Seemsic Plugin Vidiot

It’s Friday and I usually post some pictures of scantily clad cats dancing whilst high on coke and mentos, but not today.

Today is about Techcrunch integrating video comments via Seesmic. El Arrington’s carefully worded post, is keen to introduce this new tool, but not too keen lest he as an investor be seen to be promoting Seesmic over and above other video comment plugins, Viddler for one. I’m an Arrington fan, if I could buy a cake mould of his face, I’d make a sponge cake and decorate it with little sprinkles representing metaphorical pixels…

(note to self: Arrington Moulds - start-up opportunity, target early adopter iPhone wielding non-diabetic market, huge growth potential, mass disruption of conventional cake mould business models, aim to be the Google of Bakery, what a tag line!)

… But please just say ‘yeah this is cool’ rather than pussyfoot around covering all bases, we love Techcrunch because it has bite.

I had the good fortune to meet Mattias Ljungman from Atomico, one of Seesmic’s investors just recently and it’s clear there is a real buzz about Seesmic, a feeling that it’s going to move the conversation away from text and into video. Loic Le Meur knows how to create a blogotastic perfect storm, embrace Silicon Valley and cultivate a shiny head. But as an anal design purist, the interface sucks, black background, heaps of teeny weeny information and a style that reminds me of the heady days when Netscape ruled the pixelated waves.

But worse than that, I committed myself to video and was frankly shocked at the results.

Let me break it down:

I have man-flu (worse than normal flu as you complain incessantly)
I am medicated
I was woken early and urged to make rice krispies for a 2.5 year old
I have hayfever
I had a puffy face to start with
I am looking at myself not the web cam
I do not look my best bathed in celestial light (see left of frame)
I appear to be retreating from a camp gesture as the video begins
I really want to see someone angry on Seesmic
What is their policy on tourettes?

As video production becomes ubiquitous and essentially free (for short form), so transparency and trust on the web will move from text and into video.

A couple of great text comments on El Arrington’s post:

‘What if people spam it with porno video as comment?’

All comments are worth viewing or reading, but this one from ‘vidiot’ wins the prize:

‘If we were to update the movie “The Graduate”, the word whispered to today’s version of Dustin Hoffman’s character would be: “video”.’

I’m gangsta trippin just thinking about that.

Posted in 2 Minute Critique, Design, Video | No Comments »