Personal video startup Seesmic laid off three employees on Monday, as partially reported by Valleywag today. The company is moving away from making original content, said Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur today, and two of the layoffs, Sukhjit Ghag and Rachael Joy, were the hosts of its four-month-old shows unBoxing and Newspop. The third was in marketing, according to Le Meur.

Thanks and Au revoir!email: rachaeljoy@earthlink.net twitter: rachaeljoyTV seesmic: rachaeljoy

The San Francisco-based company now has 20 employees. When asked to explain the layoffs, Le Meur referred to a post of ours about portals having trouble with making original content. He said the costs of making shows lead by hosts who were not producers and editors would only rise, and it wasn’t clear that the Seesmic community wanted shows hosted by TV-type personalities with TV-type looks. Seesmic will continue to produce Seesmix, a digest of user conversations on the site.

Seesmic tries to be transparent with its community, and to that regard Le Meur pointed to Joy’s announcement of her termination on Seesmic itself, followed by his reply wishing her well.

Seesmic has raised $12 million in funding from Omidyar Network, Wellington Partners, Atomico and individuals.