Seesmic

Seesmic was a suite of freeware web, mobile, and desktop applications which allowed users to simultaneously manage user accounts for multiple social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Seesmic
Original author(s)Loïc Le Meur
Johann Romefort
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, Mac OS (Desktop) Linux (Web)
iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry OS (Mobile)
PlatformMicrosoft Silverlight (Desktop)
TypeCustomer relationship management, Social media
LicenseFreeware
Websitewww.seesmic.com

Launched in 2008 by French entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur, the service was initially a video sharing website, billed as a cross between YouTube and Twitter, allowing short video comments to be published online. Le Meur shut down the service in 2009 due to its stagnating user base, and then relaunched Seesmic as a social networking tool, with a suite of desktop, mobile and web apps integrating streams from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Following the failure to monetize the company, in 2011 Seesmic was relaunched yet again as a customer relations management app.[1]

History

Starting out life as a video blogging website, its original aim was to make video uploading from webcams easier to promote online video conversations.[2] Seesmic made its debut at the Demo tech conference where it was called the "Twitter of video".[3] It had 20,000 users and 70,000 viewers per month as of 2008.[4] On 3 April 2008, Seesmic announced that it had purchased Twhirl, an Adobe AIR based Twitter client.[5]

In 2009, Loïc Le Meur, Seesmic's founder, announced that the video portion of the site had stagnated as it struggled to attract new users. He refocused the site, changing the objective from creating a new video social networking site to creating a suite of tools that would instead aggregate content from other social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.[6][7] The video site, whilst remaining available, was relegated to a different domain name.

Le Meur moved from Paris to San Francisco to relaunch Seesmic due to the perception that it would stand a better chance of success there. It was backed by a number of investors, the primary one being Atomico, a venture group that includes Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who sold Skype to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion.[8] In January, 2010 Seesmic acquired Ping.fm.[9] In March, 2010, Seesmic reached 1 million registered users.[10]

Seesmic produced a number of social network clients including:

  • Seesmic Desktop - a cross platform Twitter and Facebook desktop client written using Adobe AIR. Version 2 was rewritten in Microsoft Silverlight and added support for Google Buzz.
  • Seesmic Web - a Twitter web application client for Twitter written using Google Web Toolkit
  • Seesmic for Android - a native Twitter client, Facebook, and Salesforce Chatter client for Android
  • Seesmic for Windows Phone 7 - a native Twitter, Facebook, and Salesforce Chatter client for Windows Phone 7
  • Seesmic for iPhone - a native Twitter, Facebook and Ping.fm client for iPhone and iPod Touch
  • Seesmic for BlackBerry - a native Twitter client for BlackBerry - discontinued in June 2011[11]

In August 2011, Seesmic announced it was moving into the Customer Relations Management business, releasing Android and iOS CRM apps that interfaced with Salesforce.com. The former social media apps were being maintained as a "second branch" of the company.[12]

In September 2012, Seesmic was acquired by HootSuite.[13][14] Today the Seesmic homepage redirects to HootSuite.com.

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gollark: I think you just want "split at commas between square brackets".
gollark: Then that's just weird.
gollark: Use a JSON parser? It looks vaguely jsony, if that's the aa/bb/cc.

References
  1. Loic Le Meur: Why Seesmic Isn't a Failure - TechCrunch TV, 7 July 2011
  2. Don Clark (28 January 2008). "Why Can't Computers (Fill in the Blank)?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 22 February 2008.
  3. Edward C. Baig (30 January 2008). "Demo Conference Intrigues, But Doesn't Electrify". USA Today. Retrieved 22 February 2008.
  4. Victor Keegan (24 January 2008). "Making the Global Village a Reality". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 February 2008.
  5. Mark Hendrickson (3 April 2008). "Seesmic Acquires Popular Twitter AIR Client Twhirl". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
  6. "Social Media". Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  7. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 27 June 2009. Retrieved 28 June 2009.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. Bobbie Johnson (29 January 2008). "Silicon Valley 'Refuses to Take Europe Seriously'". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 February 2008.
  9. Pinging In The New Year: Seesmic Acquires Ping.fm. TechCrunch (2010-01-04). Retrieved on 2013-09-21.
  10. Nicolas Rauline (14 March 2011). "Seesmic in #1 French financial newspaper Les Echos". Les Echos. Paris. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
  11. Even Seesmic Bails On Blackberry. Who's Next? - TechCrunch, 20 June 2011
  12. Seesmic now offers two product suites: Seesmic CRM and Seesmic Social - Seesmic Blog, 31 Aug 2011
  13. HootSuite Acquires Seesmic - HootSuite Blog, 6 September 2012
  14. Seesmic has been acquired by HootSuite - Seesmic Blog, 6 September 2012
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