Large, Quick Update

Its been a while since I have posted anything about Blellow's ongoing beta releases.

In that while, there has been a lot going on, but the idea that Blellow is still in beta is a positive - things are changing for the better in giant leaps, but there are still bits and pieces that need completing before the beta tag fully goes away.

However, it is interesting that if you use the non-beta url, the site does work fully on the standard url as well - at least what I have seen of it does.

Several things have been added to the UI that have cleaned up the organization of how things appear onscreen, and the order of posts in threaded view.

The Blellow blog itself is growing rapidly, there are many great posts from the Blellow team, and quite a library of guest articles (including some by yours truly) is being amassed as well.

There are a few things going on behind the scenes as well, with different things ramping up - the API should be out again soon, there was some brief issues with it, and there are a few more things coming up that will become more apparent in the near future, and Blellow should really be exploding yet again very soon.

The Pain Of Growth

As the Blellow turns...

Blellow is still growing, both in features and in users, and there is starting to be smaller and smaller times where posts are few and far between. More and more features, some obvious and some not so obvious are popping up every day. The Blog is really picking up, several guest bloggers are doing well posting freelancing stuff.

The staff has been really great, answering questions and keeping things going. If there's one thing they're doing wrong, it's caring too much about what we think. Yeah, there are some things that you can ask people their opinions on, but when you are the people that brought something from the ground up, there are some things you should not be asking your users.

I love that the community is so interactive with the moderators and creators of Blellow...but I challenge them to keep a few things to themselves. I'm sure there are things they know that we don't...but maybe its time to increase that list of things that is their business and not mine.

Growth And Maturity

With Blellow now approaching 5000 users (per Mandi, Blellow's CEO), the community is really starting to grow and take shape. Some of the high profile social media folks are taking notice and beginning to contribute, which while adding to Blellow's legitimacy, does not completely define it, as many users have made quite a home on Blellow and are contributing not only to the main site, but to the blog as well.

I don't want to jinx it either, but there has been a tremendous lack of spam within the site as well. It may be because of the relative size of Blellow, but I think something built into the site itself has something to do with it as well.

The site officers have stated that things are finally approaching where they saw Blellow before the beta tag was removed, and with a few more additions, its hoped that Blellow will go fully operational in about six weeks. Whether there will be some giant public launch, I don't know, especially since a party as large as SxSw was the beta launch...it may be hard to top that, or the tweetup they cohosted recently.

Don't Make Something What It's Not

Blellow beta is still going, and having gotten a little publicity from members and outside sources, the community at large is growing steadily now, which is good. But with this growth is coming a large new group of people who didn't get the first line of information on Blellow before it launched, and are coming in with a lot less information than some of the rest of us did.

That's not a bad thing, because not everyone shares the same information. No two people do, in fact. Everyone's information is different, and everyone's ideas are. Since the staff of Blellow is so public and always asking for new ideas and things that we do and/or don't like about Blellow as a service, they're often getting suggestions....some good, and some not. It would take too long to list any of them, and I don't want to promote or piss off any specific Blellow users, so I won't.

One thing I have definately noticed over the past few days has been the "why can't this be more like 'insert other service here'." It's not supposed to be. Of course there are some similarites shared by many a social networking site, but they all have their differences. Taking a new setup that is built and marketed upon being different, and asking the people behind it to change things so they are the same as another service doesn't fit the idea of the new service. Blellow was made as it was for a reason, and it's doing a great job being itself. Blellow is not Twitter, or Facebook, or Digg, or Yahoo!Groups for that matter. It's Blellow. Leave it that way.

Blellow - post SXSW

Onward....

So...Blellow had its true public launch at South by Southwest at the end of last week. It looks like most of the bugs were worked out, as a few last minute changes seem to have taken effect within the last day or so...no complaints there.

The showing at SxSW has led to a large influx of people...and since a lot of them had no idea what Blellow was until they saw the booth display, and didn't have the luxury of talking about it beforehand, there are a chunk of people who just seemed to blindly sign up and have no idea how to work Blellow, but that's expected for now, and from a crowd as large as SxSW.

Time shall tell how the system holds up, but for now it looks to be doing just fine.

Staff and Crew

I've done to entries on the site itself, which is still working very well...its becoming a nice community now that its slowed down and easier to keep track of. A few of the smaller issues are being ironed out, but they still have three weeks until full launch, so hopefully they'll get it all taken care of.

I want to take a moment to mention how awesome the staff behind Blellow has been to everyone, since before any of us even knew why a girl with blue hair with a Twitter name of Blellow followed us. I've had several conversations, both onsite and off, with Mandi, Veronica, and Sean, and each of them have been more than friendly with me and with everyone I've seen onsite. It takes a lot of work to launch something like Blellow from the ground up, and they're doing a great job. If you're going to SXSW, stop by their booth and say hi...you won't regret it.

A day later

Now that the initial rush has died down, I was really able to get a good "kick the tires" style look at Blellow.

All of the bugs that the team said would be fixed have been taken care of. They're still working on a few small things, but have acknowleged that, and its okay.

The chatter is definitely beginning to grow, both in the group areas and in the central area that everyone can use. I am starting to see the great value this site can have, not only for freelancers(their main target), but for anyone with an interest in creative technology. The group function allows you to start a group on ANYTHING....and I do mean anything...there are groups that range from creating healthy personal relationships to Apple fans, to sharing your music taste via last.fm, etc.

The variety of personalites is emerging and it is really making for a great beta test. If the microenvironment that is this beta test is replicated in larger numbers when the official release happens, Blellow will go far.

Go to http://budurl.com/blellowbeta to check out the beta test for yourself, it's a pretty open beta.