We call out Twitter and similar platforms from time to time as havens for mundane musings and narcissists with nothing better to do than figure out how to crunch their already dull thoughts into 140 characters or less. But are microblogs, and the like, any more purposeful or appealing when they come in video form?

Seesmic, a San Francisco-based startup, could easily become known as the Twitter of video. Users with accounts on the site engage in threaded conversations, as they would on a message board or on Twitter, but they do so via Web video rather than text. Short video messages are recorded by individual users via Webcam or video-phone and posted on the Seesmic site. According to Seesmic's director of business development Cathy Brooks, the site registers 3,000 video messages per day on average.

Not profitable yet (psh, who is!), Seesmic anticipates revenue sometime over the next 12 months. It is testing some business models, including branding and customization for media companies, like 20th Century Fox. Brooks also suggested the site isn't ruling out charging users in the future. Seesmic received $12 million over two rounds of funding and acquired Twitter desktop client Twhirl, powered by Adobe AIR, in April 2008. In a blog today, Seesmic unveiled changes to its platform, including the ability for videos to play as thumbnails; user and video search; and new privacy settings.

The reason the site is appealing, says Brooks, is because it adds an extra layer of intimacy not offered with text conversations. "There is an intimacy, there is a humanity, there is a connectedness you have in video that is just not physically possible in other media," she gushes.

Pointing to a random girl popping up on her Mac screen, she added, "I know her. I never met her before. But I talk to her all the time. The day I meet her in person, I'll hug her hello. She's not a stranger to me."

And while online video communities can be put to negative use (e.g., suggesting a troubled teen kill himself), Brooks recalls using Seesmic to memorialize a previously sick, homebound member of the community, Craig, who had died during surgery.

"I stayed up until two or three in the morning that evening and we had a virtual wake for two days," says Brooks. "His family watched a video, then all of a sudden -- there's his brother and there's his father talking to us about how much it meant to them that [Craig] who had essentially been at home with no real connection to anybody wasn't alone." 

Past the eye-watery tribute prospect, can a site like this ever appeal to the mainstream? Part of what makes the Internet an attractive place to hang out is the ability to hide behind one's computer, and video adds a layer of identity not often preferred by the skulking Web community.

"I actually think what we are looking at from an Internet evolution perspective is the technology is evolving, the people who are using it are evolving, and it is a generational change as well," says Brooks.

"I also think that, as a society, on a global scale, everybody is hungry for a connection and finding community and connection anyway they can."

(If you have a seesmic account, check out this short, unpleasantly awkward video of me with Cathy Brooks at the Web 2.0 Summit in November.)

— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution