So as I said a couple of days ago, I was burgled last week. I am not going to labour on that but one of the things stolen was my video camera.

I needed to give proof of purchase this week to the insurance broker for the camera. The problem was that the receipt is in storage and I had no way of getting it. I went to Currys (where I bought the camera) and to get a repeat receipt I needed the date I bought it (amongst other things). There was no way I could remember that, but I did remember that I had blogged about the camera the day after I bought it. So I looked back and worked out the exact date of purchase. Then I was able to get the copy receipt and send it off. I am still waiting for the claim to go though.

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So I have been following seesmic’s development from day one. I was going to write a review but that has been done. I am going to take a different angle.

1st a quick overview: Seesmic is a social application allowing you to record video segments onto the site using your webcam (or using youtube videos). It is designed and marketed as a conversation medium and that is how it is used.

It’s a fantastic concept and it works well. Yes it lacks a mobile interface and the ability to post from mobile (there is one being developed and there are some hacks created by users to do this but no official application yet). The system works perfectly for what it was designed to do and has seen a explosion in popularity since the very beginning.

What I want to ascertain is, “what is the future for this concept?” Yes you can have face to face conversations, yes you can interact with a large audience and get feedback really easily and yes I do love it. I though cannot see any real progression for this above it’s initial use. Go too far in one direction and you’ll end up being another (slightly more social) youtube. Go too far in the other direction and you get facebook with video. It needs a niche that no other social web app has to stay competitive.

One big advantage it has is it’s founder, Loic Le Meur, a proven successful entrepreneur and someone who has great vision and scope. If anyone could make this social application successful it will most likely be him.

I am sold on the initial concept yes what I am not sold on is it’s future and sustainability. I hope it succeeds I really do but at the moment I am not too sure. I hope I’m wrong. If Loic reads this I would love his comments back either in a Seesmic post or an email

andrew at andrewwardlaw dot com

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I was compiling 2007’s blog book yesterday (I use Lulu.com to put my blog into a book for personal reference). In a year I felt that I had not done enough blogging (especially with having all of August off) it turns out I wrote a hell of a lot more than 2006. I wrote near enough 35,000 words last year. In 2006 that figure was only 21,000. That I must admit it surprised me, I had felt bad for not writing enough and not posting regularly, I still do feel bad, but not as bad as I did. 35,000 words I think is reasonably good, but as I do not have anything else to compare it with it is hard to say for certain. I am going to see if I can beat that figure this year, I am not going to keep tabs on it though. Come Jan 2009 I’ll add the words up and see what we get. I also want to do more video segments if I can, I want to do more demos of things, more experiments etc. Lot’s more to come this year I know I am looking forward to it!

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