BravoNation, a site that allows users to send electronic awards to others, is the most recent product launch from Yahoo Brickhouse. Brickhouse head Salim Ismail sent me an invitation to try out the service this evening. I dove in - and this is one screwball product.
The point of Brickhouse (I think) is to come up with half baked ideas, throw them against the wall, and see what sticks. That means they shouldn’t launch bland, safe products. Instead, they go a little crazy, and probably expect a high failure rate. We recently covered FireEagle from Brickhouse, a very promising platform for leveraging location information.
I suspect FireEagle will be a hit over time. BravoNation, not so much. Right now it’s basically a greeting card site with a currency attached to limit the number of awards that can be sent (and thereby, presumably, to attach artificial value to the awards). Users choose from a variety of pre-selected images and then write their own message. There are a number of examples, such as “You’re My Best Friend!” and “Thanks for Saving Me From That Creepy Date!” You can also use a basic Flash tool to draw your own image. The FAQs say that soon users will be able to upload images, too.
Sending a Bravo costs Bravo Bucks, or Bruckos for short. Accounts are refilled every eight hours, which may be a bit of wishful thinking from the Brickhouse team.
There are a few other bells and whistles - an API is discussed in the FAQs, for example. And eventually images drawn by users may be shared so that others can send them, too. But for now all I see is a very rough ecard site that has scores of entrenched competitors.
The BravoNation team includes Gordon Luk (product lead), Gordon Luk (design), Ernie Hsiung (developer), Nikhil Bobb (developer) and Ray McClure (Flash, artwork).
BravoNation is in private beta. We’ll add it to InviteShare in the next day or so and give out a few accounts for people to try out. (Update: Put your email address down for an invitation here). The screenshot above (click for large view) shows the Bravo creation process. Below is a shot of what the award looks like for the recipient.
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Finally something new from yahoo… to wrap up 2007.
Love the idea.
It is positive and encourages others to express positive reactions
I think your right, this website isn’t going to stick very long on that warm wall.
it takes something like a simple thanks and makes it all … lame. sorry. i don’t want emails like this even if it is thanks or Bravo. it’s like thanks, here is a big hassle.
The strategy Brickhouse has is extremely good. They don’t seem to care about corporate communications in this project, just a lot of teams that develop products. They don’t care about interoperability, not-competing with Yahoo!-products or anything else.
They basically create start-ups within Yahoo!. If something is successful - whatever that means - they give it more resources and “acquire” it, just that they don’t have to spend billions on the projects like they would have to with Facebook et al.
Congratulations to this strategy, whoever is responsible for that!
Yahoo stole my idea
i guess i’ll pick something else to make me a millionaire - lol
Yahoo is NOT a great company anymore. All the strong people are now at Google or Facebook, not Yahoo. Yahoo still has a lot of traffic, a great finance site, a decent search engine, a decent news service and a few other solid products — but that’s it. Yahoo in the deadpool within 10 years.
Michael you lost your self confidence. Writing a post while thinking of the readers from silicon valley, ceos and other industrial guys, wouldn’t show the real Arrington in you.
“Yahoo Launches BravoNation. I’m Not Loving It.”
Funny. What’s this? Yahoo launched Bravo Nation. But you have some doubt?. If you honor this, you will get a risk? If you don’t love it? Why do you post? Also, bravo nation is a quiet good thing i think.
Anyway, i’m talking general, you do this everytime. be yourself.
>Yahoo is NOT a great company anymore.
Still good but, yea, not great. Their competitors are much, much stronger these days, and in the foreseeable future.
About as dumb as that flower card site you raved about from the fish guys. Oh, and the fish guys nominated for best design on the crunchies? whatever
All the president’s men; people vs. larry flint; Michael Moore Sicko…
Be careful when you say something online. mike. you never know what will happen to you life. You know Techcrunch have real president primines & TV. Now, you putting himself huge risk. Remember yahoo arrest journalist.
Health insurance companies can do anything stupid in your profile.
You should never put title “I’m Not ….. it”, “screwball”, “Bruckos”
don’t put yourself into too trouble. There is no turn back.
Leave to Duncan, Erik, Biggs, etc.
If you destory Yahoo’s startup product which they spend millions.
It’s will also be your fault… Dude. You take risk.
Remember you mock Rivals.com pump and dump. Yahoo acquire rivals.
Stock… Nothing happen. Don’t say too much.
My old Friend got infested bedbugs after printing something stupid on blog.
All you bitchy readers need to read somewhere else if you don’t link the work.
you should probably give some time for them…
Yahoo kills me coming out with this stuff.
Would they please fix the f-in spam filter on Yahoo! Mail first …. this is ridiculous.
I like the idea - and time will tell if other agree with me or with this article…
Hello, got a few minor corrections - Kevin Cheng (of OK/Cancel) was the design lead and art director for the project, not myself or Ray McClure. Thanks!
Get ready for next Buble Burrst !!! Its coming ….
Till then Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays
Enjoy
How does one reach Ismail or Brickhouse folks to make suggestions?
These limited-currency awards are useful, but they are a feature, not a product. At BigOven.com, limitd chef medals can be awarded from one member to another to thank them for a great recipe, or great cooking-related photo or video, or general contributions to the community. At 43Things, you can hand out limited-currency “cheers” to other members, encouraging them toward one of their goals. On Facebook, of course, you can gift icons to people, and many of those are available only in “scarce” supply.
(I know Gordon and work for Yahoo!, but not at Brickhouse.)
It’s really worth reading Andy Baio’s review of Bravonation and Gordon’s series of blog posts that led to the idea of Bravonation. It might help you “get it”, if you don’t already.
For example, I wouldn’t describe Bravonation as a “greeting card site”. I wouldn’t use it to send birthday cards or anything similar, but I would use to to create and send awards. Things that I might send to more than one person, and things that other people might covet and strive to achieve. It’s more like Facebook’s gifts, except you can create your own, it doesn’t cost any money, and it’s open.
But the real exciting part of Bravonation is the API. Imagine the Xbox Achievements system, except without the lockin. What if there was a site that collated your Xbox game achievements, your Desktop Tower Defense leveling awards, the fact that you’d posted your 100th post to Metafilter, reaching 70 in WoW, etc. That’s the dream behind Bravonation.
I’m using the API to add awards to a site I run. Users will receive Bravos from the site when they reach certain milestones. And they can display them on the Bravonation awards case next to other awards other sites/applications/people give to them. I think that’s awesome.
Since I have not received my Beta invite, by this post I am assuming that this is nothing but a grander version of Myspace Flash Generators. Give it 4 months after launch to get into the deadpool.
all i want to ask is….why? i get the idea of experimenting, and i think yahoo still has potential to build great things, but this is just a gimmick.
… because you sir have good taste. This is one tacky site!
fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
At least they are trying to reactivate creativity.
In a weird web 2.0 version of the twilight zone, I wonder if it can throw itself against a wall, notice that it doesnt stick, and so delete itself.
When its open for public?
It sounds more like there’s a lot of gaming elements in the product, it’s because most of the team are huge gamers, and looks like they adopted a lot of gaming principles into the application. It’ll be interesting to see what crosses over well and what doesn’t. It’ll also be interesting how the product - and their roles - will change and evolve over the next couple of months. And by “interesting,” I mean a mix between “exciting” and “petrifying.”
Parul
http://www.bhopu.com
As Fabian said, score one for creativity. It’s refreshing to see Yahoo coming out with something totally new instead of creating “me too” products. Reminds me of the good ol days.
oh yeah! e-cards are cool. You should check out my HappyWishes (http://apps.facebook.com/happywishes) facebook application that lets you connect with friends/colleagues on facebook.
Yeah, doesn’t seem that revolutionary.
Innovative idea, will it going to cost to send the electronic award?