Making social software more human
I am convinced we can make the Internet a better place. A place as close as possible to real life. It was a significant basis of Zuck's keynote at f8 today and it is the reason why I started Seesmic. I come back home thinking that I am tired about the dark side of social software, the trolls (the real ones, not the funny ones), the anonymous people who don't dare to show up to put their little piece of shit in your comments, the people who never do anything but are first to criticize you when you start doing yours and I could go on and on.
At the same time I am sure all of you got amazing experiences and felt incredibly well using social software. It happens to me all day long. I just feel like learning more from everybody and about the people I interact the most with online. Text is great, chat is fantastic, but it does not bring the level of feelings and emotions you get when you meet people in person. This is why I created Seesmic.
While friends like Om Malik laugh at me that he never got Seesmic and I understand and make it a personal challenge to make him understand. It will take time. Years I am sure. Om, I am happy to sit down with you anytime and explain you properly, I have not had that opportunity yet.
Fortunately I see Seesmic growing month after month and what I see in the conversations make me more confident every day that on the long run the video conversation will happen. Of course it is a challenge, many friends tell me I am very early and that people are shy, hate showing their face in public and start listing me all the factors that could make Seesmic fail.
It is a classic in the life of any entrepreneur, listening to "friends" who tell you all day long why you will fail and how. It always happen. It always takes some energy to go against that and sometimes they are right too...
Anyway, what gives me hope and confidence on a daily basis is getting tweets like this:
@istarman @loiclemeur without Seesmic, this picture NEVER would have been taken. http://ping.fm/Exh4i pointing to this pic:
Look at the comments, here is a group of people that all met through Seesmic (as far as I know) and I am proud of it. They connected, they had fun online in an totally unperfect environment as it is still the early days of Seesmic, but talk to them and you will see they got to know each other in a way that is as close as possible to reality, thanks to video conversation.
When Rayanne Langdon writes that Seesmic is emotional and explains:
"I spent the weekend with about a dozen people I met many months ago on Seesmic. I have gotten to know these people online as well as I would have if I met them in person. When we departed early Monday morning, I cried. And cried and cried and cried. When my co-workers asked me on Tuesday morning how my weekend was, I had to choke back tears and tell them I wasn’t ready to talk about it."
This is what Seesmic is all about. Friends as close as possible as reality online. Respect. Human conversations and no trolling or anonymous attacks. Just creating great connections and keeping them. I know Seesmic will succeed and be big. I see it everyday from what you are doing with it and too bad if some people do not see it.
update: another great post about social media bonding experiences at Podcamp, looks like I really missed a great event.
