Seesmic has launched a new desktop application for Twitter, called Seesmic Look, that hopes to take Twitter to a "mainstream audience" unfamiliar with Tweeting.
Seesmic Look functions as a Twitter client (you can Tweet from it, follow lists, search in real-time, follow your friends, etc.), but offers some additional navigation options on top of the basics.
HuffPostTech had a chance to sit down with Seesmic founder and CEO Loic Le Meur and see the app in action.
Here's the rundown:
- Seesmic Look gives users the option of sorting Tweets by different categories. People who don't want a firehose of content, but are interested in a specific topic, like celebrity gossip, or tech updates, can follow the aggregated Tweets from Seesmic's "Entertainment" or "Technology" sections, which each present updates from a curated set of Twitterers (@KimKardashian is one of the accounts in the "Celebrity" category). Seesmic Look's built-in, subject-specific directory essentially offers Seesmic-made Twitter lists across a variety of subjects.
- The app also tries to use color and different viewing options to make the Tweets easier to read, although the screensaver-like 'TV mode,' which shows new messages fading in to different parts of the screen, tends to look cluttered and distracting.
- In an effort to entice reluctant Twitter users, Seesmic Look has made it possible for people to follow Tweets without signing in to Twitter--or even without having an account.
- The application operates as a desktop app on Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.
So will users take to it? Is it the solution that will get moms, dads, and even grandparents Tweeting? Making sense of Twitter is no easy task, and while maybe this is a step in the right direction, users could be confused by fading and rising text clips. Moreover, users may tire of using the Seesmic-compiled lists that make up the different categories.
Turning a profit from Twitter is the question on everyone's minds, and Le Meur's Seesmic Look presents one way to generate revenue: he has some major paying brands integrated into the app straight from the start.
Brands can also offer their own channels within Seesmic, which provide "simple, authoritative, aggregated view of a brand's activity across Twitter making it easy for any user to discover and navigate the breadth of activity the brand has going on Twitter," according to Seesmic's press release. Seesmic's launch partners, which include Kodak, Red Bull, CNN Money, SOTS, and Time, will each have a brand channel on the application. The Huffington Post is also proud to be one of Seesmic Look's launch partners.
Find out more about Seesmic Look here.
See screenshots of Seesmic Look below:
