Silicon Valley is littered with the corpses of companies that figured building something cool was a substitute for building a serious business plan. And I generally don't take that type of effort too seriously. But having said that, I have a hunch that a gung-ho group of Israeli entrepreneurs may be on to something. The 11-month-old company is called SeeToo. Its product -- a service, really -- is an interesting The 11-month-old company is called SeeToo. Its product — a service, really — is an interesting variation on instant messaging and file sharing. Instead of sharing music, SeeToo customers will be able to share home videos with a friend, or maybe a group of friends, instantly, using only a browser and a tiny client. Co-founder Yoav Ilan walked me through a demonstration — he in his New York office, me at my desk in San Francisco. Ilan pointed his video camera out the window and shot a few seconds of a yacht cruising the East River. He sent me a link via e-mail. I clicked on it, Firefox opened a window, and there it was. A few seconds later, the scene shifted and I was watching a clip of his baby daughter happily crawling across a room. If I’d been on the other end — that is, the originator of a video — all I’d have to do is go to the SeeToo site, download a 600KB client, point it to the file I wanted to share, and send an e-mail or IM to my friend. That’s it. For now, SeeToo runs only on Windows. The client works with a standard Flash codec and is scalable, depending on the capabilities of the hardware and the amount of available bandwidth. Any Flash-enabled browser will do. Here’s why Ilan thinks SeeToo will be successful: • There a need. “It solves a real-life pain point. Everyone wants to share videos with their family and friends.” • Video technology has become simple, portable, and always available (think cell phones as well as video cams). • Storage is cheap. • Bandwidth is readily available. Also on the plus side: Ilan and his partners have been around for a while. The lead investor and active board member is Yossi Vardi, who founded ICQ, then sold it to AOL for a bundle. Ilan founded and sold MessageVines, a wireless IM venture. Ilan says he learned an important lesson at MessageVines, which was not really a success. “Sometimes you can be too early.” But for the reasons bulleted above, he figures the time is right for SeeToo. For now, the angel-backed startup is focusing on perfecting its technology and building a customer base. SeeToo recently launched a private beta and is taking applications for testers on its home page. The company has 10 employees, split between New York and Tel Aviv, where the engineering team resides. Ilan says he and partners have some ideas of how to monetize the service, but haven’t yet settled on a plan. The site could be advertising supported, or it could work on a tiered licensing model. There are a number of companies building out the IM model (Meebo comes to mind), but I don’t think any of the others offer the same type of functionality. That could change, of course. But you have to like the energy and enthusiasm Ilan conveys. “I’ve been infected with the entrepreneurship bug; it’s a lifestyle,” he says. I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net. Technology Industry