Amongst all the amazing things being launched at Twitter’s Chirp developer conference: @anywhere, User Streams, New developer Terms, Ad Platform Announcements, and more, nothing truly got me excited in a way that said, “this is the future”. True, User Streams will save me thousands. @anywhere is very convenient. None of them are “change the world” breakthroughs though. Let’s face it – Twitter, with the exception of real-time (until next week), is playing catch up with Facebook. However, there was one thing that caught my eye as “game changing”. That was today, when Loic Le Meur of Seesmic introduced to me his plugin platform for Seesmic desktop. Here’s what it does:
Basically, Seesmic has enabled an entire Silverlight-based platform for developers to completely customize the entire experience of the Seesmic desktop. From the streams, to being able to integrate your own photo service, to enabling link parsing and shortening in your own way, to even altering and integrating with the search box, developers have full control of the entire desktop environment for customizing not just your Twitter experience, but your Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, or even open environments like Status.net and any environment you choose. Loic talked to me about a potential Youtube client targeted towards just viewing and finding Youtube videos through the browser.
The great thing is that this is all user-targeted. Each install is packageable in developers’ or brands’ own skin, in whatever logos or colors you like. Developers can even specify what plugins get installed as part of the package. Once the user downloads the initial install, users can then download and modify additional plugins to customize it for their own experience. The entire experience is win-win for both developers and users!
In one fell swoop, Seesmic has gone from being a desktop client for Twitter, to an entire platform that not only encompasses Twitter, but also Facebook, and potentially Myspace, LinkedIn, Youtube, Status.net, and more. This is the “core” I was talking about last week, and Loic has embodied the spirit of it all. I can’t wait to see what developers do with this, and probably in close tie with Kynetx, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen since the Facebook Platform launch.
Developers can get started at http://platform.seesmic.com. The platform is based on Microsoft Silverlight. Don’t like Silverlight? Write your own environment (Google Gadgets?) as a plugin for developers to write for! This is amazing stuff – I’m so excited to see what happens, and when we’ll all be meeting for the first Seesmic Conference for developers.
Wanna see it in action? Check out Scoble’s interview with Seesmic founder, Loic Le Meur here.
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Total yawn. Developers of any real substance won't go anywhere near a platform on a platform.
Why is that Susan?
Jesse I agree what @Seesmic have done is negate their Twitter reliance. I think you will see them demo their Buzz API integration at Google I/O. Longer term I think apps like Seesmic and TweetDeck will (have to) become ActivityStream Readers/Filters. I have not had a chance to look closely at the DK pec but if they have turned Seesmic into a Opensocial App container 1.0 and made all the apps – Flickr, Twitter, Youtube etc. Gadgets that plugin then that is very smart but I see Netvibes and iGoogle possibly going the same way.
Sam, they are not an OpenSocial container, but anyone could theoretically
make one out of a plugin. They are all Silverlight and .net based.
Very nice, got me pumped up. Can't wait to see what creative developers like you do with this.
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Jesse I agree what @Seesmic have done is negate their Twitter reliance. I think you will see them demo their Buzz API integration at Google I/O. Longer term I think apps like Seesmic and TweetDeck will (have to) become ActivityStream Readers/Filters. I have not had a chance to look closely at the DK pec but if they have turned Seesmic into a Opensocial App container 1.0 and made all the apps – Flickr, Twitter, Youtube etc. Gadgets that plugin then that is very smart but I see Netvibes and iGoogle possibly going the same way.
Total yawn. Developers of any real substance won't go anywhere near a platform on a platform.