To paraphrase Cracker, what the world needs now is another web-based Interactive micro-content production community like I need a hole in the head. But strangely enough, I think the world needs Blellow.
Blellow is a fascinating collaboration tool a la Yammer but Blellow allows you to create groups based on projects – Wordpress Devs can group with other Wordpress Devs while freelance writers can kvetch with other writers, for example.
To use the system you log-in and fill out a profile. Then you send messages – and ask questions – just like you would in Twitter or Yelp. The questions are actually the coolest part of the system. When you ask a question, everyone can see it and respond. You then thank folks who help you with Kudos and those users ride to the top of the heap in the system, thereby allowing potential employers to find the local experts in particular topics.
You can join groups of like-minded individual, create private groups, and ask questions of your friends. You can also post jobs and paid projects for $24, which is where Blellow expects to make their cash. They’re also offering 10GB of storage space for $10 a month and the system accepts files of any size – up to your paid limit – to share with your peers.
Just as Yammer is Twitter for business, Blellow seems to be Twitter for freelancers. But do we really need another Twitter? Sure, it’s a big world. In this economy, the little guy can use all the help he or she can get.
UPDATE – Changed Yelp to Yammer.
Wow, this service seems great. It is obvious that the developers have put a lot of thought behind this, and it is great that we are continuing to see great innovation despite the recessions …
… but …
I think the name really should be changed. It is impossible to tell people the name without spelling it out, and this causes too many points of potential “leakage” where people may never visit the site.
Certainly if international expansion is even a distant thought, the team should change the name to something that is easily pronouncable and communicable in multiple langages.
Anjali Sen
Hmm, spammy but well said, and it actually made great sense too. You may be able to dig yourself out of the spam title if you think about what you are going to say like you did above.
Not quite there yet however.
as you already know, I enjoy spammy… and smelly.
Smelly Anjali SpammerSen
From India
Well if it is not the sef proclaimed “Pioneer. Thinker. Lover” SEO spammer from Canada, Adrian Eden. http://www.adri...is-adrian-eden/
Stop spamming Techcrunch with your stupid ass site trying to pimp your SEO “consultatation and media” services. http://www.adri...media-services/
No one cares about a douche like you and your spammy SEO tactics. Who the hell would but SEO from a douche like you whose site has the amazing Alexa rank of …
902,000?
Stop spamming Techcrunch you SEO pimp scum
if you read any of my content on my website you would come to realize that im doing my blog as an online resume and a way for me to communicate my life as i evolve and grow. im not trying to take away from techcrunch in any way shape or form. im tired of personal attacks on this blog. if you have a serious problem with me you are welcome to email me at adrian@adrianeden.com and voice your concerns. i know you wont however because you are hiding behind the mystery of an unknown blog commentor. im 250 lbs, I do muay thai, and im an avid blogger, no one in their right mind would ever say anything like that to me to my face. I feel sorry for you, coming on here and basically acting like a 12 year old. if you really want to do something about my comments and you hate me so much, come on up to vancouver or send me an email with your address and i would be happy to discuss this face to face.
have a productive week nameless person.
@Smart Babes Are Stupid Spammers,
Shut up retard. Enough of this bullshit.
Look guys, I get really tired of the spamming too, but, would you people just shut up already? Your ranting on -every- post is worse than her single comment. Readers shouldn’t have to scroll through miles of your BS to get to relevant comments. Just ignore her already… Please.
Ooooooh, I’m sacred. Adrian Eden, the self declared SEO “Pioneer. Thinker. Lover” is threatening me with his Kung Fu Panda karate sit down.
Yo, douchebag, the 1970’s called. They want their hairstyle back.
STOP SPAMMING TC WITH YOUR SEO CRAP. NO ONE WANTS TO BUY SEO FROM SOMEONE WITH AN ALEXA RANK OF 902,000
@Brian Reavis
Well, well, what do we have here? Another self-appointed Techcrunch “moderator” telling people what to do and what not to do…
You are no different from the other spammers on TC, “promoting” badly designed, lame blogs.
“masterfidgeter?” as in masturbating? — crawl back to the basement, you idiot!
@Travis McManus
He was just stating his opinion. Please refrain from using the internet you ugly git. (OH shit, was that a bit too rough for you?)
@Travis McManus: I really do find it interesting how that’s the first thing you think of with “Master Fidgeter.” You were telling me to crawl back to my basement? Perhaps you should crawl OUT of YOUR basement?
@travis
So if you don’t need reminding, why are you whining like someone jammed your own dick up your ass?
I’m pretty sure that makes you the loser.
QED.
@Travis:
“‘Freedom of Speech’ in our country…”
Uh, what??? Since when is the Internet limited to “our” country? What does this have to do with anything? Hell, the Internet wasn’t even invented in the US.
You’re whining about me stating that people are being like idiots. Now you are complaining about me being like an idiot. This is quite the tizzy you’re having… What is your problem? You’re just contradicting yourself.
@Matt: No shit we have Freedom of Speech in our country. Where and when did I say that we didn’t? Travis is the one pulling the “Free speech” card out of his ass. Why don’t you take it up with him? My comments on the matter were only stating that the free speech bit had no relation to this argument. I see you get the whole “free speech” concept, but how about the other end of that? Interpreting speech?
Look, I really don’t care if you gang up on me for telling people to knock off the spamming about spamming. Go for it. But if you are, at least come up with a worthy argument. Your comments having a level of intellect put into them equal to that of a YouTube comment is getting a tad old.
Well if he is 11, you better watch you ass when he is an INFORMED 80 year old whining grandpa like you are.
Go take your pills.
YOUR* (I can’t let spelling nazis complain).
@Smart Babes Are Sexy
Spam Spam Spam + absurd statements…. your are *nobody* and your opinions are worth, what? maybe less than 1 Rupee, counting the energy you spend posting them.
What can you buy with 1 Rupee? Not even a tiny pinch of elephant dung (Indian elephant, of course)
Please stop spamming TC.
You stupid SEO jackasses, take your stupidass bitch fights elsewhere. No one gives a damn about your SEO services and your “blackhat” tactics. I hope Google bans you all.
Stop posting your f***ing spam that have nothing to do with the post and stop your stupid “blackhat” mf****ing tactic of calling other people spammers. We don’t give a f****.
Get lost from TC and I hope you all never come back.
RANT OVER
@E Wang,
Shut up retard. Enough of this bullshit
i like how when “Nancy” was drawn and then animated, her boobs moved. HAHA.
this thing is built on ruby? have we learned nothing ?
What’s wrong with ruby? I’m pretty sure Crunchbase is built on ruby. Among other noteworthy & successful products (i.e. GitHub, Basecamp, Twitter, Geni, etc…).
I’m impartial to what language is used. As long as it works, who f***ing cares?
What are the techcrunch admins doing? why thy are inviting these comments?
But, I won’t talk much about those comments.
I think bellow looks similar to twitter interface. Isn’t it? Just some use of different color and some change in alignment.
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
Pioneer. Thinker. Lover.Twat
Mike, if you are interested, I have a plug in, that creates 2 versions of the comments. 1) Unmoderated. For those that like to read this spammy shite and 2) A socially moderated version which means that the spammers don’t get to have their say and the comments once again become worthwhile reading.
Users click on one of the two according to their tastes.
For the love of Bod, please get in touch.
shut up u moron
@Smart Babes Are Sexy Blog
This brings back memories of when an Indian engineer attempted to spell the word “zillow” to me, insisting it’s “Yum eigh .. ..”. Without trying to sound rude, I just asked “Yum” ?. He got very offended that I didn’t use my heuristics to determine what he meant.
Let me give you some names to think about:
3M
American Express
Boeing
General Electric
Hewlett-Packard
IBM
Johnson & Johnson
Mariott
Merc
Motorola
Nordstrom
Philip Morris
Procter & Gamble
Wall-Mart
Walt Disney
Do you think any of these companies thought what an Indian thought of their name before starting their company?
I think pronouncing “yum” for the letter “M” comment is really funny …. Infact I have even heard some people say hatch for “H” and it does bring a laughter in me …. (BTW I am Indian living/working in the Valley lived in India for 16 years, 8 years in US)
anyways, I wanted to bring to light the fact that India is very diverse …. not everyone is smelly, not everyone has the accent that’s portrayed in TV sitcoms, infact people from different parts of the country look different in features, skin color, style etc. I would call India from a cultural perspective an equivalent of Europe with all the States in India being analogous to countries in US. (Yes we do lag behind Europe in technology, economy, etc) [The world has so much to offer, and we have so much to learn as well]
Anjali Sen might have some good comments to share, but her start with Tech Crunch as a commenter came out very much like a spammer. Promoting your blog is fine, but commenting for the sake of it is not really a good attitude irrespective of gender, race or nationality.
John, you FAIL. Completely.
Your own dumbass post disproves your own point … even YOU can’t correctly spell
Merck (not Merc)
Marriott (not Mariott) and
Wal-Mart (not Wall-Mart)
Good luck with you and your racist buddies trying to disparage India once again on TC. Maybe after you learn to spell YOUR OWN LANGUAGE, then you can start criticising the English accents of people who have learned English as their second, third or fourth language.
Reminds me of a joke:
1. How do you describe someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual
2. How do you describe someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual
3. How do you describe someone who speaks only one language?
American
@Smart Babes Are Sexy
@Indian
@LOSER. JOHN. FAILS. COMPLETELY
Watch out guys… These douche bags *ARE* the “Smart Babes” … Nice try, Smelly.
Wow I was gone for few months and I come back to this? The Indians are trying to take over the blog sphere as well. This is pretty interesting (actually more than the post, sorry
Should we expect to read more about building roads and feeding the poor in the coming months at whatever the name of this blog is?
An Indian who lost a job decides to start a blog and spam one of the most visited tech blogs in the world.. Now in the Hyderabad version, the Indian wins. Here, the creative thought of the USA gets to have some fun. Keep it coming Sanjay. You are about to go from a frying pan into a fire.
@Bobby, this is not as bad as it seems. Once we see cows walking down University we should start panicking.
This is absurd! I will call upon my superiors and have you in trouble sir. Do you know who Sanjay Gupta is? He was the potential doctor of the united states of America. Yes sir. I could not be a doctor so I settled for a software engineer and we run your country so you better respect us.
@Venugopal, you hold right there, we’ll be right with youl.
Dave, you mind geting one of them butt plugs over here. We seem to have a case of hindu mouth diarrhea on this side.
@David:You won’t see cows in ur univ dude… They are already dead and waiting for u to grub them into ur mouth at McDonald’s…
Our cows are sacred, a religious symbol. Naturally, we do not eat them in India….
We do eat them in the US after we get our H1B visas. You name it: burgers, steaks, fajitas, meatballs, etc.
Dear Anjali,
I’m sorry you have to go through this nonsense.
I hope Techcrunch does something about it.
Regards,
Mark Butler
ooohhh
mark butler,
i luv u,thanks
@Mark Butler
Apologizing to a relentless, idiotic spammer? Are you kidding me? You’ve got to step away from the keyboard, go out and get yourself some tail, man!!!!!
…. as I said from my Throne, I decide what names any company should have, anywhere and I will determine if they are going to survive. I have spoken, from Delhi….
now I should feed my goats.
Anjali SpammerSen
From India
The only decision you have control over is whether you will have chicken maharaja or chicken tikka massala.
As for the rest, you’re just a visitor and you may want to behave before you get escorted back to your slums.
thanks for understanding my point(less) of view.
i have already written to WWW for granting me exclusive rights to name all new companies of the world.
To be generous to all, i will plug “all points of potential “leakage”” including my own holes,
thank u all.
saying yelp is twitter for businesses seems to be a misunderstanding of both
you’re right. fixed. sorry.
I urge you to take so measures in ensuring the quality comments left for viewers to see. The commentor smart babes are sexy, leaves relevent and intelligent comments, but these spammers continue to make racist remarks. I truly feel these negative racial remarks deducts quality from the wonderfully written article.
best regards,
Dear Techcrunch,
Can you guys “fix” the spam nonsense at the top of virtually every post.
It is very juvenile and really takes away from Techcrunch. I’m sure everybody is tired of it.
Perhaps you should think about a Slashdot-style commenting system that allows other users to vote-up valuable comments or vote-down useless, racists ones.
Please take it on board.
Mark Butler
WHAT THE HELL IS AL THIS RACIST CRAP???
“Once we see cows walking down University we should start panicking”
“I have spoken, from Delhi… now I should feed my goats”
“What can you buy with 1 Rupee? Not even a tiny pinch of elephant dung (Indian elephant, of course)”
An apparently Indian poster makes one comment about the Blellow, and all the racist scum of the Earth seems to have crawled out of their holes.
John Biggs please ban all this CRAP. No one wants to read all this racist trash on a technology blog. It is a disservice to the company that you cover, it is a disservice to your readers, and it is a disservice to your advertisers.
I, FOR ONE, AM SICK OF THIS RACIST CRAP. THESE RACIST RETARDS CAN GO TO HELL.
well said! I didn’t get the comparison AT ALL, and I’m a heavy user of both services.
Now that is a startup that we can be proud of and use, well done!
Well definitely useful for me…
sorry, I must be missing something. how is Yelp a twitter for business?
This seems like a great way of building true online communities based around specific subjects + a much cleaner way of letting first-time twitter users connect with relevant people.
Great seeing the Blellow people at SxSW.
Can blellow be anymore unoriginal? See ya in the dead pool in 6 months =)
btw you can tell half the comments above are basically by people from your company.
Yelp is twitter for businesses? such a misleading statement.
presently.com that was launched at sxsw yesterday may be the closest you can get to twitter for businesses (professional microblogging).
where does this name come from? they make it easy to do things only to choose a name that can be very confusing.
I think you mean just as Yammer is Twitter for business.
Yammer is private – internal, just for employees of a business. Twitter is public. So, the analogy would not work.
I am watching all the launches @ SXSW. blellow is one of the interesting ones, but I have to agree that the name is just not going to work. What were they thinking? Does it mean anything special?
Hello everyone! The name “Blellow” means a combination of Blue + Yellow to make a new color: Blellow (because “Green” is just not good enough).
The philosophy behind the name is our site is a way for users of two different backgrounds (like a Developer and a Web Designer) to meet together on our site and create something new. Developer + Designer = Blellow. The name was originally coined from Reese on Malcolm in the Middle, and is pronounced like “Mellow”
Hi Sean
I think the execution and the thought is great, but please think about the future as well as international markets. Just imagine telling someone over the phone, “there is a great site call blellow” … now what is the chance that the other person will type in the name correctly? I would say it is probably less than 25% ,,,, that means you are loosing potentially 75% of the users to try out this service.
Next think about internationa markets … will a French/Italian/Russian/Chinese person ever be able to figure our how to spell this?
I think back to one US car manufacture that tried to sell a car in Latin America under the name Nova … without reaslising that it can easily be misunderstood as “doesn’t go”
I one wrote a blog post on how people should think about winning one: http://smartbab...armes-race.html
Anjalis
P.S. Please ignore any comments that come after this. I-for some reason-seem to have attracted a horde of anti-Indian posters who harass me after every single one of my posts. I have decided to stop responding to them in the hopes that they would go away, but it seems like they have nothing better to do.
Sean
Sorry for all the typos … getting very late and too lazy for the spellchecker
At any rate, best of luck … the name aside, I think it rocks. Great stuff.
Anjali Sen
> Smart Babes Are Sexy
Your posting of garbage like this comment on TC will continue to provoke what you call “hostile, racist and bigoted” responses from TC visitors.
You insist on addressing these legitimate responses as “against India and Indians” when they are clearly NOT. They are posted against you and your comments – You are a notorious and stupid spammer on TC, again, with the only purpose of marketing your blog, nothing else.
You pretend to be knowledgeable and “influential” when you are not, while talking down everybody else – your comments are childish and out of place…. offering advice to legitimate entrepreneurs while you have done nothing of value.
You have already made a presence on Techcrunch and most of us know exactly what it is worth. You are a shameless, annoying spammer and only an idiot like yourself would be proud of it – “From India” –GO AWAY!
Think about the potential meanings in different countries.
It’s hard enough to be successful in one country let alone multiple. And anyone who’s tried to register a domain name knows how difficult it is to come up with a name that isn’t taken. So I wouldn’t worry too much about your name. I think its fine…
If you guys grow to be so successful that you have to worry about people misspelling your name in your international markets, then you have a pretty good problem on your hands. I’d take that problem any day of the week.
-steve
I thought maybe he meant to use Yammer, which would make his comparison, at the very least, a lot more ridiculous than saying Yelp is Twitter for business as Yelp and Twitter have almost nothing in common.
err…a lot *less* ridiculous.
Actually, Presently is micromessaging for business, both for the enterprise (Sas and behind firewall) and now front facing, as stated … a public version (http://www.presently.com) launched yestereday at SXSW. It aims to be ‘microblogging for professionals’. As Twitter is to Facebook, Presently.com is to Linkedin.
Interesting that TC posts – and most comments – tout Yammer without mentioning Present.ly, the first micromessaging platform with a behind the firewall product (months before Yammer), and now with a public facing Twitter-on-steroids platform.
As for Blellow, agree it’s a horrible name. But it’s great to see a collaboration product like this. I’ll keep an eye and open mind on it.
Sorry, but do we really need another Twitter like site to post what we’re doing?
I for one will appreciate a site like this.
The idea is ridiculously simple, but it works.
It’s like an organized dev-forum.
Why didn’t they build it on top of Twitter? They’d have a built in audience and now with oAuth there’s fewer security problems…
No one wants another account and they are going to have to build an audience all by themselves. Strategic error.
For more information about Blellow and how it all came to be, make sure you check out our blog: http://blog.blellow.com
@Sean
Interesting idea …. it looks very promising. The video was awesome to really get the idea of your site’s offering.
BTW Are you guys using any external API’s ?
Good Luck.
@John: Nice post, but I didnt quite comprehend the yelp as twitter for business Analogy.
Just checked out the site. Great Idea.
However the site gives a strong twitter impression especially with the concept. This will make it really difficult to break out. Why would I want to start reconnecting with everyone that I am already connected to on twitter?
If they would have stayed away from the twitter concept, it might have some potential. But great idea though.
I’ll definitely try it out.
Good to see a business model right out of the gate. It’s sobering to see others making money and building a sustainable business. Why would you sign up for something today, that may not be their tomorrow? The concept seems so simple, it might actually work.
Hopefully – this is the ‘09 replacement to what we know as forum.
i really like this idea – it’s definitely worth a shot!
Sorry, but what the hell … Where has the innovation gone.. This is what IRC is for.
The interface for IRC could definitely be improved upon. Blellow is more than just a techie chat forum. It seems to have positioned itself as a freelance networking hub. I can definitely see the usefulness in such a product.
Sounds like a neat combo of Twitter + drop.io. I don’t know it’ll combine them well enough, but it’s a nice idea.
And on a random sidenote, Yammer is awesome. I like it more than Twitter actually, because Twitter’s for everybody, but Yammer’s incredible for work-related stuff and keeping it all together.
Wow, what a hostile crowd on the weekends.
Seems like the weekday crowd at Techcrunch is different from the weekend – better healed in social sharing.
Guys, lets find other venues to verbalize hostilities. Thanks.
Seems nice! Although I think it will not be half as successful as Twitter – I will give it a try.
Terrible name.
I agree.
cool idea, though the name could be better, and the blue + yellow rationale is silly. you could have called it reeses, and been more interesting. someone surely can write an API that organizes twitter groups and allows directed postings, tagged with “favs” to indicate kudos. maybe twitter and blellow can join forces.
I work on my own like Nacy in your video and I personally find this website interesting and useful. I will give it a try.
Goodluck!
replacing yelp with yammer makes a little more sense because of the relationship structure, but it’s still a horrible analogy. yammer is an enterprise version of twitter for businesses to use within their network. maybe I’ve got blellow all wrong, but it seems to be more in line with yahoo answers. am i misunderstanding blue yellow?
http://blog.org...n-this-weekend/
Out from the controversy spamming debate above.my comment goes to blellow.my question is ,is there any Scam filter so that this service is happen unlike craigslist Job sections where so many people claim to have a job that turns into “criminal activity,if yet they do that ,hope soon they do that ,and if this job is clearly spam or scam free,my applause to them cause although they are just new kid.Overture and Yahoo Movies are already there Open there hand to accept new talent
great idea… but a word like “Blellow” would be really, really hard to spell/pronounce for (for example) a native Spanish speaker… not that that’s a huge market or anything, but yeah… something to think about.
“fascinating collaboration tool” – techcrunch found itself a new tool to obsess over. Be careful though, your ex-obsession Yammer might get jealous.
As far as I can tell, this is nothing more than a web forum, except it is not as good.
I like the design and feel of this website. Hope I can get some work out of it.
Just tried it. really liked it. I’ll stay on it and see if it can get traction.
http://beta.ble...com/peterurban/
The link to Yammer in the first sentence of second paragraph is malformed.
This is similar to Needish (www.needish.com). Sort of a Yahoo Answers + Twitter + Facebook trying to be something like elance and a reverse eBay. Pretty interesting.
This almost reminds me of the good ol year 2000 when anybody could sell a startup to a sucker like AOL. There is a saying that the worst that can happen to a person is win the first time they go to Vegas. It is really amusing to watch these lucky bastards keep trying their keep up with their streak. The smart few have taken their money and moved to other important things, like raising a family. The idiots are still wasted by the slot machines putting in web 2.0 coins.
@Jeb
I happen to have worked at Sun and I can tell you that most of the companies that were bought by AOL during the period 1999-2001 were crap. This is no news considering what has happened to AOL/Timewarner stock afterwords. These “lucky bastards” as you would call them are on to new stupendous ventures like re-inventing the clock, chat, social networks and similar. What a waste of VC money at the time when people who can really make a difference are out of job.
This is getting boring. Should I laugh or should I cry?
TC you need to moderate your comments. I wonder how many of your “1841k readers” actually read the posts versus read the stupid comments of a bunch of “wingnuts”.
I read this BLOG for the techie stuff, not the miscellaneous and sometimes bigoted ramblings of a “chosen few”. Note that I did not refer to who the bigots are (but they are not just Americans).
End Rant.
For a ‘professional’and ‘formal’ blog, the commentary is pretty fricking dumb.
Knock it the f*ck off guys. If any of you actually tried to argue like you do here in the REAL WORLD you’d probably get a slap to the throat.
My take based on the info in this article is that blellow = twitter meets elance. So these people twit to promote their knowledge in a particular field … in hopes of landing a job? It’s a big universe out there so I guess there is room for something like this but it doesn’t grab me. A response in most settings and fields needs to be more than 255 characters to demonstrate command of topics such as law, computer programing, etc.
I agree the character limitations might be in issue with Blellow, but the tweet threading helps in that case.
Thanks for the mention.
Though, the Yammer link in this article links to “yammer.om” instead of “yammer.com”. Please fix so people don’t think the site is down.
Thank you,
Keith
The Yammer Team
really nice web tool. Great UI. Terrible name. Let me add my voice to the chorus saying change the name.
Prediction, this platform is gone in 6 months. Who needs it? We already have Yammer in corporate but won’t have to pay until we get 100 users. Other people use Twitter but we cannot share confidential information. How many of these do we need?
blellow : great idea – terrible name.
This blog really needs a different commenting system to help bury all the crap which seems to appear here on a regular basis.
Very cool site, I haven’t seen it before. I try to keep up with the many social and business networking sites but it’s difficult.
Thanks for sharing!
-AS
This will work well for our Virtual Professionals. Going to get everything set up now!!!
@iVirtualProfs
Nice video and idea. Like the execution, too.
To the name: It would be difficult in Germany. Germany has one of the biggest user bases of twitter behind the US (of course). This shows that other countries can be relevant and a few thoughts should be put into the name. It wouldn’t work out in Chinese either.
the “ow” sound can not be found in many languages, making it difficult for internationalisation / localisation.
Thumbs up but put some more time and maybe some wine into that name!
one thing: Twhirl support? would be good to get that up and running
Don’t know how open Loic is for fresh startups though…
Good app, awful name!
Thanks for the mention.