Flixwagon integration, Current and Halloween!

Happy Thursday (or Friday for you Kiwis out there),

12seconds integrates with Flixwagon!

Flixwagon is the amazing service that let’s you stream live video to the web from your mobile phone.  It’s completely amazing technology and we’re excited to be working with Flixwagon.  You can link your 12seconds account to your Flixwagon account and then the first twelve seconds of every Flixwagon session will go automatically to 12seconds!  Flixwagon works with “jailbroken” iPhones and a whole bunch of Nokia Phones (Series 60 Symbian like the N95).  We’re hoping the service will be available on Friday for some weekend mobile testing/fun and then for election day coverage, citizen journalist style.

Election Day is a seriously BIG DAY

As you might know, we’re working with Current on all the election day activities.  Current will be taking a feed for election day content and broadcasting some of it on TV.  Current has reach into like 50 million households so it’s pretty exciting to think that some of our 12ers will be on TV.  Also, Current is going to do a crazy mashup of all kinds of social media that day (clearly 12seconds is going to be the best part of it).  If anyone wants to be on our Election Day team, contact jivebotic.  It would be cool if we were out there doing our part monitoring, getting opinions and getting reactions on this important election day.

Some community notes…

 

• Hopetakesflight is giving us 12second previews of an incredible new documentary.  We highly suggest clicking the play button on their channel!
• We’re going to be launching a new Terms of Service.  Yeah we’re getting more legit.  But, don’t worry we’re still going to act immature on a regular basis.  When we launch it, it’ll pop up at you and ask for your blessings.
• We’re doing a lot of “serious” challenge questions as we come up to the election in the US even thoughsome of us are trying to change the subject.  After this week, we’d like to do one 12er-sponsored question a week.  That 12er will pick the question and the winner.  If you’d like to be that person, hit up jivebotic.
• Does anyone think this is a good idea?
• Friday is Halloween.  Need I say more?  We want to see some crazy, scary, fun, creepy stuff.  So, share the fun with everyone.

Keep it real,

Team12

Uploads! Downloads!

Another great week!  Here’s what’s going on…

Upload/Download Feature

It’s one of the most requested features and one which we’ve been remiss in adding.  The ability to upload a video file to your channel.  Let’s say you took a great video from your Flip.  You no longer need to email it to your mobile email address.  You can now upload it directly from the site.  Just look for the upload button on your individual “home” page.  In addition, we’re providing the ability to download your files as well (thanks Jeremy for the suggestion).
note: you can upload most video file types and downloads will be in .mov and .flv formats.

BBC News | Have Your Say Challenge!

The folks over at BBC Have Your Say are excited about the participation of all the 12ers in some of our debate challenges.  So, they want to do their own challenge.  Thus, today’s challenge is sponsored by the BBC News.  There’s a great chance that some of your challenge entries will end up on BBC TV!  We’re pretty excited and would appreciate your participation.  The Challenge Question is: “Economic downturn – how bad can it get?  Give some examples.”
note: if you don’t feel comfortable with the thought of being on TV you might want to sit out of this challenge.

Citizen Journalism and Election Day Coverage

When you launch a service you never know how it will be used.  12seconds gets a lot of attention from news services like Current or the BBC because it is so easy for people to cover an event or give an opinion.  Citizen Journalism is pretty important for the health of a democracy.  For this reason, we’re going to put a lot of effort into Election Day.  Where appropriate (and legal) we’d like 12ers covering reactions, parties, exit polls and emotions on November 4th all over the world.  We’re assembling a team of people and will feature their content on Election Day.  If you’d be willing to be part of this team, please contact Jivebotic.

Two more things:

1. Renato has volunteered to be our European Community Evangelist.  He’s a Beatbox master.  Add him & get to know him!  Thanks, Renato!
2. Bateatsbat is a freakin’ genius.

With love and pithiness,

Team12

Passion is recession proof.

Tonight I was standing outside the Synagogue holding my son, Marlon, who was conveniently unable to sit through Yom Kippur services.  I was reading this Techcrunch article which featured Ron Conway giving advice to his startups in these dire economic times (I’ve gotten very good at holding Marlon in one hand and my iPhone in the other).  Maybe it’s just the nature of the holiday but I began feeling very thankful for what I had in the non-iPhone hand.  I also started to think about applying some of the logic that Ron Conway described.

He gave a lot of advice about tightening up, focusing on monetization and making sure you had “enough” to last for a while.  I’ve been doing plenty of complaining about raising money lately and everyone has told me that it’s nearly impossible to do so in this market, particularly for consumer-focused internet companies that have an as-of-yet-determined business model.

Maybe we’ve all been focusing on the wrong thing?  Maybe our little burrito-funded startup is onto something?  12seconds came out of a group called “the geeks.”  It’s like a Santa Cruz social club that meets every once in a while to drink beers.  It’s the kind of group where you can talk about Twitter without having to explain it.  Beach had a cool idea and a bunch of us decided to build it.  Why not?

As an entrepreneur you face a lot of barriers.  First, there are a lot of people who will tell you that your idea kinda sucks.  Next, you will try to assemble some super team that can get it done.  After that, you’ll try to make it a legal entity and create a cap table that everyone agrees to.  Once everyone feels good about that you’ll try to build some of it and raise money.  Oh you’ll argue about using basecamp and google groups and you’ll reconsider your brand and naming, create email accounts, stickers and buttons.  You’ll talk about all the things you’re going to do “once you get funded.”  But then you don’t and everything stops.

12seconds has gone way farther than any non-funded startup I’ve ever been a part of.  We haven’t “succeeded” yet but we’re rockin’ 100K uniques in our second month and even though we’ll have a couple ups and downs our traffic is showing sustained growth.

By accident, we did something different with 12seconds.  We weren’t so much a company as we were a community.  We tapped into a larger pool of people who all had something to give.  Some gave a lot and others gave when they had time.  We built a community of contributors.  No one ever asked what the payoff would be.  Everyone expected some stock but most made it clear that the stock wasn’t why they were doing it.  They did it because they wanted to be a part of it.  It was passion.  The passion to build something they believed in.  To launch it.  To see it done.

You’re thinking that 12seconds is a bunch of hippie/surfers from Santa Cruz.  Believe me, every single person on our team would love to be wealthy.  But, I’m willing to wager (my zero dollars) that most successful entrepreneurs were more passionate about seeing their ideas come to life then the monetary rewards associated with their success. This isn’t to say that monetary rewards aren’t a close second

Here’s what I have to say in these difficult economic times…

There is no better time to create a community of friends who can come together and execute on your brilliant idea.  Don’t let the roadblocks of fundraising get in your way.  Remove the roadblock by allowing many people to share in your dream.  Don’t get hung up on share allocation or valuation.  Throw a wider net and get everyone who has something to contribute involved.

Why do you raise funds?  To pay people.  Every single person at 12seconds has another job or consults.  No one gets paid.  Yes, we’d all love to work on 12seconds full time.  Perhaps one day we will raise money and get paid.  But the lack of funding is not and will not be the barrier that stops us.

If you have an idea or a startup and need some encouragement then get in your car and come down Santa Cruz and hang out with us.  If you want to be involved in what we’re doing, great.  If you just want some help on your thing, we’re here for you.  But, whatever you do, don’t get too wrapped up in negativity.  Your idea is great before, during and after economic turmoil.

You can find me on 12seconds or email me anytime.

Don’t be discouraged.  Create community and succeed together.

Thanks to our whole Team12, Quiddities, StageTwo Consulting, United Layer, NextSpace and Gunderson Dettmer. Let’s keep kicking ass.

So Much To Talk About

We’ve been going so fast lately that it’s all a bit of a blur. There’s a ton of stuff we’ve been working on and even more in the pipeline. We’re very focused on improving the site, the technology, and the user experience. For us, it can’t be simple enough. It can never be fun enough! 12seconds should be as easy, fast, reliable, and super as possible. Super!

Here’s a bit of a recap of what we’ve done in the past few days:

• 12seconds Mobile! http://m.12seconds.tv
• Post to Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=27765884670
• Short urls are now posting to twitter with tiny12.tv
• We teamed up with Current to Hack The Debate!

We can’t say all that’s coming up next for us, but we’re really excited about it and are looking forward to sharing it with you. Is that coy enough?

We can tell you that we’re focused on bugs and fixing a bunch of things that need attention. We even ordered a Logitech WebCam (QuickCam Pro 9000) to try and figure out why browsers seem to crash when Logitech hardware is being used. Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out! We love you and totally appreciate your patience. If you have any issues or any problems please visit our page on getsatisfaction http://getsatisfaction.com/12seconds or if you have any suggestions or feature requests, let us know on our UserVoice page: http://12seconds.uservoice.com

Thanks again for using the site and keep it up! Yip!

Oh and if you have invites… make sure you use ‘em up! Get your friends on 12seconds!

View 12seconds from your mobile phone

Here’s a cool feature: login to http://m.12seconds.tv.

Yep, you can now enjoy 12seconds content on the go.  Wondering what your friends are posting while you’ve been away from your machine?  Wonder no more.  Grab just about any phone with a web browser like your blackberry or your iphone and enjoy 12seconds all day long.

This is our initial version so there might be a few bugs.  You can see your latest updates, watch everyone or enjoy featured content.  This is just the beginning of our mobile strategy!  We wanted to satiate your desires for mobile updates, so here you go.

The London Film Festival in 12seconds

One of our awesome 12ers, Mike Atherton, better known as Sizemore, is a well respected writer and social media badass.  Every year he is invited to the London Film Festival and asked to review tons of films.  As he says on his blog, “I’m happiest writing about film, but can turn my hand to most topics.” A quick check of his blog will you tell you that he loves film, technology, photography and humor.  During this Film Festival season, Sizemore has to sit down and watch 3 films a day for a couple weeks!  It’s a tough job.  He eats a lot of popcorn.

We’re really excited that Sizemore is planning to do 12second reviews of those exclusive films for our benefit!

“I have no idea yet how I’ll boil down some of the best cinema in the
world to only 12 seconds, but I’m looking forward to kicking this off.”

We’re looking forward to it too. If you want to keep up with Sizemore on 12seconds, you can check out his channel and follow him here.  Thanks Mike!

12seconds’ Users are Awesome!

Hey, this is Beach. First I don’t really like the word “users” to define people who use a web site, I mean not all of you are drug addicts. Second, I know that you probably think that Sol and I use the word “Awesome” quite a bit. We also say “dude”, “rad”, and “sweet”. I’m not sure if it’s our California upbringing or our lack of vocabulary, but when we get excited about something… these words tend to come out. 

With that said, I just wanted to take this time to say that you guys (12seconds’ users) are awesome! It is so cool to see what all of you are doing with the site. So great, in fact, that it’s getting difficult to keep up with it all! This is a good problem to have for sure, but I wanted to let you know that we care about what you guys are doing, and it means so much to us that you are finding 12seconds a fun place to be. Just last night with a quick glance, I saw part of a Sigur Ros concert in detroit, had great seats at a Giants game, and learned that Clay Aiken is gay! All of these were posted within moments of each other! It warms the cockles of my heart. 

I’m not sure if you all know this, but everyone who works on 12seconds has a day job. We do everything in our spare time, in the morning, at lunch, and late into the evenings. It’s fun for us for sure, but since the site is growing so fast, we’re wishing we had more time to devote to welcoming people to the site and helping everyone out. We do our best, but it’s very important to us that everyone feels like they are part of the 12seconds family. So, if you feel so inclined, help us out and welcome new people to the site, give folks some love, tell them how good looking they are (because it’s true), and bring people on board. I’m not asking this because this is some kind of business thing, I’m asking because it’s important to us and everyone that people feel comfortable and part of something that’s… well awesome! And it’s awesome because of you.

Thanks everyone! 

Love, beach

Avast ye scurvy dogs – It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day on 12seconds

Yar.  Hoist the mizzen. Raise the topsail.  And post a 12 in Pirate Speak, me hearties.

Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day on 12seconds (and internationally, around the world.)  And to celebrate the fun, we’re inviting everyone to post, even if you don’t have a 12seconds account.  But ye have to talk like a pirate.

For those who do post, you’ll be invited to join the 12seconds alpha, as booty for your piracy.  (That’s naval piracy, not digital piracy.) Also, everyone who participate will get a special, 12seconds pirate award.  Avast!!

So join the fun and talk like a pirate.  We won’t tell anyone.  Promise.  (Never trust a pirate.) 

Oh, and some mateys across the Internet Seas have shared the news about Talk Like a Pirate Day on 12seconds.

The official Talk Like a Pirate Site, for one (scroll way down.) 

The Inquisitr

Techcrunch

VentureBeat

Talk Like A Pirate Day on 12seconds – Friday Sept. 19

Ahoy mateys! This Friday, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So yes, you guessed it… the 12second challenge on Friday will be… Talk Like A Pirate! Now get ye land lubbers ready t’ practicin’ t’ talk like a pirate!  Everyone who participates will receive a special 12seconds pirate award! Arrrr!

Changes to VIDEO REPLIES

Hey 12ers,

We got a lot of great 12er feedback on Replies.  Some was good, some was meh.  What we realized (fairly quickly) was that we toyed with the simplicity that is 12seconds.  So, we’ve made some specific changes today that will allow streamline things a bit.  They will all go live later tonight when traffic dies off a bit (we’ll have to take the site down for a few moments).

1. Replies will no longer show up in your main feed nor in your channel

We did this because without any context both the main feed (your “home”) and the channel page become nonsensical.

2. Replies will no longer be tweeted

Again, replies don’t make much sense out of context and they make even less sense in Twitter where all you see is a reply URL.  We’ll be making a button on replies that will allow you to manual tweet a reply in the future.

3. All replies will go into a “replies” tab.

We’ll be launching that later tonight.  This will ONLY have replies that are directed at you.

4. Two important bugs have been fixed

You can now preview your content as much as you’d like from both the main recorder and the replies recorder.  They will play back every time and post properly.

Remember – replies WILL show up on the page where you left the reply and every reply has it’s own single video page.

Thanks again to everyone who gave us awesome, supportive feedback.

We can’t do this without you.  Now, please go and record some 12s and continue to tell us how we can make this site awesome, addictive, useful and fun.