Product Features Come Together

Microblogging, Web 2.0 Add comments

Last week on April 3, 2008 one of the big news items was Seesmic acquiring Twhirl, an Adobe AIR based Twitter client. Now both are very small companies and I am really wondering how it can be an acquisition? Both came together in a quest to offer consumers a more complete product. One of the web 2.0 problems is that there are few companies which are product features rather than a complete product itself.

Seesmic is a video micro blogging web application developed by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meur. Twhirl is a very popular Twitter application; it accounts for 7 percent of the traffic on Twitter.

Seesmic plus Twhirl, powered by XMPP (Twitter supports XMPP messaging) is going to be power- Instant text and video communication and presence status, which is a more complete product than earlier and hence more attractive to consumers. Video blogging has had limited success compared to text blogging and this is a way for Seesmic to shift its focus from video to overall ‘microblogging.’ Despite Twhirl’s importance in the Twitter ecosystem, it is not a huge app by normal software standards. A combined service will provide a more compelling way of communication factoring in user’s broadcasting & time preferences.

Overall, Twhirl will benefit the Seesmic community in the following ways:

  • Getting in touch with your friends using microblogging is much easier using a client than through your browser.
  • Twhirl works on Mac AND PC, soon on Linux too.
  • Twhirl lets you easily use all the advanced messaging options of Twitter (replies, direct messages)
  • Twhirl allows you to have multiple Twitter accounts opened simultaneously.

Of course, adding video to Twhirl will be a plus to the Twhirl community. Maybe I need to shift from WordPress comfort zone to the Seesmic world.

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