Seesmic Look to take Twitter mainstream with corporate backed PC client

Twitter receives an interesting facelift

Seesmic Look to take Twitter mainstream with corporate backed PC client. Software, Twitter, Seesmic, Seesmic Look, Social networking, Microsoft 0

21 January 2010 18:00 GMT / By Ben Bowers

Seesmic, makers of  the popular Seesmic web, desktop, and various mobile Twitter applications, has announced new software designed to make Twitter more accessible to a "mainstream audience".

Called Seesmic Look, the new software was developed in partnership with Microsoft and is optimized for use on Windows 7. However it's also compatible with both Vista and XP.

Taking advantage of Windows 7 touch interaction functionality, Seemic founder Loic Le Meur was quick to point out that Seesmic Look was created to work well with "upcoming new devices" and demonstrated using the service through touch and via remote control.

Visually the tool is attractive and allows users to intuitively dig through tweets without having to log in or personally sign up for the service.

For instance as part of the launch, Seesmic gives users the option of sorting through tweets by category channels ranging across a wide swath of topics such as celebrities, technology, or charities. The stream of users grouped in these channels is curated by Seesmic, and in essence serves as a Seesmic selected set of Twitter lists.

In an effort to make tweets easier to read, a so called "Playback Mode" can be toggled to have tweets float on the screen as they come, similar to a screen saver. This playback mode can also work using search terms or hashtags, so users can easily see and understand what's being said about a particular topic.

Other visual changes worth noting include the automatic display of tweet inserted pictures from services like Yfrog and Twitpic along side the tweet text. 

Whether the advances in this service will indeed inspire more users to flock to and appreciate Twitter of course remains to be seen. However Seesmic Look is an interesting example of  how  the service is evolving from a design perspective, and does provide far more robust functionality to non Twitter subscribers than was previously available.

The fact that it's also officially endorsed by Twitter hints that the creators of the popular social network see value in Seesmic Look's vision as well.

 

Full tags
Software, Twitter, Seesmic, Seesmic Look, Social networking, Microsoft

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