TimeFrame art exibit follow up

[by Jeremy Vaught, Blogger - Seesmic]

Not long ago, Christi Nielsen used Seesmic to host an art exhibition called TimeFrame.  It looked like a success from my point of view, but I followed up with Christi to get her opinion on how things went.  Before I get into that, here is a video put together by the Seesmix team to showcase a few of the entries.

TimeFrame Mashup

Before I go on, I do want to correct something I said in the first post I wrote about TimeFrame.  I said that it was put on by UT Dallas.  Although Christi said that there were very interested in it, it did include former and current students, as well as being a great example for their new Emerging Media degree, it was Christi who put this on on her own.

Now that we have that out of the way, when I asked Christi how she felt it went, she said, "I thought the exhibition was a great success!  We had many technical difficulties, but I expected that, and it was interesting to see the artists solve the problem.  As artists, we are accustomed to showing finished, polished work in prepared spaces.  The gallery makes sure the walls are freshly painted, giving us a clean canvas.  Seesmic as a venue was a totally different experience.  We had to deal with the messiness of connection speeds, glitches, etc.  I was surprised to see how much it changed my own approach, forcing me to create video, and often edit, very quickly.  So the medium influenced the art, which was awesome!"

And what about using Seesmic as the "venue"?  Christi said, " I think the community loved it.  I know the artists loved it, and some are now addicted to Seesmic!  It’s a great example for those who are exploring what to do with the medium beyond chat, not just artists, but educators and businesses as well."

Christi concluded by saying, "The next show is already in the works (meaning it’s in my head), but it will be different.  Rather than focusing on a few artists in a familiar exhibition style, the community will create a body of work collaboratively. Coming soon!"

I want to personally say that I really did enjoy the TimeFrame exibit and I look forward to other similar projects on Seesmic.

Thanks Christi!

Another Seesmic link roundup

[by Jeremy Vaught, Blogger - Seesmic]

As I do from time to time, there are so many stories and people saying such wonderful things about Seesmic, it's all I can to link to them in one big post.  So here goes...

• Murray Dick of SlewFootSnoop talks about the potential of Seesmic in journalism.
• The MixedRealities blog has added our partner Disqus, and Seesmic is along for the ride
• Loic Gray talks about iPhone apps and mentions Seesmic
• The Guardian mentions John Cleese on Seesmic.
• Joshua Cohen of Tilzy.tv also gives some feedback on John Cleese on Seesmic
• Connie Crosby gives feedback on Seesmic about attending Internet Librarian 2008
• Not exactly about Seesmic, but an interesting read and mentions Seesmic's Cathy Brooks, thelettertwo.com discusses, "Who Owns Social Media"
• Since blogging is dead, will we all Seesmic?  by socialTNT
• Krississippi is using Seesmic to get personal, an interesting result.  Having great conversation not about Seesmic, but using Seesmic.

Ok, that's enough for now.  Gathering these links takes more time than actually writing a post, believe it or not.

As always, if you find a great story, created a product, or know a conversation that the world needs to see, email me at vaught [at] seesmic [dot] com.

The BBC "Have Your Say" comes to Seesmic!

The steam train of social media and user-generated technology continues to charge into traditional media outlets. Many major "old school" news organizations, are embracing technology at a rapid clip and the Seesmic gang is both pleased and honored that quite a few of them are knocking on our door.

We've talked about our partnership with The Washington Post, which began in recent weeks and already has garnered strong attention on their top-ranked political blog, The Fix. And across the pond our friends at Rue89 integrated Seesmic video comments a couple of weeks back and recently hosted an interview on Seesmic with actor Dennis Hopper.

Today we're thrilled that one of the world's leading news organizations, the BBC, is adding Seesmic to their user-generated content mix! For some time now, the BBC has been leveraging social media tools enabling their audience to comment, and speak out. They now want to augment that even further by bringing a true conversation to the site. In their inaugural post they explain how they'll be using Seesmic.

And in this conversation, the first one they started, they are asking for people's stories about the global economic crisis. Check it out and join in! Your comments may just make it onto TV in the UK!

BBC Have Your Say - The credit crunch

Gary V. says Leave Video Comments on Blogs

[by Jeremy Vaught, Blogger - Seesmic]

An interesting topic was brought up today by Ernst-Jan Pfauthon TheNextWeb.org.  He points out that Gary Vaynerchuk says you should use the Seesmic comments on Techcrunch and other blogs in order to increase your personal brand.  Gary goes so far to say if you are not using the Seesmic video comments, "you are an idiot."  In Ernst-Jan words of what Gary says, "Everybody can put a name to the face and after a while, people probably start recognizing these video commenters at conferences."

You can see the video on David Peralty's Vimeo recording of the Blog World Expo keynote here, the Seesmic comment is at 6:15.

Rue89 hosts Dennis Hopper on Seesmic

[by Jeremy Vaught, Blogger - Seesmic]

The innovative French media site Rue89.com have hosted legendary actor Dennis Hopper using Seesmic.

Not too long ago, Rue89 added Seesmic comments to their blog.  Now they are branching out to add their own content to Seesmic. With a preplanned conversation, taking questions from their readers online ahead of time, and taking questions from Seesmic while Dennis was on, they translated from French to English for Dennis, and then back to French for the French audience.

You can find the Rue89 page with Dennis Hopper here.  It is a French site, and the page at that link is in French.  Rue89 does have an English site, but as of this publishing, it doesn't have anything about Dennis Hopper on Seesmic.  But it can be found at rue89.com/street89. (Le Rue is French for street)

It is also worth nothing that Rue89 started a new conversation for each question, and this is merely one thread.  There are many more at Seesmic.com, at seesmic.com/dennishopper.

Photo credit of Dennis Hopper is Rue89.com

See the video after the jump ->

m.seesmic.com

[by Jeremy Vaught, Blogger - Seesmic]

Yesterday, Loic announced the new m.seesmic.com.

From Loic's Twitter

And there were many responses Loic received like this one from CuriousYellow.

From CuriousYellow's Twitter

If this is the first you have heard of m.seesmic.com, your next step is to check out Giselle's video below about how it works, where she says such things as, "If you've got a smartphone, check out m.seesmic.com, if you don't have a smartphone, when you get one, check out m.seesmic.com, if you are never going to get a smartphone, just keep using seesmic[.com]"

See the video after the jump->

Tough times. Tough decisions.

[posted by Jeremy Vaught, Blogger - Seesmic, reprinted from LoicLeMeur.com]

As you will no doubt know we are all operating in some very challenging and uncertain times right now. It's never easy to address topics like this but as a company we have felt the need to get Seesmic ready for what most are anticipating to be a bleak economic outlook for the considerable time going forward.

In order to prepare the company and ensure it has as strong a position until we reach to the other side, we have had to make some tough decisions around expenditure - the biggest impact being that we will be cutting 7 positions within the company.

Of course this is not a decision we have entered into lightly, especially when all of our staff have contributed so heavily to our growth. But the longevity of the company is obviously of significant importance - and thus we must reduce costs now in order to establish Seesmic as a solid business and pursue success of the company for years to come.

Whilst today's news is sad for everyone we want to reassure our community and partners that Seesmic will continue move forward - establishing a strong and stable platform for communication just we have always done.

Tough times. Tough decisions.also read my blog post http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/10/tough-times-tou.html

Howard Rheingold Features Seesmic in his Future of Video video

John Cleese on Seesmic today

[by Jeremy Vaught, Blogger - Seesmic]

Whit Scott and Vinvin of Seesmic spent the day with John Cleese.  There was a big Image by
Getty Images
via Daylife turnout, for the comedian who said on his blog that Seesmic has a, "highly intelligent and interesting community."  He went on to say, "Thanks so much to everyone who took part and sorry I didn’t have time to answer all your questions. Hopefully we’ll get another chance to run a similar session."  So you heard it here.  John Cleese hopes to come on Seesmic again.  I'm holding Vinvin to that. :)

Check out the conversation below, and hear John tell us such things about how Spamalot came about, how much of Monty Python is scripted, and how much is off the cuff, and much, much more.  If you are a John Cleese and/or Monty Python fan, you can't miss John Cleese on Seesmic.

Re: John Cleese on Seesmic Tuesday 7th at NOON Pacific Time

The Washington Post: Seesmic Powering Political Punditry!

From the outset, politics have been a hot topic on Seesmic. A few months ago we launched a partnership with LinkTV as part of their Dear American Voter project. Now we’re bringing the power of Seesmic’s conversation platform to one of America’s top newspaper sites to galvanize discussion around the Presidential campaign.

This week Seesmic launched a branded version of our video conversation player for The Washington Post!  We'll be powering an array of discussions across the Washington Post's blogs, but with political season in high gear our first foray is with The Fix - the top-ranked political blog penned by the paper’s renowned political pundit, Chris Cillizza.

This is huge for Seesmic on a number of levels. For starters we're thrilled to be joining forces with one of the top media organizations in the US. The Washington Post is a very forward thinking organization when it comes to new technologies and social media and it's really exciting to be working with them. Also this represents a great bridge for Seesmic and its community to the world outside and as we've said before, bringing video conversation to the online discussion helps connect people in a way never before possible. By putting a literal face to the people from all sides of the debate, there's an opportunity to share perspectives and - perhaps - even get some understanding between  discordant voices.

At the very least we're bound to have lively debate.

With that, here's the inaugural Seesmic conversation on The Fix. The question: Can John McCain's campaign recover and come from behind in the last 26 days before the November 4 election?