I was reminded recently of what fun we had on the social video platform Seesmic, especially right at the beginning, October/November 2007. Later on it pivoted to be a twitter client, and went the way of all startups that found their community was something that someone else woudl pay for access to) but it started out as a kind of video twitter, where people would start and carry on conversations in quickly recorded clips. It was an example of community growing up online really quickly. Twitter had exploded that year, but among those of us who got it, this was even more powerful.
I made friends who I would then go on to work with and am still friends with. And it connected me to a much wider community in Europe and the US. Something about video made it feel more authentic and personal. You could hide behind a twitter avatar and clever writing, and although there were people who made creative stuff, the conversations on Seesmic were the real deal, like playing telephone tag with someone who had a videophone (which still felt like it was way off in the future back then). It's scary to realise that anyone born at that time is just turning 18 now!
I provided the music that got used for the compilation videos that the company would do daily, sadly without any royalty deal :P
