Friday was the last webmission day. After Google IO, one would think the program would be less interesting. Though, thanks to our hosts, it was again another great day. Let’s start with CBS interactive. Located on 2nd Street, CBS i is in charge of bringing CBS content online; that means coding, programming, designing. We started our visit with a walk through the various brands (Bnet, Cnet, Chow,…), podcasting facilities. We than had a Q&A session in which we covered the mobile vs normal coding; the website redesign approach (test groups…); the way JAVA is implementend on the pages; ads integration, debugging; etc…
Thanks to Neil for having organised that meeting.
Our next stop was Seesmic, on Bryant street. That name probably means more to you than CBS. With Loic Le Meur as founder, Seesmic has been an interesting case study for us european. Once a video-message platform; Seesmic had to shift direction a couple of years ago. Althougn the tool was really interesting, as it allowed very personnal, engaging discussions (i was able to meet Zac, Freida, Thierry Weber…), it was also a expensive one: codec licences fees, storage fees involved with video are quite heavy for a starting company, with no real monetization at sights. So, Loic Le Meur was smart, and decided to focus on another aspect of “web discussions”. Seesmic was to be known for becoming a cross platform, cross social networks discussion enabling solution. As of today, Seesmic is present on Iphone, Android, Blackberry; on desktops with 3 solutions: Seesmic Desktop, Seesmic for Windows, and Seesmic Look (only windows); and finally online, with Seesmic Web. Through Seesmic, you can update your status on Twitter, Facebook obviously, but also on more than 40 networks via their most recent acquisition, ping.fm. Now, with all these networks and platforms, it was interesting to have a Q&A too.
We sat down with Johan (their CTO) and Marco Kaiser (PM; Twhirl dev). For more than 1 our, we talked about servers, split-team development, user experience, management experience, fund raising, company focus, cultural differences… It was a really open-minded talk, really, really interesting.
We, the Webmission team, have to emphasize on that. Imagine a group of 20 foreign people asking you to visit your offices. Not a done deal, right? More, Seesmic, planned for tuesday, was cancelled (Google IO – new Android release; then Iphone version release); and re-scheduled. Quite unexpected, though, for Marco. And still, he opens the Seesmic books for us.
So again, a big thank you for that great discussion!
