From Seesmic

The genesis of Seesmic and the video conversation platform

This page is an attempt to capture the most important or fun events that happened during the creation of Seesmic. It is obviously uncomplete and we try to add items as we think about them, but it gives a good overview of everything that was done, also see loic.tv [1] fo the first 168 all archived in video, look in Seesmic [2] itself for more. Please tell me at loic at seesmic dot com if we forgot something important.

 

• Chronology of Seesmic:

2008

• 15 August: New features: Search and improved threaded player and improved video quality
• 30 July: Blocking, Other New Features Added
• 29 July: LA Earthquake Experience discussed
• 29 July: Kevin Rose & Gary Vaynerchuk on Seesmic
• 28 July: [QIK videos posts to Seesmic again]
• 24 July: Seesmic launch partner of Facebook Connect and gets more human
• 23 July: Robert Scoble says "Something just changed in the force. Twhirl is now officially the shiznit.
• 20 July: Steve Gillmor says "Something just happened and I think it may be important"
• 20 July: Twhirl announces support for identi.ca via XMPP
• 20 July: Tiil organizes a successful Seesmic session at PodCamp Boston
• 17 July: Netvibes launches new Seesmic plugin for your blogs and sites
• 16 July: updated our partners list
• 16 July: Seesmix is back!
• 16 July: Creative Commons and other new features introduced
• 16 July: updated our Terms of Service
• 11 July: Polldaddy supports Seesmic videos
• 11 July: non deleted Seesmic videos in API/Search engines is fixed
• 10 July: Socialthing! adds Seesmic
• 9 July: Tiil (author of the uber cool visual search launches a visual view of Queen Freida 10 000+ videos
• 8 July: Seesmic videos coming from threaded players (including XFiles) and video comment plugins do not post in public timeline
• 8 July: New Twhirl for Seesmic release with improved video viewing support
• 8 July: Cyndy Aleo-Carreira explains how Seesmic helps calm down kids before they go to sleep and LA Times picks-up
• 8 July: video flagging to prevent inappropriate content, youtube postings and upload back
• 8 July: ability to add a lengthy description of the contents of the video with links to other sites
• 8 July: upgraded threaded player to allow posting from more webcams and bug fixes
• 7 July: fixed recording and lost connection issues reported by the community
• 6 July: Added to FriendFeed integration to enable threaded, video conversation from inside of FriendFeed.
• 5 July: X-Files hits 1000 video replies at 9am (PST).
• 4 July: Disqus API gets video comments (they were already available on Disqus regular service previously)
• 3 July: Seesmic gets on O'Reilly radar
• 3 July: Refined the "Hide messages" functionality of twhirl downloading messages from twitter to avoid confusion by providing an option for messages to be saved.
• 3 July: X-Files branded player for release of "I Want to Believe" movie on July 25th. Threaded player features skinned, X-Files 20th Century Fox movie trailer with built in video replies. Embeddable player transport the video conversation across the web.
• 3 July: Drupal publishing platform gets video comments and Seesmic API support
• 1 July: Seesmic Roadmap explained
• 27 June: Corrected some issues around jabber communications, flagging endpoints and delete notifications.
• 27 June: Seesmic Raccoon (and Critter's tattoo!) gets popular in the LA Times
• 27 June: Enabling video comments with SixApart's powerful publishing platform, Movable Type.
• 27 June: Our first couple in Seesmic is official
• 26 June: Embeddable, threaded (stand alone) player that transport the conversation across the web is introduced. You can reply and respond within the player and add/remove friends.
• 26 June: Sprout Builder video made by Duncan Riley on how to build a widget in a few minutes
• 25 June: We released a new splash screen that greets new users to the site and introduced fixes to recording conversations as it relates to connection speed.
• 25 June: Sprout allows for a Seemsic video to be created inside of the Sprout widget building platform. Customize background, lay-out support for threads, and even has built-in recording capability, so users can respond to videos wherever the widget is shown.
• 23 June: we start to have some inappropriate content showing up and work on a solution, introduced on July 8th
• 20 June: Omidyar Network and Wellington Partners invest $6 million in Seesmic
• 20 June: New threaded video player with recording and signup launched
• 19 June: cocomment announces support for video comments
• 17 June: 1 million views on youtube+blip we pause the daily show after 168 non stop episodes
• 12 June: Tiil video search is very cool
• 11 June: Twhirl enhances Friendfeed support with rooms
• 10 June: a video comment plugin for dotclear
• 10 June: Seesmic quietly removes invite system and becomes open to the public after months of infrastructure work to scale
• 22 May: Mahalo daily organizes a contest for Mahalo Idol
• 21 May: Mike Butcher organizes a startup pitch using video comments
• 19 May: Paulo Coelho celebrates the 20th anniversary of The Alchemist with questions on Seesmic
• 18 May: we have our first and only major server outage, impact TechCrunch and deal with it and fix it, no more issues since then
• 17 May: Steven Spielberg, Harisson Ford, George Lucas and the Indiana Jones crew in Seesmic
• 17 May: Twhirl is the most popular Twitter client according to the blogosphere
• 14 May: Text commenting aggregator, Disqus, adds Seesmic video commenting plug-in
• 10 May: Upgrade on WordPress plug-in released.
• 5 May: Seesmic threaded video conversation offered as a feed through your MyBlogLog account.
• 5 May: Metroblogging adds video comments to their 60 blogs network
• X May: Newspop launched, a conversation about what makes the news
• Y May: Unboxing launched, a conversation about products and buying stuff
• 1 May: launch of Seesmic "white" ajax version as a temporary version until new one is here
• 23 April: Wordpress video comment plugin launched, TechCrunch network install it on all blogs
• 18 April: we get so many features suggestions and bugs reports that we shift to open customer service on getsatisfaction
• 17 April: Twhirl gets Friendfeed support
• 8 April: Initial integration with Friendfeed where videos will play through your account.
• 5 April: first applications on Seesmic API in a show
• 4 April: Seesmic acquires popular Twitter client Twhirl
• 3 April: Marshall Kirkpatrick writes Seesmic + Twhirl is a Vision of the Web's Future
• 1 April: launch of our cool intro video
• 24 March: explaining Seesmic on GigaOM show
• 21 March: first seesmic API applications
• 18 March: Ingrid Betancourt support video by the community
• 17 March: best links I use to demo Seesmic
• 12 March: new seesmic version with direct private videos, video profiles, friends discovery, language support
• 12 March: Francofous, the blog of the very active French Seesmic community is launched
• 11 March: Josh US soldier tells his story in Seesmic
• 5 March: Seesmic API explained
• X March: Seesmic enabled on qik where videos can be posted from a mobile phone
• 3 March: Seesmic featured on TV
• 28 February: 23andme does a DNA test contest and Gia wins
• 20 February: first Seesmic statistics
• 16 February: new feature, people search
• 14 February: Seesmic first round of $6 million funding announced
• 11 February: a cool japanese article about Seesmic
• 10 February: we give invites to people who want them
• 9 February: Critter unveils his raccoon tattoo
• 7 February: we start a long server architecture change to allow Seesmic to scale and open in public
• 6 February: launch of Seesmic Cafe
• February: Shozu supports Seesmic videos from mobile where a user can create and send videos to their Seesmic account.
• 30 January: we introduce replies and threads, a first in video. Also a mobile prototype that never really worked well.
• 30 January: DEMO presentation of Seesmic
• 26 January: Whit and myself cover Davos
• 24 January: Making the global village a reality
• 20 January: [http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/01/how-to-seesmic.html Seesmic made mobile by Shozu
• 13 January: Seesmic Dinner in London
• 12 January: How Seesmic member see Seesmic
• 11 Januray: What is Seesmic for you?
• 8 January: first conversation with a brand, L'Oreal
• 4 January: a great Seesmic review
• 4 January: we get many languages in Seesmic
• 3 January: Google Open Social answer from this conversation

2007

• 28 December: great review by Kara Swisher
• 2? December: old raccoon dropped, new raccoon logo adopted
• 25 December: Seesmic in the 2008 hit websites of the Guardian
• 21 December: the best Seesmix episode ever
• 16 December: Loren Feldman gives us a hard time (but later on we became friends)
• 10 December: NewmediaJim posts on Seesmic from the White House
• 28 November: logo contest explained
• 22 November: 400 logos received in Seesmic logo contest
• 11 November: public Seesmic presentation at Monaco Media Forum
• 2 November: first Seesmic presentation at VON Boston
• 29 October: company name Seesmic announced (yes we did not have one before
• 26 October: Cyrille aka Vinvin joins Seesmic
• 25 October: How I got the idea of Seesmic
• 23 October: Seesmix launched
• 22 October: we launch the feature request and bug reporting tool of Seesmic all in the open, receive thousands of feedback items and learn
• 22 October: Seesmic: the genesis of video as conversation
• 19 October: alone in my office (almost)
• 16 October: first mashup of first Seesmic users
• 14 October: first Seesmic video link posted to Twitter
• 8 October: Michael Arrington announces Seesmic on TechCrunch
• 5 October: I show a Seesmic prototype to Robert Scoble who can't refrain from blogging it
• 3 October: Daily show number one... exploring the office
• 29 September: Cyrille aka Vinvin calls, pays me a visit and we discuss him joining
• 21 August: all my stuff is in boxes ready to leave to the US
• July - September: Loic gets his visa, sells his flat in Paris, moves the entire family to San Francisco while Johann writes the first lines of code
• 25 July: I look for a house in San Francisco and get 4000+ people watching my eggs benedict no idea why
• 29 June: Johann Romefort joins Seesmic (that still does not have a name) and we visit in secret Atomico in London
• 13 June: I decide to move to San Francisco to launch my next startup
• 12 June: Video conversation will be idea behind Seesmic (that does not have a name)
• 12 June: I launch my advisory board in Facebook (and quickly understand it's a good idea, but not there)
• June: I posted more than 400 video blogs already and know I want to create in this space