Seesmic Look Is Pretty, But…
They went from an online video community to a Twitter client. Now, Seesmic has released Look, a Windows application that claims to immerse you in the real-time web. I’ve been playing with it for a day or so and I have to admit…I’m quite confused.
Seesmic Look is supposed to be geared towards those people who don’t quite get Twitter. It puts a gorgeous interface on Twitter and takes a completely different approach to anything out there now.
We took an unusual route and shifted paradigms to develop something no one has done before. We were challenged to reach out to an untapped market – a mainstream audience not familiar with Twitter – people in your personal circle like friends or family members (think “Mom” or “Dad”), that heard of Twitter but were never interested, or never had the opportunity to have a positive and friendly experience.
Loic and the gang are making a big deal about the fact that you don’t actually have to login to Twitter to use Look. This is because the focus has been shifted from your personal Twitter activity and followers to more general topics. For instance, instead of simply looking at your tweets and your friends’ tweets, you can pick different Channels or select from a variety of Interests.
Most of us are used to the standard column views of Twitter. Seesmic Look still brings you something similar in it’s Timeline view, but also offers the alternative Playback view. This literally plays the tweets back randomly across your screen. They fade in and out one after the other. It’s very pretty to watch, but also pretty useless if you’re actually looking to scan information. I could see running the Playback view on a big screen in the background, maybe monitoring a specific list or event. One of the main reasons it comes off as useless to me is the infrequency of tweets appearing, no matter how active the source you’re viewing is. See the first screenshot in this post to get an idea of how it looks.
At the end of the day, what we have in Seesmic Look is one of the most visually appealing interfaces to Twitter that I have ever seen. It’s not a viable Twitter client for those of us that are active and actually “get” Twitter, but it doesn’t seem that is the target audience. On the other hand, as far as reaching an audience of people who don’t “get” Twitter, I’m not sure Seesmic Look hits the mark. Even though they have tried to abstract the interface away from the technical and boring particulars of Twitter, they still have a ways to go in making Twitter appealing to Mom and Dad.
Category: News | Tags: LOOK, Seesmic, twitter
About the Author Rahsheen has been a certified geek since before it was the thing to do. He started programming and tinkering in the 4th grade. Now, Rahsheen mostly writes on various sites about technology trends in social media and mobile. . He is also a musician, singer, rapper, writer, and producer. @rahsheen - +Rahsheen Porter - coachrah.com
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I have never tried Seesmic but I heard a lot of bloggers used it for commenting. I will give it a try, good review
Thanks for sharing, this is great info.
This is a great review. I've had a look and I agree with most of what you said. I also think that the word is getting out very slowly to the audience they are trying to target. Perhaps they are planning to roll out additional features with more mass appeal.
I stumbled and dugg this article. Thanks!
@Ileane
you said;
“as far as reaching an audience of people who don’t “get” Twitter, I’m not sure Seesmic Look hits the mark. Even though they have tried to abstract the interface away from the technical and boring particulars of Twitter, they still have a ways to go in making Twitter appealing to Mom and Dad.”
seems like awfully strong words considering a) you give little support for the position and b) offer nothing in the way of any original thought on how to close the gap.
you seem to assert your opinion as expert but I have to say that I'm not seeing any value-added by your perspective. the title of the article is provactive but… I expected more.