12seconds.tv blog

12seconds Roundup: Twitter - we're over it

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:03:09 -0400

It’s been a while since we sent out what used to be our weekly roundup. To be honest, we’ve been pretty busy making some dough doing side projects in order to keep the servers running. We’ve been exploring where to take 12seconds and could use your input.

Twitter is so 2009

We originally built 12seconds to be its own video community and then we integrated it closely with Twitter. Unfortunately the “community” part ended up on Twitter making 12seconds more of a Twitter utility. We’re ready to move on. This doesn’t mean we’re going to end all Twitter integration. It just means that we’re looking for new ideas for 12seconds and to possibly change our focus.

This is where you come in. If you’re reading this then you care enough to spend a few minutes thinking about what you would do with 12seconds. Microchatroulette? :) Share your brilliance and we’ll build it. Think about it! We can do anything we want. Webcams, mobile video - let’s do something unique. We’re super open to ideas right now. Who better to ask?

In other news

We’ve been working on another side project (different than 12seconds) and we’re going to launch it soon so stay tuned. Expect to see it in the next Roundup.

Most importantly

Make a video and say hi. We miss you.

Love,

Team12

12seconds launches on the new TweetDeck for iPhone

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:45:28 -0500

We are super stoked that TweetDeck’s new iPhone app (which launched earlier today) includes video recording supplied by 12seconds. We’ve been working with the fine blokes over at TweetDeck world headquarters for a long time. They have created an amazing application on the Desktop and incredibly ported the same feeling and environment to the iPhone. As iPhone developers ourselves we’re constantly amazed how TweetDeck can do some of the things this app does.

So go download TweetDeck. It’s free and in the app store right now!

Get Crackin' 12seconds!

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:01:00 -0400

You might have noticed there’s a new awesome, amazing, campaign on 12seconds - the Get Crackin’ video contest. This is perfect fodder for the 12seconds crew! Take 12seconds to show you crack a pistachio (with or without an actual pistachio) and be entered to win a Macbook Pro, a Flip Camera as well as a bunch of other super rad prizes. If you haven’t seen the campaign yet, it’s as hilarious as they get. We’ve embedded a sample below.

It’s a huge campaign with lots of stars - like Levi Johnston (aka the dude that got Sarah Palin’s daughter pregnant) and our favorite, Vincent Pastore who played Big Pussy Bonpensiero on the Sopranos. In this campaign you get to be the star because the Wonderful Pistachio people know that social media rocks.

So do it! Get Crackin’ and win a bunch of awesome prizes brought to you by your friends at Wonderul Pistachios and 12seconds.

12cast iPhone app for the 3GS & Contest

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:48:20 -0400

12cast for iPhone 3GS!

Today we’re stoked to announce 12cast, the simplest way to get your videos to Twitter using the iPhone 3GS.

It’s free and available on the app store right now, click here.

Login with your Twitter account, tilt the phone to the left and you’re recording! Title your post and your video is on Twitter. Our goal was to make getting a video to Twitter as easy as possible. There’s a new 12cast award in it for you once you run the app too!

A quick note: If you already have a 12seconds account and have not connected your account with Twitter, you’ll want to do that BEFORE you login with 12cast. If the accounts aren’t linked, we won’t know its you and we’ll make a brand new account for you which might cause some confusion. If you’ve already done this and now have two accounts, shoot us an e-mail and we’ll try and work something out for you.

This marks an exciting day for us as this is our first native video iPhone app. It’s just for the iPhone 3GS right now but we’ve got other things up our collective sleeve for the rest of the proletariat. You can look forward to seeing 12seconds release some other innovative apps soon as well as integrating our service with some excellent partners.

#12cast Contest!

Our goal is to make sure everyone in the whole world knows about 12cast. So, we’re going to have a contest - anyone who uses the hashtag #12cast in any tweet or 12seconds post will get entered to win iPhone data service for 1 year. For every 12seconds post with #12cast you’ll get entered 3 times. You can enter as many times as you’d like. Don’t have an iPhone? We’ll give you the cold hard cash. Have an iPhone but want the cold hard cash instead? Okay. This contest will end on Friday August 7th at 5PM. We’ll announce the winner on Monday morning.

We need to enlist you to help get this contest started. So, please tweet:

#12cast for the iPhone 3GS gets video on Twitter in seconds & could win u a yr of your data plan. http://bit.ly/12cast PLS RT

or, click here and we’ll do all that hard work for you.

Cool community News

Voting on the Challenge: after long debate we have reinstated the challenge voting. It’s just like it used to be - you have 3 votes which you can give to challenge participants. The challenge ends at midnight PST so get all your votes in. We’ve also added a link in the challenge box to allow you to submit challenge suggestions to us! If you’ve got some fun questions to ask everyone, try it out and maybe we’ll use your question!

Today’s Challenge; WYRW (Would You Rather Wednesday): Would you rather have an extra $1000 or magically drop 10 pounds?

Have you seen JohnTMeyer’s 12secondtry? He tries something new and fun and challenges you to do the same. It’s like the daily challenge but a bit more physical. Check it out!

Live video chat with the 12seconds team TODAY @ 4 PM Pacific!

We’re opening up our office for some online “office hours” today at 4:00 for a live video chat on UStream. Come hang out with other 12ers, chat with @jakey12 and @thesolster, ask questions and see what’s new at 12seconds HQ. If you’ve got a webcam, we’ll also allow other 12ers to guest host for a few minutes. Just head over to 12second.tv and click the link at the top of the site.

Again, we’d be appreciative if you’d tweet this.

Thanks 12ers for spreading the word!

New Twitter Features + Happy 1st Birthday!

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:10:40 -0400

Tomorrow is 12seconds first birthday. What was going on back then?

Did you know that Jacob was actually at Summer Camp?
Beach was growing his “funding” beard (he finally had to give up and shave it).
and I was so excited that we got on TechCrunch!

Many others (too many to list!) helped launch 12seconds and get it going. Both technically and emotionally, the support we’ve received from our community has made it incredibly worthwhile. We’re still a bunch of bootstrapped upstarts but the site has grown leaps and bounds. For that we thank you. You’ve given us a chance to survive, thrive and build. We’ll be launching products over the next month that will change social video. That’s our promise to you.

Synchronize your Twitter and 12seconds Followers

Many 12ers use Twitter and it’s annoying to try and figure out which ones are on 12seconds to follow. So, we’ve created a little synchronization tool that will keep your feed dialed into what your Twitter friends are doing on 12seconds. You’ll notice a button that says “sync” on the left-hand gray sidebar right by “My People.” Click it and all will be right in the world.

Comment with Twitter

We look up to great services like Twitpic and we noticed that they do something magical with comments. From now on, anyone with a Twitter account can comment on any 12seconds video. If that user has connected their Twitter account to 12seconds (most 12ers do) then they’ll get the comment as a “mention” on Twitter!

12ers doing stuff

Check out these guys who are raising awareness about climate change by riding their bike! They’re part of the Trek To Re-Energize America.
Good luck to Keysdogg as he travels across the US!
Hey, that Mountain Dew promotion last week was awesome - some of us were excited to win.

Happy Birthday friends,

Team12

Seesmic, 12seconds and Social Video

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:51:00 -0400

Normally I wouldn’t do this but given that Loic mentions 12seconds in his Seesmic video post to the community, I thought I’d give some quick feedback on the state of social video. Given that many friends on Twitter and 12seconds have been pinging me about our “flat growth” (as described in the video) it seemed appropriate.

First of all, as a business, it really helps to focus so it isn’t surprising to me that Loic is guiding his team to compete more on the Twitter client side which has seen some real traction. This makes sense to me.

In light of Loic’s video, I wanted to point out two things:

1. The point of Seesmic (the video site) was not to allow people to share video on Twitter and Facebook. It was to have “video conversation.” It turns out the conversation is on Twitter. Video is a component of that conversation - so are other media types. We compete with Seesmic about as much as we compete with Hulu.

2. Our growth is not flat. We launched a year ago and we’ve had great growth. People like using 12seconds and we’re going to keep building our community. We’re pretty content. Social video isn’t easy but it’s worth it.

Social Video is happening all around you!

Whether it’s via 12seconds or some of the awesome competitive services that have come around in the last couple months, social video is becoming more and more mainstream. Twitter is the platform - video is a big part of it. Think about Neda - that was a YouTube video that got passed around by a social network. If Twitter didn’t exist the impact of that video would have been lessened. That’s one use case for social video. There are many more - some, like video conversation might be too early.

While we’re happy with our growth we see great opportunities to continue experimenting with the social video use case. Twitter and Facebook have both been providing companies like 12seconds with so many awesome integration points, you’ll likely see some pretty inventive stuff around social video over the next year.

Personally, I think the most important advancements will be made in the mobile sharing space - specifically in reference to the new iPhone 3GS. Regardless of where the innovation happens I think there are huge opportunities and we’re not going to be shy about going after them.

12up at TechKaraoke in NYC

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:27:40 -0400

Hello friends! Sol and Jakey are off to the Big Apple to get extra nerdy at the 140Conf. If you still would like to go we have 50% discounts still available. Hit me up on Twitter.

We’re really excited to invite everyone to join in at the TechKaraoke event on Wednesday night at a place called Pulse. Seems like Pulse is a serious TechKaraoke kind of place and we’re pretty seriously bad at Karaoke (as proven at Jakey’s birthday) so it should be fun. We’ll be supplying some courage juice so show on up and have a round on us.

If you’d like to go hit this link and make yourself known:

http://techkaraoke.eventbrite.com

See you in NYC!

Announcing Privacy and Special Deals for the 140Conf!

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:06:50 -0400

First of all, did you notice that we redesigned the entire site? Yep, the whole thing. We announced it last week. Check it out.

When’s the last time you took the daily challenge? Every day there’s a new wacky challenge. As a matter of fact, today is: Would You Rather Wednesday (WYRW)! Just click on the daily challenge button in that top action bar for all the fun you could possibly have in 12seconds (or something like that).

Privacy

Ever wanted to make a video and not have it shot out all through the interwebs? You know, one of those special videos that’s really just for your friends and maybe not your co-workers or your mom. At long last we are introducing privacy features to 12seconds. Here’s the way it works:

Private things can only be seen by people that YOU follow and who follow YOU. Other people who follow you, but that you don’t follow back won’t see your private posts
You can choose private or public on the webcam recorder or the uploader
You can indicate “default privacy” in your settings which means that all of your mobile posts, uploads and webcam posts are by default, private (note that this is the only way to keep your mobile posts private)
Private posts don’t tweet and don’t end up in your public timeline (your channel)
YOU can see everything you make in YOUR channel but others will just see your public 12s
All of your current posts are set to public
You can set a public post to private later (just click the editing tool (the pencil icon) in the feed

12ing at the #140Conf in NYC - 50% off conference passes!

We’re excited that next week we’ll be attending the #140Conf in New York with a host of awesome characters. All these Twitter people can be overwhelming so we’re looking for some backup. We purchased a bunch of tickets to the #140Conf and are offering 50% discounts to our 12ers who would like to go. Look, we need all the 12ers we can get at this thing so email Sol right now and reserve your 50% ticket. Need another reason? We’re going to host our first ever New York City 12up! That’s right boys, girls and puppets the first round is on us. We’re still figuring out the details but it’s time for some IRL lovin! We’ll be staying at the Roger Smith Hotel where the noms are righteous. Come join us!

Changes to the Daily Challenge

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:20:21 -0400

We forgot to include this in the roundup…..

Changes to the Daily Challenge

We’re going to try doing the challenge for a while without voting. We used to do it where we picked the winner at around midnight every night so we’re going back to that. It really allowed us to interact with folks more and we miss it. Also, Daily Challenges end/start at midnight starting tonight (the way it used to be). Let us know what you think and bump or comment on a challenge entry if you like it.

We redesigned 12seconds - all of it.

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:08:00 -0400

Hello 12ers,

Check out the new, improved and awesome 12seconds.tv

Last week we added further Twitter integration and made your feed real-time.

This week we were finally able to finish a redesign that has been a long time in the planning. We think it’s beautiful and hope you do too.

Things that are coming up very soon:

privacy
direct video messaging
new focus on the daily challenge
new focus on awards
brand new community functionality

Confession

We’re still a small company and we’re learning a lot about building community. Over the past several months our traffic has grown considerably as people use 12seconds to share their content on Twitter and Facebook. But, OUR community…well…it hasn’t been as fun as it had been before we got all that traffic (at least for us). So, we’ve decided to put more focus on building community on 12seconds. We want to get back to our roots because for us, the community stuff, the camp-like atmosphere was the most fulfilling.

Mom always said to follow your heart and ours is on 12seconds. Twitter is too noisy now anyway! :)

12seconds is a great place to hang out and make friends. We have a quirky, interesting, sweet, fun, irreverent and caring community. Please join us.

Love,

Team12

PS - Special thanks to Pat who helped us a lot with the redesign. Special love to Beach who managed to do the design while going through some tough times.

PPS - have feedback or thoughts? let me know.

Real Time Twitter Conversation and a Big Favor

Thu, 28 May 2009 18:52:59 -0400

This week 12seconds is busting a move (or two)!

- addition of twitter @replies and DMs to your feed
- everything on 12seconds is going to happen in real-time (auto-updating)
- you can now register using just your Twitter credentials

Okay, what the heck does that all mean?

Twitter @replies and DMs into your real-time feed

If you’ve connected your Twitter account to 12seconds then you’ll see your Twitter @replies and DMs appear in your 12seconds feed. From 12seconds you’ll be able to @reply and DM people on twitter using video. Sometimes words aren’t enough - whether you want to give someone the bird or show them your new pair of shoes, 12seconds is here to provide a conversation tool that makes your tweets move.

Also, 12seconds has become real-time. Now when there’s new content for you to see - either from someone you’re following on 12seconds or Twitter conversation, you’ll see a status bar appear letting you know that there’s new content for your consumption pleasure!

Tweet this for us, please…

A couple of weeks ago we added Facebook connect which allows people to register with just their Facebook login. Today, we’re proud to announce the addition of “sign in with Twitter.” Now any Twitter user can utilize 12seconds with just their Twitter login info. Even if you’ve already registered for 12seconds before we suggest you add the “sign in with Twitter” as it is easier for us to manage your Twitter password changes.

Would you mind telling your friends that they can now use 12seconds with just their Twitter login. Tweet This:

Add video to your tweets! 12seconds.tv now allows anyone to use 12seconds with just their Twitter login. PLS RT

We so appreciate your support! Go to 12seconds, check out the changes and let us know what you think.

Just remember this,

Team12

Happy Memorial Day weekend message!

Sat, 23 May 2009 23:08:05 -0400

Happy Memorial Day weekend message!

Announcing Facebook Connect!

Fri, 01 May 2009 16:33:46 -0400

We’re excited that we just launched a pretty big feature…

Facebook Connect!

Our singular goal at 12seconds is to make sharing those short blasts of video easy. We recognize that just about everyone has a Facebook account. Connecting your 12seconds account to your FB account does some awesome things…

1. Your FB friends can watch your 12seconds posts in the FB news feed
2. If you’re logged into FB you can login to 12seconds with one click
3. Your friends and family can register for 12seconds using their FB credentials

Let’s talk about #3 for a quick moment. Your friends on Facebook can now register for 12seconds with a few simple clicks. In fact, all they have to do is pick a 12ername. You see, you’ve got hundreds of friends on Facebook just sitting there doing their thing totally oblivious to the PHENOMENON THAT IS 12! They go about their daily business and have never said things like, “I should 12 that,” or “that guy is 12ing off.”

Please help them by telling all your FB friends to join 12seconds! They will thank you and probably start sending you money anonymously.

You can find the Facebook Connect button on the upper right hand side of the logged-in homepage. Just click it and you’re connected!

Also, as a little plus, if you connect your existing account, you can login with your FB credentials from now on in addition to your 12ername and password. If you’re logged into to Facebook already, that’s a one-click login to our site without typing anything!

Let us know in the comments or via e-mail if you like the feature and if you have any suggestions of other enhancements we can make regarding our integration with Facebook.

Have a great weekend!

Bawling because you are so phucking awesome. on...

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:27:00 -0400

Bawling because you are so phucking awesome. on 12seconds.tv

I’m very sad to relay that our dear friend, Pasha passed away today after a long, courageous fight with cancer. This is a great loss as Pasha was a great man. We knew him through his tweets and via his web cam. He was funny, intelligent, encouraging, caring, fascinating and interested in the well being of others. He’d give us product suggestions as we always showed him new features before they were released. He gave my friend Beach advice as he struggled with cancer. He’d comment as my son was enjoying his first year of life. In the last few weeks there was an emptiness on 12seconds as he was struggling and we all knew it…we all knew that this day would come. Now the day is here and it’s still a shock. It’s strange how close you can feel to someone who you’ve never really met. Pasha, we love you and miss you and will remember you always.

Please note that Pasha had a wonderful family who needs our help. Please take this opportunity to make a donation in his honor at any Wells Fargo Branch. Just go in and tell them it is for the Phares Family, Wells Fargo Acct# 6962776206

If you’d like to leave a memory or say goodbye please comment on the video embedded above by clicking here and going to this single video page. You can leave text comments or video replies.

RIP Pasha.

Alerting us to inappropriate content

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:32:52 -0400

Hey everyone,

Happy Friday! - Just wanted to mention the little update to the site today. You’ll notice little flags in your video feeds to the very left, as well as flags next to comments and the video itself on the main single video pages. These flags are there for you to alert us to inappropriate content that may be on the site. As we grow and gather more users, we’re bound to have a few things pop up here and there that violate our terms of service. We’d love for you to simply click the flag and fill out the little form so we’re aware of “problem content” on our site.

Thanks for your help in keeping 12seconds an awesome place for everyone. Enjoy the weekend.

This Week: 12omercials!, Statistics, and a site status update

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:08:26 -0400

Here’s the latest updates from the 12osphere:

Site Status

We’re now 100% operational (including our API) and should actually be running even faster and smoother than before. Thanks for your patience as we delt with our hosting provider’s outages yesterday.

12omercials - the first “tweet-able commercial”

Need to get rid of that old couch, sell that bike for some extra dough, promote your blog or raise money for charity? 12omercials are there for you. It’s like a normal post but even coolerer (yes, that’s a word). You can embed your twitter address and a link to whatever you’re promoting in the player itself. It’s like your very own personal ad unit on Twitter. It’s free and easy just like everything else on 12seconds.

Win a trip to Vegas! LG wants to know what your Versa Vice is?

Yes! 12seconds has a sponsor this week which is LG promoting their new, rad phone - the Versa. What’s thing you do with your mobile phone that you probably shouldn’t? Texting during dinner? Web browsing during the birth of your first child? Let us know in the LG 12omercial campaign. Everyone who makes a 12 in this campaign is entered to win an all-expenses trip to Vegas. Yep, we’re serious!

> note: this marks the first paid sponsor we have at 12seconds. 12seconds is not funded and is powered by our passion for the community. Cool sponsors like LG doing fun promotions like this keeps us going. So, please support our sponsors and participate in the LG campaign. A free trip to Vegas would be cool too, right?

Stats, it’s all about the stats

We’re releasing a statistics feature for your 12seconds vids. Look next to your videos and you’ll see a little “stats” icon. You’ll find out a ton about your 12s. We built it to help you run effective 12omercial campaigns but it’s available on all your vids.

The Action Bar

You’ll note that we moved recording right under the header with a bunch of other cool “actions” in our new slick looking action bar! From the action bar you can webcam it, upload it, get your mobile settings, take the challenge, use the 12erator and make the 12omercials. That’s a pretty powerful action bar, now isn’t it?

Get over to 12seconds and make all your dreams come true!

Team12

12seconds Maintenance Issues Bulletin

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:35:52 -0400

Just wanted to provide some updates of what is working and what isn’t. As many of you know, we suffered through a full data center outage this morning as our hosting provider was literally wiped off the internet for several hours. This happened while we were performing upgrades for this mornings (which then became this afternoon’s) new feature launch. Because of the unfortunate timing, it didn’t allow us to do everything in the order and pace we would have liked which has left our servers in fragile state.

I also havn’t slept in about 3 days and was really looking forward to going to sleep last night before this whole mess happened. So, we’ve managed to get the site back up, mobile site back up, e-mails, iPhone app support, RSS, and all of the authentication and recording functionalities of the API. At this time, our API feeds are unavailable (these are what you need to see 12s in Tweetdeck, for example) and our popular “everyone” feed is frozen from earlier this afternoon.

We’ll have a fix for this within the next 12-24 hours after I get some sleep and have a chance to look at the problem with my brain still functioning.

As always, we greatly appreciate your use of the site, your interest in 12seconds, and most of all, your patience as we grow and work through these issues.

We’ll keep you all posted on the latest updates on the @12seconds Twitter account and on my own personal account @jakey12 - If you have a major issue that you wish to report over the next 12 hours, please hit up @thesolster as he’ll be monitoring.

Thanks,

Jacob

PS - here’s a Forbes article that talks more about what happened with the outage

Fessing Up

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:20:41 -0400

Fessing Up

12seconds Roundup! Procreation! 12for12!

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:30:31 -0400

Dear 12ers,

It’s Spring and just like cute, furry animals in the forest we are spawning new 12ers!
Documentally had Kidumentally, DudetoDad is now completely a Dad and Jeremy had himself a little mon (spelled correctly, trust me, click it). Congrats to all!

The Good Stuff

Neil Patrick Harris and Joss Whedon (among others) made an appearance on 12seconds at the Streamys - check it out!
Did you know that you raised $600 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society last week? Good work, see the videos here.
Our friend and superbadass12er, Batty, has created a new term - she made a 12 about it (and one man very nervous).

Make a Commercial for 12seconds! 12for12!

12seconds is growing, sure, but we pride ourselves on having a rad community of individuals who make our community cooler than the average community. Look around, people…we’ve got quite a few badass 12ers. What we’ve realized is that we really want more of YOUR friends to join 12seconds. If they’re YOUR friends they must be cool, right? Thus, we’re starting a campaign that will last one week called, “12for12.” The goal is simple - make a 12seconds long commercial and get the word out to your friend and followers to join up! Make sure you’ve connected 12seconds to your Twitter and Facebook accounts!

Community Notes

Still looking for superbadass12ers - help our community grow - email Sol!
Watch today’s news brought to you by Manata
12ers doing good! drs650 is raising money for Chrohn’s - check it out.
Raising money for a good thing? Email me and I’ll stick it in the newsletter.

That is all.

Team12

rabbithole: Angie and I always find a way to get into trouble,...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:57:22 -0400

rabbithole:

Angie and I always find a way to get into trouble, but this time it was thanks to @thesolster, who was able to sneak us back to his dressing room for a pre-show cocktail and quick 12sec vid.