Posts Tagged ‘12seconds’

Not all good ideas can withstand the test of time. Launched in 2008, 12seconds.tv is a micro-blogging site where people can upload 12-second video status updates from their webcams and smart phones. In an open letter posted yesterday on their website the 12seconds founders, who are based in Santa Cruz, CA, announced that they will shut the service down on October 22nd.

Wrote co-founder Sol Lipman:

As you probably know, everything has a life cycle. 12seconds is in its twilight.  After all the new product launches and attempts at a revenue model, fund raising with VCs and late night coding sessions with Jacob hunched over his monitors – it’s time to call it.  It is time to end 12seconds.

The entrepreneur also emphasized that “12seconds is not a failure – it is a life well-lived,” he wrote. “It really is about the journey.  I know this because I’m at the destination.” Lipman and co-founder Jacob Knobel are moving on to AOL, while co-founder David Beach will work for Ebay. It’s not a bad ending for the founders who as a disclaimer had said that their site “is a side project and is funded by burritos.”

The team will post a downloading tool later this week for users to save their videos. Questions about the transition or congratulatory e-mails can be sent to goodbye@12seconds.tv.

Microblogging video service 12seconds.tv has added user-generated commercial options to its service today. 12seconds has emerged as a Twitter-like version of video sharing, with the bite sized update format being applied to its specific type of media. Add in Twitter integration and a recent iPhone application with a unique workaround, and it’s clear that 12seconds is determined to offer its features to as many users as possible, in every way possible.

But what about monetization? Creating revenue around the microblogging phenomenon has been difficult for the cream of the crop, so what does 12seconds think it can do in order to begin making money from the trend? User generated commercials. Called 12omercials, these tiny ads will be sponsored by brands, and created by 12seconds users. The point is to offer “dedicated” recommendations to the world, and generate some revenue all the while.
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Earlier this year the video status update service 12seconds launched an iPhone app that cleverly bypassed Apple’s video-recording limitations for third party developers, making it that much more accessible for users to send in their clips. Now a new partnership with Twitter desktop clients Tweetdeck makes it just as easy to update your 12seconds account directly from its application as well.

For 12seconds users, this means that there is an expanding number of ways in which their account status can be updated. While 12seconds launched with Twitter support for sending a tweet every time a new 12seconds update was recorded and posted, the full integration of 12seconds into Tweetdeck’s desktop client means that 12seconds is further targeting the Twitter crowd.
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Application developers like 12seconds can’t yet tie in the iPhone’s video capabilities, so what’s a video-based service to do? Since 12seconds.tv has taken the Twitter model and applied it to video updates, it’s almost necessary for the company to have a viable mobile accompaniment for users that are always on the go.
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Twitter is cool with it’s text updates and all, but what if people could follow you as you post in video what you’re up to. That’s what 12seconds.tv lets users do.

While Twitter limits you to 140 characters, 12seconds limits you a video that is 12 seconds long.

Upload videos via Webcam or your mobile phone after registering. Like Twitter, you are given a unique e-mail address to send your content to. The two sites even get along. After sending a new video to 12seconds, you can auto-Tweet your Twitter followers. Read more