At the core of Seesmic is a threaded discussion forum using video. One person starts a thread, others follow, all using video. I've written about Seesmic several times before including an initial demo video.
Earlier this week Mashable installed a new plugin from Viddler that allows site visitors to comment on articles using video. In 24 hours I've watched about 30 video comments.
Why do I believe the combination of blog/cms is stronger than Seesmic? Because it allows the content publisher and his or her audience to interact, each in their own preferred medium. I may prefer to start in text, John wants to reply with video, Mary with audio, Rachel with text. Together we are forming a combined discussion that doesn't force us into one medium, be it text (currently for most blogs) or video (as Seesmic does).
To make this model perfect, we need three things. Audio recording capabilities, mobile commenting and video/audio transcription. The transcription is important because if users will contribute in their preferred method, they should be able to consume in as many ways as possible. These new input and ouput options could bring real innovation to the blog space which has set relatively still for a couple of years.
And how will the live video services (Qik/Flixwagon) be able to play in this new blog realm? I believe Seesmic is working on live video as well.
Perhaps Seesmic could offer a plugin similar to what Viddler is offering to enhance their current video offering. Viddler has a variety of innovative features but lacks the YouTube buzz and take rate. If they could figure out how to bundle the video commenting plugin into a variety of blog and CMS platforms, it could help elevate and provide a strong distribution model for Viddler.
What's your take? Are video comments the future? Do you prefer the Seesmic video threading to the traditional blog setup?
Check out the printer we used for our business cards:
