The Next Web

Social network for games Vigster: where’s the love?

Written on March 2, 2008 – 3:36 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

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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.

blippr, community, games, social networks, vigster

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From Blippr to our dear readers: 250 private beta invites

Written on February 26, 2008 – 1:19 pm
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, private beta invites

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Blippr: finally an easy way to organize your media

Written on February 25, 2008 – 2:56 pm
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:

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.

blippr, culture, media, share, social networks

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