Allowing freelancers and professionals to collaborate in regards to business endeavors, the social network known as Blellow prides itself on establishing a foundation of friendly communication throughout; allowing members to provide short responses to the question ‘what are you working on’. In close relation to Twitter’s familiar micro-blogging interface, quickly one can make the assumption that Blellow is yet another social medium riding on echoed concept Twitter’s worldwide influence; clinging to the idea of work related content and networking. In 2009, the journalists at ‘Social Media Cast’ detailed the business/consumer related social network within an article that yielded a rating of five stars, entering 2010 it appears we may have jumped the gun; as we respond to a multitude of readers concerns with Blellow. With our oath to bring only the best and most factual information to our growing net of viewers, subsequent to a wealth of complaints Social Media Cast determined our apology would be unwarranted if we did not investigate in an unequivocal desire to bring the truth to our reporting. Denoting a justice for accuracy two of our best investigative journalists were dispatched to Blellow, to complete a four month discovery mission — while being assisted by a team, the profusion of your concerns were far too numerous not to take great measures to uncover answers.
Marketing themselves as a communication oriented micro-blog for those having perspectives in professional or freelance style business, the concept of segmenting professional endeavors through multifunctional grouping ideas drove our reviews; in 2009 our journalists felt a requested need to pride the social platform for interpersonal directives. Aside from our reporting even TechCruch’s Crunchbase summary reflects that the objective of Blellow, is that of communication through easy conversation engagement. Such objectives were met with heavy criticism in weeks following our article. We took note of copious complaints directing us to take a further look into Blellow’s non-business related user spam, unjustified platform control from a single user, and a lack of control by the platforms administrative team. Several complaints were made appealing to us for our respected help in finding a resolution for the network gone astray, a large part of our measures was to seek justice and help guide the five member Blellow team to concerns of a members with the hope that such problems would be that of a isolated and taken care of incident. Proving truth to plentiful complaints, our investigative team was stunned with Blellow’s seemingly lack of administrative measures; our discoveries are described below, with respect to the names of the parties involved in this virtual social injustice.
Such injustice occurred as some described the problem as an internal hijacking in which our researchers noted was the trouble of excessive postings by a sole user of the platform — occurring several times a day, many days each week, and ongoing for months. This single poster was seen as having no respect for other members or the platform, often shoving members posts of legitimate value from notice on the prime page to a second and third page; obsessive in posting members referred to this as her “book of her life”. This undue amount of bulk spamming allowed no others time to post and be viewed for their post. In a situation hard to believe it appears that while once prided for social communication, Blellow’s micro-blog has been unsuccessful to serve their members with respectful support; or show any indication that a structured support system existed to assist with such user-based issues. Through conducted personal interviews with a large base of members, our research yields that many were forced to find alternative measures in business social networking; due to amorphous babbling without resolve — many others clearly stated they ceased attempting to communicate as much as prior and some stopped engaging publicly at all. Over all this single poster decreased interest for all in the platform they once enjoyed. Findings revealed that 94% of those interviewed found this user to be a problem and that 12% had complained to the Blellow staff; 0% felt their complaint mattered and noted no proper end occurred to the upset of stable business networking. Assuming accounts and posting within the TOS for the network, value was shown to be compromised by a single user; decreasing the standings and perception to those wishing to sign up with the network, leading 27% to turn their backs and leave after viewing the chaos. The first problem discovered was that Blellow had no ignore or block feature, in a statement the owner expressed that she felt a blocking feature was not one that was needed on the platform. This is a concept we cannot understand as our research showed a evident problem, while 98.2% of the population interviewed stated the need for such and that they would use such feature with maturity and continue forward with the network — 99% of those who left the network said they wouldn’t have made such choice had this feature been offered.
When our staff complained a response was made for them to keep to their own network and to cease viewing the ‘everyone’ option; which would limit Blellow in a way to cause the idealism for signing up to be a total failure, limiting the chance at communication, and ending the chance of new job probability. Second when some excessive messages of no benifit were properly flagged with justified reason, by multiple team members, they felt unjust responses were made to scorn them and nothing to scorn the one at fault. Third, our journalist’s show that the user in violation was never publicly warned on the topic causing members to complain and leave, being warned only once for posting within others threads. It was indicated complaints were also being made via Twitter to another staff member who shared concern but mentioned hands were tried due to ownership not wishing to resolve such problem properly; the staff member indicated knowledge of many complaints and members leaving. Our shock deepened when our own staff was accused of trying to provoke problems and were at fault, we questioned to find others who complained were also met with vile disrespect. Our research in total indicates an unprofessional problem with Blellow and highlights lacking support or staff influence. It can only be said that Blellow’s unwillingness to solve the complaint is decreasing its user base and allowing for warnings to be expressed of such horrific staffing. All in all this failure in a much larger picture will lead to the collapse of the empire of positive professional social media; as it’s already unstable with the problems noted within such article and our in depth research. Our staff recommends complaining through Get Satisfaction, complaining directly with detail to Blellow staff, or joining a much more professional network like that of Sprouter; we are sorry for any problems that our reviews caused and would ask for all links to be directed to our current article while we fix internal links.
(Copyright © 2010 Social Media News)
