If you cannot say something in 160 characters or less, then it is not worth saying (except for anything you read on TechCrunch, of course). That text-message ethos is now moving over to other forms of communication like Twitter (which caps messages at 140 characters). The latest example is Blippr, a site where you can review books, games, music, and movies in SMS-sized bites.
Paring a review down to 160 characters and a rating really forces reviewers to get to the essential appeal or flaw of the work being reviewed. For instance, do you really need to know anything more about Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas than that one reviewer likes it so much, he says: “I think the book is falling apart by now ;)”? Or about Amy Winehouse: “Ummmm NO! She can’t sing.”
The micro-review site will forward your Blipps to Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed (although the fact that it allows 20 characters more than Twitter means that overly-lengthy reviews will be shortened when they are translated into Tweets). In keeping with SMS culture, the four ratings are emoticons: =D, =), =|, or =(.
Like Twitter, you can follow what your friends are Blipping, and update your “media status” of what you are reading, watching, playing, or listening to. Now everyone really can be a critic.
Here are some screenshots of sample Blipps:
Sometimes 160 characters isn’t enough for a text message.. lol http://blabtech.blogspot.com
I hate when imdb reviewers go all over the plot, as if the synopsis wasn’t enough. most people there can’t get to the point and make a long story short. this site is a good idea and should broaden to travel, teachers, restaurants, museums, fashion,… you name it, and could be a one destination for quick reviews. i love it.
But yeah, sometimes it’s not enough. “Good movie, I watched it on saturday with some friends” - very insightful. Unless it’s someone you know and respect as a critic - that “blip” is useless. And that’s where the network comes in, which gives me some hope.
Maybe they can mix it up a bit and let you send an SMS with the tittle and get back the best review (as voted by users) or “24 liked it, 2 didn’t”
But the concept is good, third party applications are the ones that make twitter what it is (essential but bad).
@Tuscon: You said “Unless it’s someone you know and respect as a critic - that “blip” is useless. And that’s where the network comes in, which gives me some hope.”
Bingo. That’s the nail on the head. Fundamentally, blippr is a social recommendations service. We believe that it’ll work because you trust your buddy already, and when he says “The Dark Knight was amazing, go see it”, that’s going to count for more with you than all the anonymous reviews in the world. There’s been a lot of focus on blippr’s twitter-esque qualities, but at its core, it isn’t just a microblogging service - it’s a service that believes that your existing relationships are more valuable to you than an algorithm making recommendations to you.
Erick, thanks so much for the review of blippr!
Just for a quick clarification, there would need to be a truncated tweet on Twitter even if blips were only 140 characters, given the fact that the tweet would need to show the title the blip is about.
Thanks again for the review! We really appreciate it!
Excellent! Just what I was waiting for. Have always been a critic at heart.
Its appalling that links to a particular service or sites are 90% of the time not added to news posts on techcrunch. I’ always have to google the name of the service in order to find the links of visit the sites.
An example is this post on blippr. There is no link to visit blippr on the post
i hate clones
where are the innovators?
seem like majority of new startups are either youtube clones or twitter clones
silicon valley wtf is going on?
innovation can also be taking a good idea and putting a different twist on it. Franklin may have discovered electricity but Edison made it shine.
wow great quote. i will steal it if you don’t mind
Can students review their teachers and classes on blippr?
There’s http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ for that, albeit in “long form”.
The link to blippr in the article seems to be broken.
silicon valley dropout:
Word!
Cant you just use Twitter to write mini reviews?
You mean this really got funding from VCs?
i kinda like the idea of short but sweet reviews….i can’t stand reviews were the users goes into so much depth and detail…it’s almost fake. I’ll leave the big reviews to the big names, but from the average person, a simple “it sucks” or “greatest.thing.ever.” is more than enough.
A made up word AND an intentional misspelling in the name… does it get more web 2.0 than Blippr?
Heh, we know it’s uber-web 2.0ish, but…well, it’s a 6-character domain. There aren’t a whole lot of those left!
@Jerry Thanks!
@Mark Drapeau No, sorry.
@Joe T You can write mini-reviews on Twitter, but then you’ll lose them over time. We offer several organization tools on blippr in addition to just the review piece.
And actually, no, we haven’t gotten funded by VCs. We’re an angel-funded, two-man startup, only one of which is full-time. We’ve bootstrapped it.
@billy We’re with you. You’d rather know what 5 of your friends think, then 1 person you don’t know thinks about the latest release.
I enjoyed being in the beta on this one. It’s a fun way of categorizing your own stuff, and sharing it as well. Great looking site too interface-wise.
Damn I thought for sure when I saw “Blippr” it was going to be the REAL “Twitter for video” or a parody of Blip. Does everyone here listen to mico-house//tech-house//glitch around here? What’s with all the super micro, small, minimal themed startups? Do you take requests? I’d like to hear some bangin’ house startups please. Maybe a dash of diva vocal house with a splash of progressive after a few drinks and closer to the 2am mark.
http://oo5.whatiminto.com/ does something similar, collecting reviews you tweet on twitter if you address them to @oo5.
Blippr - Thrive or Fail[VOTE]: http://snurl.com/36n0m [www_thriveorfail_com]
We live in an age of sound bites and elevator pitches. Who cares if the devil is in the details (certainly not VCs these days?)
160 words is still better than 140. I guess that’s a sign of progress
@Robert Gaal Thanks, your advocacy of the product has been a pleasure to have given your experience, Robert!
@:: r :: You’re hilarious!
Glad to entertain. Make the free service a 70 character limit to force those freeloaders into being more succinct. If they want to double bump they can pay for the full 140 and get those few extra finger thrusts in.
Man, my mind is in the gutter this morning.
Coming next :
COVERZ - social network to share geolocalized book reviews in 12 seconds videos, in a facebook applet linked in friendfeed.
Enough already!
Looks to be a cool service. To bad it’s hidden behind another suck-ass web 2.0 name and logo.
Have are brains all now been condensed down to Ronald Reagan size (as president, he refused to read any memo over 1 page in length)? I don’t know. Short and sweet is golden but perhaps the micro message has been overplayed. Surely we have thoughts worth sharing in excess of 140 characters.
Sure, there’s definitely room for longer thoughts, but we figure that “the bottom line” is what most people are interested in when reading a media review. When it’s a car or doctor, sure, you want the 26-page version, but we think that when it’s a movie, a trusted friend saying “Hey, go see this, it’s awesome” is more useful to you than a big long review from someone you don’t know. Longer reviews absolutely have their place, but we’re not trying to be that place.
http://www.blippr.com/
I’m Chris! I think there’s totally room! The bottom line is interest is generated by meme viralocity!
That’s not me, but I’m not even sure what it means.
Character restriction makes sense not so much because “If you cannot say something in 160 characters or less, then it is not worth saying it” but rather because users are no longer reading…at least not in the way the use to. They now skim and scan through text…so sites that want to help user get the valuable information easier and faster need to present the info/data in a different format. Some thought on that here: http://gheller.wordpress.com/2.....n-twitter/
So why is this review so much longer than 160 characters?
This is a fantastic site and I believe it will be mega-successful. Much of the time you want a quick review… was it good or did it suck? … http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
I think it sounds like a great idea. Right now when I want a movie review I got to Search.Twitter and see what people are talking about. I think it’s more about aggregated reviews than single reviews. But the character limit gives more breadth because you get a larger sample of people. Good luck to you guys.
Ok so the next big thing will be blogging service with images width limited to 150px?
seem so the way the twitter clones are pushing out sites
Calling my developer… :p
Great idea!
umm - twitter days are over now?
I already use Twitter to send out Mafia Movie Haiku’s from mobflix. I don’t see a reason why another application needs to involved.
In addition, I twittered a Drum & Bugle corps show from Naperville Il last month. Many people have done similar reviews of the Batman movie through Twitter.
Absolutely. We think those are very definitely valid use cases, but we’re shooting for more of a recommendation engine than a straight-up “platform to review things”. The short character limit tends to produce more involvement, which means a better data model and better recommendations all around.
We’re also offering various organization tools to help the avid media consumer keep their library organized, sortable, searchable, and all that jazz. We have quite the roadmap laid out, and do seek to become more than just a “twitter with a media focus”.
The twitter ceo does not know what his revenue model is, does blippr?
We do indeed. We have a well-developed plan to actually make this one viable!
I’ll tell you what I like most about Blippr. It’s the people involved in designing it. It’s the ingenious programming skills of Chris Heald and the diligent marketing prowess of JC.
The complaints I’ve seen seem to be simply a matter of taste, and we all have different tastes. Web 2.0 “look and feel” seems to be an issue for some people. I say, get over it. It’s a website, it’s packaged well, and it works.
Our two bootstrapped founders are men of integrity and possess a work ethic that’s seriously lacking in this world. Hundreds of hours, thousands of hours of unpaid time has gone into creating this environment for those of you who find it useful. For the rest of you who are hung up on appearance, short “made up” names, and copy-cat sites, you’re just going to have to suck it up or go somewhere else. Every one of these sites serves a purpose for someone and there will never be a 100% standard for delivery of useful information. There’s 6 billion of us for crying out loud, and most of them are in China? Speak Chinese? Didn’t think so.
Many successful businesses have modified their names in direct opposition to common grammar. I think Blippr is a great idea, and is but a fetus in a burgeoning womb of exploding growth. That’s what I think, and you can think something else.
“… is but a fetus in a burgeoning womb of exploding growth.”
That could be the worst metaphor I’ve ever read.
Holy Moly a story that will really knock your socks off…. http://www.gothamtechminute.blogspot.com
I love the concept - I hate doing reviews, but to do them in micro-blogging format is something I could do. There’s great potential for these guys.
finally you’ll reviewed this.
Its a great service.
Couldn’t agree more the need for reviews to be insightful while also being concise. Reviews are another piece of valuable product data for shoppers to process during their buying decision process, so “saying more with less” is highly desired and is the basis on which PowerReviews developed our tag-based review solution where customers can identify products with terms like soft, dries well, simple to use or easy to assemble
Jay Shaffer
VP Worldwide Sales & Marketing
PowerReviews.com
Hmmm, I like
short enough review?
I just joined about an hour ago and I just love it! Thanks for the review of the review site.
This is my link: http://www.blippr.com/profiles/daynah