a conversation or carries out a conversation. I might enjoy a YouTube video response or, like I did the other day on Twitter, want to start a conversation based on a YouTube video and I enjoyed watching a couple of the videos Robert posted that I would not have seen because I don’t follow Robert’s Twitter.
Another irony: Otir, a Seesmic member, made a video that accurately describes the situation going on now. How many people responded? One, but the “Is Seesmic turning into crap” conversation is still going on strong. It’s been going on for four hours.
The UI Needs a Major Overhaul
The UI seems to be a point of discussion for awhile it seems. Finding conversations, keeping track of conversations, being able to block conversations one does not wish to take part in, etc. need to be addressed. Honestly, the only way I can see Seesmic working is by allowing the user’s dashboard (the main page they see when they log in) to be completely customizable. Some people will want to see all the new conversations; others will only want to see a limited view of their friends. Some might not want to see all of their friends but only a small selection of their friends. Imagine following the videos of all the people you are friends with on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.? Video has to be more streamlined because it is a more intensive medium. Everyone doesn’t have unlimited high-speed bandwidth to play with and if ISPs move in the direction of tiered bandwidth, the user will have to make choices on how to spend their time because time will directly equal money spent. Let’s not forget that watching videos will be much more time consuming than glancing through text. I can glance through 1000 comments in 15 minutes tops; can I do that with video?
My Suggestions
- Stop focusing on scaling and focus on fixing the UI problems. What is the point of adding new members for those members to feel unwanted? Or worse, hesitant to interact because he or she might mess up, and a mistake on Seesmic starts a very long detailed conversation on the issue. Fixing the UI will eliminate many of the complaints.
- Educate the users, specifically the original users who have an unrealistic ideal of what Seesmic will be. One day Seesmic will have millions of users so that warm and fuzzy feeling when there were only 100 will be impossible to achieve. It is not fair to have users try to live up to an unrealistic expectation.
- Educate users on how to socialize in public situations, particularly the repercussions of not thinking before posting a video. As an example, I realize that this post will possibly upset some people but I am making the conscious decision to post it anyway. I am not posting this without any thought on the cause and effect of my actions then saying, “well, I only meant this for the people interacting in the specific threads I spoke of knowing they would get it…”, do you see what I mean? Thinking about one’s actions prior to doing it isn’t a bad thing. Letting fear stop one from doing something he or she really wants to do can be a crippling thing.
- Get the Terms of Service up ASAP so users have a guideline on what is expected of them, then follow it without making exceptions to the rules unless there are unusual circumstances.
- Get moderators, experienced moderators that have experience in disconnecting their personal beliefs from the conversations they see on the site and playing favorites with friends. This is a tough one because of the friendships created via Seesmic. It took years for me to be able to separate friendships from business/social situations in communities. Most people do not have the desire or the occasion to do this so strict rules for moderators should probably be carved out.
- Put more focus on your shows – they are buried in all the conversation. I was logged in a couple of days before I realized they were there.
- Notifications – I have followers and I had no idea. I discovered them by accident. Giving users the ability to be notified about specific actions happening within the community will cause them to come back.
Honestly, these are issues most communities experience and are probably on a ToDo list to be done (I would not be surprised if scaling issues are the reason why some have not been implemented yet). How the Seesmic team handles these issues will make all the difference. There are too many people lurking or feeling frustrated with Seesmic for the community to comfortably grow. Instead of pimping Seesmic and gaining exposure, fix the problems. If the Seesmic team can please the people that want to leave and get the people that are lurking to feel comfortable posting videos, they will have a much easier time gaining and retaining new users.
Will I continue to check in on Seesmic? Most definitely. I view the Seesmic daily video everyday and I have interest in the videos they release. The Seesmic team cracks me up and I love how they have a fun and vibrant work environment. I have admiration for Loic and what he is trying to accomplish but that does not sway me from speaking about the problems that are mini-snowballing within Seesmic. Conversing with others will be a different experience based on the expectations of the users. In any large community, which Seesmic will become, people will feel anonymous until the person makes the effort to be recognized and known. This is the underlying problem with the original members: recognizing that to be heard, they will have to work harder. To be respected, more effort will be needed. To make connections and friends a true love and desire for the community as a whole, not just a small segment of it, will be needed.
My username in Seesmic is Tyme. If you have a Seesmic account let me know, I’ll follow ya. 
FIRST!!
I don’t have a beta account but I would be offended if I saw that as my first experience. Bad for the community if this is how they feel.
I’m not in Seesmic but I can say every community I’ve been in had the same problems. How long are the videos?
You know people are supposed to get paid for an analysis like this, right?
Get moderators, experienced moderators that have experience in disconnecting their personal beliefs from the conversations they see on the site and playing favorites with friends.
From what you describe the early adopters would not be the right choice. How many users do they have?
How do you get a Seesmic account?
@4 – Go to seesmic.com and sign up for the beta (alpha?). The last I heard they were approving people within 24-48 hours.
Disclaimer: I emailed Loic but I didn’t tell him about this article. He’s excellent at finding things lol but I did respond to his last video about the Friend’s List being the main tab.
Educate users – I knew you’d say that! Makes sense though. Everyone isn’t social even if they are nice.
I thought Seesmic was only for the Web 2.0 people? It’s an open community?
Heard about Seesmic from Valleywag. I thought it was for the Silicon Valley crowd. I didn’t realize it was for everyone.
Tyme, how did you get in? How would people like us fit in?
A friend of mine has an account and said some of the users are like police. She’s afraid to post a video.
I’m lost. What do you guys mean? Initially it was in private beta where a small number of people had access. Sure, the heavy weights in the tech community were invited but to my understanding (the people holding these conversations) they are just "people" (for lack of another word).
I caught the stream and you were talking about Seesmic. I became excited about it because you were. I’m glad you and others like you (not just the geeks) are in there making it a better place.
What do people talk about? Is it geeky?
What do you mean by diverse?
I heard about their funding and that’s it. Is it like YouTube?
I’m confused. People talk to each other by video live?
I never heard of it. I’m kind of confused.
Haha, wow, let’s step back a bit and I’ll explain it.
Seesmic is a site that allows people to talk to each other about just about anything (nothing porn like). There are people ranging from 20s to 50+, different countries/languages, different races, significant number of females, etc. I haven
I start with a video saying my boss is getting on my nerves (that’s the truth) and why. Then what?
Job offers? :=)
I’d share my similar experience but I would follow Tyme’s advice and think about what I said. Video busts you out. Can you say, "Oh, that’s not me?" when your face is in the video?
Is the entire site dark? Be hard to sneak and watch it from work. I’m not the only one that does that.
Excellent assessment, Tyme. Props. Like Kenny Wilson said, people are supposed to get PAID for an analysis like that.
I posted about Seesmic a couple of days ago in my Fast Company Expert blog, DeMux. Since Fast Company is a tech site, I stuck to the features of the site that make it tough to maintain an intelligent conversation. You’ve sparked me to follow your comments about the social environment there, so thanks for that.
Before I get to your points (so many…) I’ve been a Seesmic member for 3 or 4 months now, having received my invite from Andrew Lipson while I was watching the Jeff Pulver show online. In the meantime, I’ve taken the opportunity to observe the “Seesmic Community”. Actually, I was observing the community from way before then, because friends of mine received invites early on and would send out external links to their Seesmic videos. So, dissimilar to an AOL chat room from back in the day, where you say something, it scrolls up the screen and disappears, Seesmic videos have always been available to the public. At this point, you can search them yourself if you go to Phil Campbell’s egowhore.com.
I saw a video this morning by Mark Kramer that really sums up the social situation over there for me. Seesmic member link Non-member link. Seesmic is a conversation enabler. Seesmic *happens* to *include* a community at this point, because the people who received invites have spent time sending video messages back and forth to each other and they’ve developed their comfort zone with the people that they consider to be their friends there. Now, videos are coming up like this Seesmic member linkNon-member link and this Seesmic member linkNon-member link and this Seesmic member linkNon-member link which don’t give a welcoming impression to new members who have to wonder “What’s really going on on this site?” :/
Seesmic just landed $6 million in funding to develop a tool which facilitates conversations between people. The community there is really a residual effect of people interacting with each other (including myself, via 3rd-party invitation) who were selected to be unpaid beta-testers. There is a way larger picture than facilitating banter between < 200 people who just so happened to be a part of the site’s pool of free testers from its inception. This is why complaints about “Newbies” are ridiculous. There can’t *POSSIBLY* be any rules for Newbies to follow, because Seesmic itself (as you mentioned) has NO TERMS OF SERVICE, WHATSOEVER. There’s nothing stopping people from pulling your videos from the site and reposting them on their own account, as cleanly as if they came from that person’s own webcam. No DMCA Takedowns, nothing. Post at your own risk. Effectively, then… Even if you “delete” videos from your account, if someone else reposts YOU, all you can do is contact the Seesmic staff directly with your complaint(s). Having said that, I think the Seesmic team is really on-point and responsive to its members and “in the trenches” seeing what’s going on, so I definitely give them credit for being reachable and proactive.
NOW, I’m going to try to get to your points.
Drama – There has been a ton of drama as of late, and that’s because when you take a social system where no rules have been set, and there are no appointed rule-setters or referees, people “catch feelings” when their behaviors are pointed out to them. They want to know “who are you?” to call attention to their behaviors, when the answer to that is “an unpaid beta-tester, just like you”.
Thinking Prior to Posting – As you see above, Seesmic videos are available world-wide with a couple of cut-and-paste operations. You’re not just talking to your friends that happen to be on at that time. This is not a private Instant Messenger chat. The term is UGC (User-Generated Content), and the content that has been uploaded to Seesmic remains on their servers as well as wherever else people choose to re-blog them. As you saw in one of the videos above, people are pulling other people’s videos and saving them on their computers for their own personal use, so thinking prior to posting is imperative.
Hierarchy of Users – Seesmic will be its most effective when it facilitates communication between like-minded individuals. Right now, it facilitates communication between EVERYONE, and he squeakiest wheel gets the oil. If you post a philosophical question, for instance, and then someone else posts a video about combing a dog’s hair about the same time… when their friends rush to “me too” about the dogs, your post gets pushed so far down in the timeline that people aren’t willing to search for it and continue your conversation. There’s an “active conversations” tab, but again, you have to be amongst the top 5 most-replied-to video threads to show up there without scrolling. The way it’s set up now, the chattering of the masses is rewarded while people who don’t have many followers or don’t have a lot of people posting to their threads get their posts flooded into oblivion.
Qik Videos – I agree that those videos would be more effective in Seesmic if there were a point to them… like something someone’s trying to say or a discussion they’re trying to start. Hopefully, in the future, they will be used as mobile extensions of Seesmic so that people on the move can enjoy and participate in their favorite threads remotely.
The UI – They’ve improved it in leaps and bounds. Credit for that. It does have the computer fans spinning up rather quickly.
Add Moderators – Moderators will come in handy if/when Seesmic splits into groups. As-is, with no TOS, there’s nothing to enforce with regards to civility, thread hijacking, flooding… nothing. That’s why there’s been so much drama recently. Nobody’s authorized to say “what you did isn’t cool”. So people give their opinions then people give opinions ABOUT those opinions and so on and so on = snowball.
Educate Users on How to Socialize in Public Situations – This is key. People who aren’t used to this medium, video on the internet, don’t necessarily realize what they’re doing by posting UGC to a website. They think the videos disappear because they go off the bottom of the timeline. They don’t. They think the videos are automatically destroyed by clicking “delete”. Without a TOS, there’s no guarantee of that. They think they’re having private conversations when everything they say and do on camera is available to the world via search or membership. The point isn
If the community is as big as you guys describe, why aren’t their moderators?
Very thorough post Bill.
I’m blow away. Great stuff!
It took a moment for me to read everything. I’m not a user but you are making great points.
I’d like to try it out. Sounds cool once they work some things out.
How much time does it take to watch the videos? To get through a conversation?
Tyme your site is the most thorough description of Seesmic. I’d like to try it. I like your honesty and I’m going to watch out for their progress. Keep us posted?
Hi Tyme!Thanks so much for the insightful post… I have been a seesmic member since october but find my usage is very intermittent.
Thank you Kathryn!
Watching videos can be very time consuming. Considering there are other videos one might want to watch as well (or even TV) I think Seesmic will have to consider that in their upcoming UI changes so users can further streamline their experience.
As an update, Seesmic added a Terms of Service, Vinvin asked how many people can their users follow (good question!) and Loic posted a video which answers some statistical questions about the number of people on Seesmic. They’ve crossed 10K users and push about 3GB a days in bandwidth.
Haha, too early in the morning to start doing an analysis on the stats lol.
That’s good that they made moves on the ToS.
Congrats to Seesmic also for surpassing 10,000 registered users.