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.

My First Blellow Experience

A few weeks ago on Twitter, I befriended someone named blellow, after finding a shared interest in something or other, I don't recall what it was anymore. As it turned out, she was part of a team designing a new social networking interface, actually named Blellow, and her name was Mandi. Regardless, I happily signed up to be a beta tester, because I'm nice like that...and because the idea sounded really cool...and because I got the Malcom In The Middle reference.

Yesterday, the site launched. As soon as the email hit my inbox, I signed on and created my account, happily finding a few dozen other folks doing as I did, and the community was already in full swing, swarming with as many Blellow workers as people, questions and answers firing all over the place. I immediately settled in, easily uploading a picture and setting up my profile.

All the while, some known bugs were explained, and this morning, several were fixed. I couldn't find anything that I could break that the Blellow team didn't already know, so big kudos to them for that. Speaking of kudos, they implimented what they call kudos, which are similar to message board reputation points, they're given for being helpful or for whatever positive reason you feel, from what I can tell.

The conversating and posting system is set up really well, and much like almost everything else within, is customizable based on a few options so you can keep track of things whichever way you prefer. You have the option to join and create groups so members can discuss particular topics ranging from health care to regional food and fare.

The Blellow community has great potential, and I cannot wait to see what is in store for us next. For more information, or to sign up to be a beta tester, please visit http://budurl.com/blellowbeta or check them out at SXSW if you are going.