Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 9th March 2009
11 COMMENTS 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Social Media oriented tech blog Mashable have just announced the acquisition of micro-review service Blippr.
We reviewed Blippr back in July of last year, the service lets people reviews applications, books, games, movies and music in 160 characters or less. Mashable have already taken steps to integrate the service into Mashable.com by placing small face icons alongside mentions of services in their posts – a great way to drive traffic to the newly acquired service.
This is one of a number of new changes founder Pete Cashmore and his team have begun to roll out. Along with some design tune ups, Social Media Comments and an attempt at social advertising with Twitter Brand Sponsors – Cashmore seems keen on taking Mashable social media element to a different level.
This is in fact the second acquisition from a member of the Mashable team. The first came on the 14th March (almost exactly a year ago) where Adam Ostrow, Mashable’s Editor in Chief, acquired ReadBurner, a service that tracks the most shared stories via Google Reader.
Blippr as a service has a fair bit going for it, with a strong community and a relatively simple concept to boot, I can see the long term potential. The current integration of the service with Mashable rocks too, and clearly from an “apps” perspective, it’s an ingenious way to collect user feedback.
Techcrunch are the only other blog (that I’m aware of) to have acquired a web service. Arrington and his team acquired InviteShare back in 2007 but unfortunately that seems to have been the peak of it’s popularity.
Congratulations to Pete and the rest of the Mashable team.
Written on 25th July 2008
5 COMMENTS
Joop Dorresteijn, East Asia correspondent
Blippr recently removed invite-only requirements and entered into public beta, launching with the latest release a number of new features and a complete redesign. My colleague Ernst-Jan pointed out that the service allowed users to recommend things like music and films by writing reviews or rating them, when he reviewed the site in February. I wondered, so what is the deal with Blippr? I am accustomed of listing them online on IMDB for years now, and browsed around the site rather pre-judged, only to be surprised with the web 2.0 ’schwing’ that Chris and Jonathan added to the media reviewing concept.
Pro’s:
- I have been listing my favorite movies on IMDB’s ‘my-movie’ service for years, but recently started thinking of quitting since IMDB started asking money for their premium services. Blippr is totally free, and seems to generate income from sending people to Amazon to buy all the media their friends recommend.
- Blippr is not just another social network, they currently allow users to integrate within the context of other social networks. Currently, the application allows users to post their ‘blips’ with Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook.
- The site allows users to import lists from Amazon’s wishlist, Goodreads and Librarything.
Con’s:
- I wasn’t surprised to find out that IMDB doesn’t allow users to export their data. But a web 2.0 service like Blippr should support open data! I can’t export my carefully entered data.
- From my top ten movies, five were found! The site has difficulties with foreign movies, something IMDB has covered with the wide spread community. Can’t they integrate the titles from IMDB?
I would recommend to check the site out, at least to see the great reviews of different media. And with some effort, the site is able to recommend you with some new media for this weekend!
Written on 6th June 2008
5 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Madonna already taught us years ago, we’re living in a material world. Well, good news for all you material girls and boys out there, I’ve just find a place for you to brag about what your bling bling, 1000+ vinyl collection or designer tiys. This service, that goes by the correctly 2.0 misspelled name of meOwns, makes it possible to showcase your belongings on their site, Facebook, and blogs. Here’s their motivation for that:
Can you tell what kind of person someone is just by the way he looks? Not necessarily, but you can by looking at what he owns!
So after you’ve registered to this utterly materialistic service, you can create collections and add items to them. The Egyptian software company behind meOwns kept the features simple. You only have to fill in a title, description, and tags, and add an image. Simplicity is good, but maybe they took it too far, as you can’t rate an item. And rating stuff is what makes a service like this interesting. OK, we’re all narcissists, but after a while, even showcasing your own stuff becomes boring.
When I blogged about Blippr – collect and review your media – a while ago, the whole office here went wild and started to use the service. The most important reasons? Creating a personal overview and getting recommendations via the ratings you’ve made. And although meOwns allows you to showcase more than just media, it lacks those killer features.
Written on 2nd March 2008
1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Last week we gave away 250 private beta invites for Blippr, a service that allows you to collect, organize and share your books, games, music, movies and tv shows. It’s definitely a nice service for people with a broad range of interests. Yet not everybody is interested in books AND music AND movies. For those people, there are specialized services, and an example is social network for gamers Vigster.com.
The London-based start-up showed a demo during Minibar, chaired by Mike Butcher form TechCrunch UK – and launched this week in public beta. Users can build and catalogue their games, create virtual game shelves to show off their games collection and do the regular social network thing: connecting, sharing and having heated discussions about game characters, scenarios and whatnot.
The interface is rather sober – not what you would expect from a gaming service – and focused too much on selling games. For instance, if you go to the screenshots gallery and click on one you like, you end up on a page that puts the ‘buy this game’-line right in your face. You have to scroll down to find a thumbnail version of the screenshot, that opens on a new blank page. There are officiously some missed opportunities there.
I think the way to build a strong community is to get users to love your service. Offer them the same features Vigster has now, but present them in a good-looking, game-like and usable interface. Show users that you love them as well by welcoming them in a warm way – learn from Flickr – and leave the Google Ads for later.
But most of all, let them know you love games too. I’m sure the guys from Vigster have a passion for games, but I can’t tell by looking at their service.
Written on 26th February 2008
5 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Shortly after I posted a review about Blippr yesterday, co-founder of the company behind Blippr – Tag Team Interactive – mailed me with an interesting offer: 250 private beta invites. Who can refuse that?
He told me that they have big plans for Blippr and really look forward to rolling it out to a wider audience. Well, inviting 250 Next Web readers sounds like a good start to me. Please reward the guys from Blippr with some feedback, they’re eager to receive some.
In case you’ve missed the review, Blippr is a service who allows you to share and organize your media in the context of your social networks. How? By writing radically short reviews. Read the article here.
Get your invite here!
![blippr [beta]](http://img.skitch.com/20080226-8wy28x5em1w3adfs3heu3tyicd.jpg "From Blippr to our dear readers: 250 private beta invites Photo")
Written on 25th February 2008
5 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Hey you, new review service Blippr asks you something:
Have you ever thought to yourself, “Gosh, it’s really annoying I can’t organize all the media I’ve encountered over my brief years on this little planet known as Earth…”?
I know I did, I even started a blog once to write short reviews about all the cultural stuff I had done. After three reviews, the blog died a silent dead. Now the time has come for me to reconsider whether I want to organize my media or not. This time with an awfully-named new service.
Blippr has another advantage compared to the blog, since it also allows users to recommend each other new music, films and other types of media by either writing short reviews or rating them. ‘Not another social network!’, I hear you say, and it’s exactly what I thought. But the founders of Blippr claim that it will function within the context of your social network. You know the deal: Facebook apps and all.
However, we’ll have to wait a while, since the service is still in private beta. They’ll launch the sharing tools when they go in to a public beta. It will look something like this:
![the grand tour: discover - blippr [beta]](http://img.skitch.com/20080225-nkjhespij1anfxc9mwpxgjfp4a.jpg "Blippr: finally an easy way to organize your media Photo")
I must admit, I’m writing this article on the basis of their well-designed tour. I’ll definitely give it a shot when it’s in public beta, so I can start organizing my media again. They offer me three lists:
- My sphere: every time I ‘blip’ – or dig for that matter – something, it goes on this list. So this is basically my archive.
- My queue:
Paul David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, will love this, since it’s a list to keep track of media you want to see, hear or read in the near future.
- Wish list (or: Blippr’s money machine): show Blippr the money! Their business model is of course generating money through sending people to Amazon to buy all the media their friends recommend. I can put the stuff I want to buy on this list, which makes it also a useful list for my friends during the holiday season.
One thing though, my friends have to be on Blippr then. That’s the danger of starting a service like this, it only gets interesting as soon as the people you like are on it as well. My advice for the guys of Blippr, you’d better start thinking about how you gonna make this service at least as viral as NotchUp.
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