Prepare For A ‘Seesmic’ Change In The Way You Interact With Content

Most people are now pretty au fait with the idea of commenting on blogs, leaving feedback on sites like Amazon and eBay and even offering their thoughts (adding value) to community websites. We are getting much more comfortable with leaving our opinions on shopping sites and adding value to conversations that take place on blogs and similar media. Admittedly, the profile of those who write, read and comment on blogs and videos is very different across the globe. In Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s ground-breaking book on Social Technologies, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, they say that the percentages of people who read blogs in the USA, the UK and Japan is 25%, 10% and 52% respectively; those that comment on blogs are 14%, 4% and 20%. It would obviously appear that some countries are a little more reserved than others, though as a Brit I have seen that we are starting to cast aside our ‘shyness’ and be a little more vocal on community-related sites.

Well, just as we have gotten used to leaving text replies and feedback on sites, some organisations are also asking us to reveal a little more of ourselves and inviting us to leave video feedback on their sites. Mainstream media like the BBC and Washington Post and even conference organisers are creating platforms whereby viewers can leave video comments. If you watch news channels, like Sky News, you will also be very aware of the way that user content (in the form of video) is ending up on their sites.

A number of video upload sites are already starting to make their mark, many of them with the typical Web 2.0 trademark names: Phreadz, 12Seconds and Qik and logos! I am trying to get invites for Phreadz and 12seconds so can’t comment on them; Qik on the other hand is open to anyone and is very interesting as it allows people to stream live video from their mobile (cell) phones. One of the clips I saw was from Laura Fitton, presentations consultant and speaker and Twitterholic, who has even started to stream the presentations she gives. Boy, where was this technology when I was at Uni!

One that has particularly caught my attention is Seesmic, a video micro blogging site, which was set up in October of last year by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meur. I first came across this application a few months’ back and remember thinking that the possibilities for its use by businesses were endless. The idea behind it is quite simple: you post a video, probably from the webcam on/attached to your computer and invite people to post replies to it. You can already find the BBC on Seesmic, through their Have Your Say site, and on the Washington Post one of their journalists, Chris Cilliza, last month invited people to post video comments on an article he wrote about John McCain.

Without a doubt this form of feedback is starting to find its legs and is beginning to appear on people’s radars and I think that 2009 will see a huge increase in the use of video feedback by all manner of organisations.