Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) Interviews the Seesmic Team

Seesmic quickly adds features using new Twitter APIs

Rober Scoble came by the Seesmic office to interview Loic, Johann and Marco on the features being delivered in our Seesmic products and the future of Seesmic.

Here are some of the highlights discussed in Building 43's Site:

• The development team refining the Seesmic Desktop and the Seesmic Web just shipped two new products using Twitter APIs: lists and geolocation.
• The release keeps the team in what they consider an almost weekly competition to refine their product which aggregates software for Twitter and Facebook information streams.
• A third Twitter API-based product — setting up a Retweet/sharing feature — is coming, along with an iPhone mobile application.
• In the world where the social network aggregator operates, says co-founder and CEO Loic Le Meur, “The real-time Web is being built real time . . . everything needs to be done very fast.”
• Johann Romefort, co-founder and CTO and Marco Kaiser, director of engineering, say the push for speed comes not just from new developments being introduced on social networking sites.
• Users are adapting new tools to fit their needs and creating new concepts that in turn create opportunities for more products, they say.
• Analysing what users are doing with new tools is one key to developing refinements for Seesmic.

Twitter List Now in Seesmic Web

We’re happy to share with you the integration of Twitter Lists in Seesmic Web. This is open to everyone and you can check it out here: http://seesmic.com/app/

Twitter List integration includes:
View your Twitter List in the sidebar
Your Twitter Lists will be located in the side bar under Lists. View both your own Twitter Lists and Lists that you follow.

Auto-refresh of Twitter List columns
We've configured Twitter Lists to auto refresh with minimal impact to you API limits.

Unlimited columns
As with searches, you can create unlimited columns with Seesmic Web for your Twitter Lists. When you log in with your own Seesmic Web Account, those columns will be automatically saved. Make sure to create your own Seesmic Web account by clicking on the "Sign Up" link after signing in with your Twitter Account.

Add User to Twitter Lists
You can add a user to your twitter list by hovering over the username. You'll see the selection "Add to List" to add the username to your Twitter List. You can also add users to your Twitter List in the Profile view when clicking on the user name

 

Trending Topics
We're also happy to provide you with Trending Topics. You can now keep up to date with what the Twitterverse is talking about.

Geolocation Support
Although not yet available in Twitter, Seesmic Web will offer Geolocation support via a location marker on a tweet, you can hover over it to bring up a Google Map overlay showing where the tweet was sent from.

Seesmic Desktop Adds Twitter Lists (currently for TeamSeesmic users)

We're happy to announce the release of the preview version of our integration of Twitter Lists in Seesmic Desktop. We're very excited at our integration, and will look forward to your feedback in building additional features.

This is currently available for our TeamSeesmic Users. To join, simply sign up here to get the update immediately: http://seesmic.com/team.html

Accessing your Twitter Lists

In this preview version, you can access your Twitter Lists as a separate column in Seesmic Desktop.

• Find your Twitter Lists alphabetically under USERLISTS in the sidebar, distinguishing your own list and other lists by the colored "t" icon.
• Simply click on one of the lists in the side bar and a column for that list will appear. Please note that you will need to manually refresh the list, as this counts against your API limits.

Twitter List appearing in the sidebar

Adding Users to your Twitter List

You can also add users to a userlist.

• When clicking on the gearwheel "*" on the avatar of the person you wish the add
• Select "Add to Userlist" and choose the Twitter List or Userlist to add.

Twitter List linked to open browser in messages

When a Twitter list appears in a message with the "@", it is linked to open the list in the browser.

Other notes for this iteration:

• When adding a user to a Twitter List, it will take some time for Twitter to  make the changes appear on Seesmic Desktop.
• Viewing Twitter List - open columns with Twitter Lists are not restored when restarting Seesmic Desktop.

Updated Seesmic Desktop 0.6.1 Available [UPDATED]

Updated Seesmic Desktop 0.6.1 0.6.2 Available

You can get the latest version here:

http://d.seesmic.com/seesmic/SeesmicDesktop-0.6.1.air

Improvements and fixes include:

• Ability to filter messages in the column of Facebook Page between Admin and Fans
• Fixed the selection for the default twitter account for add-on services
• Improvements for connecting and authenticating upon adding a Facebook account
• Various improvements for configuring Facebook Pages
• Fixed Facebook Fan Posts showing in the Sent column
• Ensure that hidden posts in Facebook do not appear in Seesmic Desktop
• Improvements for various displays message in Facebook posts

Update:10.13.2009 - We came upon specific cases of reported slowness for certain Windows users. Thanks to your help and feedback we were able to pinpoint and resolve the issue.

The latest version for 0.6.2 is here:

http://d.seesmic.com/seesmic/SeesmicDesktop-0.6.2.air

Seesmic Web Updates: Languages, UI and Mr. Tweet

Seesmic Web Updates
We continue to build out Seesmic Web, here are the updates to share with you.To make sure your changes are working properly, make sure to clear your browser's cache and cookies.

• Additional languages: We've added additional languages Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish!
• Reply-All: Our reply-all feature in Seesmic Desktop was a small but significant improvement that we carried over to Seesmic Web. You save time communicating with your friends and followers by replying to all of the usernames listed in a message by simply clicking on the reply to choose "Reply All"

• User Interface Improvements: You'll notice some subtle but significant improvements to the Seesmic Web user interface. With changes to the main message bar to post your status updates and an improved reply menu, you'll find Seesmic Web easier to use.

• Mr. Tweet Profile: Mr. Tweet is a popular discovery app that helps identify enthusiastic users that are relevant to you. With our partnership, we're starting out with offering a profile tab with statistics and information to better understand your users.

We've very excited and have a lot more updates coming very soon!
Check it out on: http://seesmic.com/app/

Special thanks TeamSeesmic Translators:
Many thanks for the volunteers for the latest translations @nobsato, @megoka, @elanbeat, @y9216, @iamroberto, @formentera6, @sergei_cl, @garrido, @LGBSP

Maintenance Updates for Twhirl - UPDATED

We would like to share with you a couple of maintenance updates to Twhirl. As you may know, the team behind Twhirl is the same team behind Seesmic Desktop, and the team has been busy to match up Seesmic Web and Seesmic Desktop with Twhirl's features and offer even more. We've also addressed some issues while making these updates to Twhirl. One of the things you'll notice is that posts from your messages will be identified as "from Seesmic." Twhirl has always been part of the Seesmic family of products. We felt the time was right to converge the identity of our products. We continue to maintain and make Twhirl available, as we work hard on releasing products and features for our Seesmic applications. Here are some of our other updates:

Updated API usage controls in Twhirl: We understand the resource-intensive nature of client desktop applications. As such, we've modified the Twitter API usage per account to accommodate the recent changes from Twitter, and updated the usage control to percentages (%) of allowed requests.

Partnership with YFROG with Twhirl: We want to bring you the best for your shared pictures and we are proud to announce a new partnership with YFROG who becomes today our default picture posting service for all Seesmic applications, including Twhirl. Click on the camera icon in either client and post your photos to Twitter via yfrog.  It's just that simple. Yfrog is an easy way to share photos and videos from wherever you happen to be.  Yfrog's infrastructure is powered by ImageShack, a safe and reliable hosting media since 2003. 

If you have any questions - feel free to contact us through http://help.seesmic.com/ and submit a request.

UPDATED: 09/21/2009 we just released version 9.4 is out that resolves some twitter api issues for some users http://d.seesmic.com/twhirl/twhirl-0.9.4.air  this issue should resolve those who are having twitter api issues. If you still have a limit rate exceeded - it may take some time (30-60 minutes) to re-enable the limit. Thanks for your patience and support.

Seesmic Desktop Version 0.6 Updates

Facebook Pages
We're excited to share with you a new feature that will allow Seesmic Desktop to access and manage your Facebook Pages. In version 0.6, you now can view and manage any Facebook Page you follow. Configure each Facebook Page to show up as a column, posts messages, and respond to comments and likes as you do in your personal Facebook feed. If you are the administrator, you can post messages as the administrator. With the Facebook Page feature, you have greater control on how you market your business, oversee your brand, listen to your fans and build your community.

View Facebook Pages in separate columns

Configure which Facebook Pages you want to show in the navigation bar (sidebar) in Seesmic Desktop

Manage Administered Pages that you’ve published

To learn more about creating Facebook Pages:
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=905
To create a Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

If you don't have a Facebook Page, go and build one now!

Reply to All
Save time communicating with your friends and followers by replying to all of the usernames listed in a message. Instead of writing all the usernames when responding to a message, or "re-tweeting" and the editing a message, simply click on the gearwheel in an avatar and "Reply to All."

Favorites column
Along with an aggregated view of your full timeline (HOME, REPLIES, PRIVATE, and SENT), we have now added a FAVORITES column. Along with seeing a separate favorites view for each account, you now have a full view of all of your messages marked as favorite. We've also added the function to "Unfavor" a message, giving you full control to identify and manage your favorite messages.

Click on FAVORITES to see all the favorite messages in one column

Partnership with YFROG
We want to bring you the best for your shared pictures and we are proud to announce a new partnership with YFROG who becomes today our default picture posting service for all Seesmic applications. Click on the camera icon in either client and post your photos to Twitter via yfrog.  It's just that simple. Yfrog is an easy way to share photos and videos from wherever you happen to be.  Yfrog's infrastructure is powered by ImageShack, a safe and reliable hosting media since 2003.  
 

Updates for Seesmic Web

As we continue to work on major upgrades to Seesmic Web, we've release a few updates to help you manage and build your community.

Dark Theme!: Change the look of Seesmic Web to your choice of a darker, sleeker color or keep it fresh with the original light and bright background.

Additional languages: We've added additional languages German and Romanian and working with TeamSeesmic volunteeers for additional ones coming soon.

Updated Profile Page: We've made changes to the profile page to highlight the stats of users and followers, as well as whether you and the user are following each other.

Improvements to Internet Explorer 8: We've made some optimizations and fixes to accommodate IE8 users.

Seesmic will be at TechCrunch50 - win a free pass!

 

Seesmic will be sponsoring and attending this year's TechCrunch50, a competition conference for start-ups.

Seesmic will be giving out one free pass to TechCrunch50 by retweeting from Seesmic Web "Win a free pass to TechCrunch50 by Retweeting this from http://seesmic.com/web Winner chosen randomly. #seesmicTC50"

Winner will be chosen randomly and will be notified by Thursday September 10th.

Updates to Seesmic Web now available!

Once again, we're very excited to share with you our latest product updates for Seesmic Web. Along with our recent updates to Seesmic Desktop, we are working hard to continue to provide features to help you build and manage your community.

UPDATES TO SEESMIC WEB
Here are some of the exciting updates:

Inline Previews for Certain Links
You can now preview certain links in Seesmic Web. Easily review picture links via twitpic, yfrog and mobypicture within your current browser window without the distraction of opening a new one. Also, preview interactive displays from certain bit. ly links – you can preview YouTube videos or Google Maps displays, all conveniently within your browser.

Review picture links via twitpic, yfrog and mobypicture within your current browser window

Preview interactive displays from certain bit. ly links – you can preview YouTube videos

Internationalization
We’ve started our process with the internationalization for Seesmic Web with French and Chinese. We are also planning our internationalization translation process with the help of our TeamSeesmic members. We’re very excited about making Seesmic Web globally inclusive and even more excited working with some of our important assets – our users!

Favorite Timeline
We’ve added a favorites section to the timeline. Now you’ll be able to see all your favorites as a stand-alone column. Another way of managing your messages and seeing your favorites along with your timeline and searches.

Hashtags Links
Be able to click on hashtags links in Seesmic Web and automatically create a search. This convenient feature will allow you to easily listen to any trends in the Twitter stream.

Saved Login Preferences
You can now save your preferences and access Seesmic Web seamlessly. Just first sign up via “Connect with Twitter” and sign up to save your session, and easily access Seesmic Web going forward.

Other usability enhancements include:
•    Update your post by using the Return keystroke.
•    Ability to delete your sent messages
•    Automatic message loading upon scroll down.

If you have any direct feedback or questions on both products, the best way to send your inquiries is through our help site: http://help.seesmic.com/ .

If you have any feedback on new feature enhancements, please go to our feedback site to review, vote or add any ideas for our upcoming versions.

Feedback for Seesmic Web:
http://feedback.seesmic.com/pages/22634-seesmic-web

And of course, you can contact @askseesmic on Twitter.

We look forward to hearing your feedback!