Click to viewSeesmic, an online-video startup, is laying off some employees working to create original clips for the short-form video site. The official explanation, from newly unemployed video host Rachael Joy: "Seesmic's not a content site, never has been. It's a conversation tool." Joy was host of the startup's daily news and views "Seesmic du Jour." Talk of layoffs is not the conversation founder Loïc Le Meur wanted to start about Seesmic, which lets users pretend they're talking to each other through the medium of short, recorded webcam clips. Joy delivered the news with a wagging finger, in a spot-on parody of the bombastic Le Meur.Before flirting with the idea of Seesmic as an online-video studio, Le Meur had been aggressively pushing Seesmic as a platform for blog comments, even trying to convince Valleywag to deploy the company's product. The startup had been engaged in a major redesign, already delayed, that would have highlighted its video shows, according to a source. The layoffs suggest that plan is off. It's also attempting a complete rewrite of the site's backend code — an expensive endeavor. One has to wonder if this is a truly a strategy shift or just a ploy to slash the company's burn rate.