Girls In Tech

9am EST yesterday morning began the launch of Loic Le Meur’s SeesmicLook, a radically innovative and intuitive app that curates Twitter content and introduces it to the mainstream population – aka those who don’t have a Twitter account, don’t know what Twitter is, or don’t really find the appeal in microblogging.

If you’re unfamiliar with @loic and his marvels, Seesmic has created a number of platforms that help people share information regardless of where they are: via desktop, web-based, mobile, and recently e-mail, SMS and chat. These platforms have been downloaded 3.5 million times since the company’s launch in 2007. And because one of Seesmic’s largest goals is to create a streamlined experience for Twitter users, devoted tweeters are, well, their main users. 

So what about the “normal” people?  (As Loic put it.)

Normal, defined as in those whose daily lives don’t revolve around Twitter: people who don’t even know what a hashtag is (it’s this: #) or what the heck a RSS feed does (it let’s you read different stuff in one place); people like my mom, Loic’s mom, your mom, maybe even you. People who are not social media Power Users.

So again, what about those Joes and Janes on the street, whose largest social media interest is collecting one billion dollars on Mafia Wars or getting a 25K Blitz on Bejeweled?   If Twitter is raising millions of dollars for Haiti, recommending the best places in town, providing comedic relief and endless links to valuable information, shouldn’t they be privy to that?

And that’s exactly what Loic thought. Yes! Joe, Jane and the Normals should be privy to all that is deliciously streaming on Twitter. But how?

The one thing that Twitter didn’t do well, imho (in my humble opinion for you non-geeks), was guide their initial branding to where everyone can see the true value of the product. They started as an “I just ate a sandwich” platform, and unfortunately, that’s the impression they left with a lot of people who are currently non-users. Maybe Twitter doesn’t care because they have already changed the world. But Loic does. Because there is more world to change. He saw the power of un-gated sharism. And that’s where SeesmicLook steps in.

“We’re pretty convinced this is a tremendous innovation,” said Daryll McDade, Platform Strategy Advisor to Microsoft and eloquent MC of today’s event.

Hell yeah, it is.

In order to really reign in Joe, his Mafia War buddies, and the rest of the normal world (I’m starting to enjoy this distinction between normal people and social media users), Seesmic went straight for the kill and identified the main roadblock between being an avid Twitter user and thinking Twitter is a portmanteau for a witty twit.

The twitter account.

Ta-da! Take away the actual process of having to sign up for/log in to Twitter, but keep the benefits of using Twitter, and you’ve automatically gained the interest of the mainstream.

I don’t have to sign up for Twitter, use it every day, love it, preach it?  And I’ll still be able to access the real-time information and interesting people? All I have to do is push this download button and it’ll pop up on my computer screen? Yeah, I’ll try that.

The structure is simple. Download it onto your desktop. You don’t have to be logged into Twitter. You don’t have to have an account. When you open it, there is a column to the left that serves as the main menu: trends, (inbox, social,) favorites, interests, channels, searches.

If you click on “trends,” and then click that little TV button on the top right, you can watch the current trending topics on Twitter, as they pop up and disappear like a screensaver. Same with all the rest of the links; you can choose to watch them in “TV mode” (as Loic calls it) or in Twitter feed format. You can customize the information you want to see, the people you want to follow, the brands (via channels) you want to know about. It’s like Twitter Lists got a giant, sexy makeover – and now dates both Twitteratti and regular folk.

You think Loic’s pretty clever, don’t you? He is. Non-Twitter users are probably thinking: Great! Look is like eating cake without having to register the calories (i.e. sign up for an account).

Well, think again.

Notice the “inbox” and “social” links? And that, ahem, login box on the top? Yeah, that’s right. You can log into your Twitter account via Look. And for those of you who will become so enamored by all the people and information you see on Twitter, that you just have to sign up (and believe me, it will happen; it’s designed that way – to lure you into utter digital bliss), the “inbox” is where you get your @replies, and “social” is where all of the  people you follow are listed and categorized according to your crazy whims. And for those of you who still refuse to sign up for Twitter – well, you can just suffer with an empty “Inbox,” and wish that you had friends to follow.

Either way, if you download SeesmicLook, you’re going to be starting a relationship with a highly entertaining, tool-less (i.e. you don’t have to mess with keyboards or hashtags or anything confusing) power system. And it will be sweet, sweet love.

Oh, and get this. SeesmicLook is touch enabled. You can use it on HP’s Touch Smart computer, with a remote (it’s like watching TV). And, hmmm, where else can you use a touch screen? Maybe a m-o-b-i-l-e phone? Yeah, SeesmicLook is taking over the world.

Stay tuned for Part II of the SeesmicLook Launch. Notes on Razorfish and Edelman and their genius social media ponderings.

[Test SeesmicLook out at http://seesmic.com/seesmic_desktop/look/. You can leave your praises and rants here:http://feedback.seesmic.com/forums/38872-seesmic-look]