Ahead of SXSW, Yobongo Is Acquired-ongo

A year and a half ago, Caleb Elston left his cushy job at Justin.tv to try out a new role as startup founder and CEO, at Yobongo. His project tapped into a previously underserved market of people who wanted to chat with others nearby, regardless of existing social connections. Yobongo launched as an iOS app, and placed you in a public mobile chat room of sorts to talk to people in your area - not around specific topics, not requiring invites to a specific event, and not requiring you to know anyone - much like the public AOL chatrooms of old.

Yobongo was swept up in the mobile group chat mini-boom approaching SXSW in 2011, alongside Beluga, GroupMe and many others, most of whom have seen significant change in the year following, with Beluga's acquisition by Facebook and GroupMe's acquisition by Skype being two of the most memorable. Today, Yobongo joined the M&A crowd, sending a note to all users that they had been acquired by Palo Alto-based Mixbook, a photo book and calendaring company.

If it sounds like there's a mismatch from the initial product scope and new acquirer, then you guessed right, as the mission statement has changed. Elston's note says, "Today, we are excited to start a new chapter in helping people communicate. Together with Mixbook we will accelerate our efforts to help people communicate with their photos." So what you know about Yobongo has changed and they are on to something new. As a longtime watcher of Elston's products through their many iterations, starting with Toluu back in March of 2008, I wish him and the team the best at their new adventure as one door closes and another opens.

Billions of Awesome Pieces of Content Served Daily?

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, and Barack Obama, USA's interim CEO, dueled for attention this morning in what turned out to be an intriguing one-two punch on the state of social globally and then then the state of the nation broadly. Zuckerberg promised us something "Awesome", while Obama dueled with opposing party leaders claiming he didn't keep his own promises. Not bad considering both were completed before noon Pacific.

Zuckerberg, possibly feeling a little defensive after a week-plus of early adopters fawning over Google+, possibly the biggest and most direct alternative to Facebook since the network started, focused primarily on the introduction of group chat, anticipated since the Beluga acquisition earlier this year, and the integration of video calling, powered by Skype, also expected. While that particular awesomeness could be debated, more important was the company's shift away from measuring raw user counts - which is mind-boggling at 750 million active accounts, far and away the leader, but pushing more attention on the amount of content shared on the network. Zuckerberg said that number, growing exponentially, ahead of user growth, is now at 4 billion unique items per day.

4 billion. Per day. Just on Facebook.

We know people don't share equally, with a nice 5 or so shares per registered user per day, but as Zuckerberg highlighted, there are more and more ways to update your Facebook stream. It may have started simple, with your interests, but now all manner of application and service can post to your feed, whether you're there or not. You can check in, or tweet in, or upload your photos, or have your blog posted there, and yes, still add status updates, comments, likes and so on. No wonder more updates are happening per person and this number is growing.

Exponential Content Growth on Facebook (Image via TechCrunch stream)

Selfishly speaking, this is why I've highlighted my6sense and teamed up with them for the past year. Zuckerberg highlighted the growth in mobile and the growth in content being shared per person leading to this incredible tsunami of data that shows no sign of decreasing. What this presents to us is, unsurprisingly, a question of quality. Facebook is for many a necessary utility to connect people and act as an online Rolodex. It's a service our parents understand and our little sisters too. Maybe our grandparents and assorted relatives are there too. I know mine are, and I've had to hide a lot of their stuff, trust me.

When Google+ launched, I gave the team kudos for not immediately jumping on the aggregation bandwagon. It is this aggregation and the introduction of so many different ways to update Facebook that has helped power the content numbers, and theoretically decreased your ability to find the best stuff. Google+ is addicting for many of the first users who know that the content was created and shared with them in mind. For Facebook, while they want more than anything to keep you on their site and to keep you engaged, which is working very well, there's a question, especially among the bleeding-edge geeks, as to whether they are spending real time on the network and contributing directly.

Think about two other things Zuckerberg said today. One was that many (he almost said most) people do not make friend requests, but react to them in a passive way. That's been my case as well. Second, he said that groups work when everybody knows who is in the group, typically started by one person who is the ringleader of sorts. This tells me that people, counted in those 750 million users helping post 4 billion items a day, are possibly sleepwalking through the network. They're not working to expand their contact list or to create groups, but reacting to others. This is happening because they're tapped out. They're tapped out on time and on interest. They probably don't want more friends, more connections, more groups because they're already at the point where they're full, and they're often full on the junk food equivalent of content.

Creating new features for 750 million people at once and making it simple enough for your grandparents to use is incredibly difficult, and Facebook made it look pretty simple today in their demos. While not the most advanced, as early comparisons to Google Talk and Google+ pointed out, the goal was simple and successful. Group chat, if it's anything like Beluga, should be a sure win as well. But I continue to worry about the site's ability (and others like it) to accurately discern what the most interesting and relevant updates are for me. They know, just like I've said for a long time, that the amount of content being created and shared is increasing, and is at all time highs. Now, they've delivered to us a number - a new metric to watch, because it's only going to get a lot busier from here.

Billions and billions and billions of pieces of content. Every day. And that's just on one network - a huge one yes, but just one. Impressive.

Disclosure: I am vice president of marketing at my6sense, a Paladin client. Our service supports Facebook streams for relevance.

Beluga Connects Japan Quake Survivor With Pregnant Wife

With the horrific earthquake in Japan destroying lives and devastating communications lines, trying to connect survivors of the disaster was nearly impossible Friday and into Saturday with phone lines down and SMS unavailable throughout much of the country. One man, stranded 10 miles from home, found a way to connect with his wife, 8 months pregnant, using Beluga, the group texting application launched at the end of 2010, recently acquired by Facebook.

The user, who goes by the name of "Aaron", posted his story to Beluga's community support site, saying:

"Beluga kept me in touch during the massive Tokyo earthquake yesterday

I just wanted to give a huge thanks for making Beluga. I live in central Tokyo, and the earthquake yesterday overwhelmed all mobile lines. No SMS and no voice calls at all were possible for nearly 10 hours. But for some reason Beluga worked, and allowed me to stay in contact with my wife, who is 8 months pregnant, while we were apart. It took me 3 hours to walk the 10 miles home through Tokyo since all the trains were out, and I could have kissed my phone every time I got a message from my wife. Thanks for making Beluga free, even though after this I'd gladly pay for it!"

One can imagine the sheer terror of being separated from one's spouse after such a devastating quake (and all the related aftershocks and tsunami), and the utter relief the man felt with every single notification that hit his phone as he walked the 10 miles home from Tokyo. The headlines continue to be filled with amazing photos of devastation and continued concerns about safety, and we will no doubt hear many more stories of loss and, as with other world disasters, stories of hope, rescue and heroism.

The power to connect people and families is an incredible thing. Jon Perlow, cofounder of Beluga, posted it Facebook with a simple "Wow", adding on the support site, "We're glad to hear Beluga was able to help. Our thoughts are with you and all the people in Japan." A breath-taking story.

Chalk one up for the world of group texting, and the ability for new forms of communication to deliver experiences previously impossible.

Facebook Acquires Beluga With SXSW Weeks Away

The best mobile group chat application I've ever tried just got paired up with the world's biggest social network. While details are light right now, TechCrunch accurately has reported that Beluga, the group messaging service founded by former Googlers, has been acquired by Facebook. This buy comes at a time when discussion of group texting services is practically at an all time high, with SXSW 2011 looming on the horizon. The purchase is a big win for Facebook who gets an incredibly innovative team and service, and gives an amazingly fast exit for the small group, who launched the app (on this blog first) prior to Christmas 2010.

In late January, I predicted Beluga would be one of the biggest hits at the upcoming SXSW event. It's incredibly easy to use, fun, cross-platform, and provides real value to event goers. Facebook doesn't have the best track record of supporting apps when they are acquired, but TechCrunch says Beluga will "function as it does today." That sounds a lot like how FriendFeed has stayed open without change for almost two years, but who knows how this one will play out?

Other players in the group messaging space include GroupMe, TextPlus, FastSociety and tangentially, Yobongo, who should also be interesting to watch at SXSW.

The company's fast exit shouldn't come as much of a surprise to ardent Valley watchers. Om Malik, in one of our Beluga chats, said "it is a great team and this company is going to be snapped up in months if not in a year," on February 18th. When I saw Facebook CTO Bret Taylor join the service on February 23rd, that should have been my first clue something was up.

When FriendFeed was purchased by Facebook, it didn't mean much for the initial service, but many of the features of FriendFeed have made it into the social network. If Beluga goes the same route, we should expect dramatically improved mobile messaging, location integration and smart groups. Can't wait.

From Beluga's Site: (Beluga is now friends with Facebook)

"Beluga and Facebook are committed to create new and better ways to communicate and share group experiences. For now, Beluga will continue to function as it does today. Your Beluga account and data will not be lost."

Yobongo: The Open Chat Room In Your Pocket (Preview)

In the four months since Yobongo first gained attention, CEO and co-founder Caleb Elston has been working to prepare his product for the visibility and scale potentially demanded by what's potentially the world's biggest tech event, SXSW, an environment which can catapult new sites into the stratosphere, or should they fall flat, have them forced to regroup. The service, currently in private beta on the iOS platform, has seen increasing activity at practically all hours, the equivalent of an open bar for discussion with members of the local community, which never closes.

In the last few weeks, I've finally found a reason to keep my iPod Touch nearby, in a home full of Android devices. The magnet-like pull is from Yobongo, whose goal is to bring people, potentially perfect strangers, who share a geographic location, together to talk about anything. The application's real-time nature, enabling true conversations between friends and others, goes beyond the world of serve and volley status updates or Q&A, putting the focus back onto the world of conversation instead of performance and counting of replies, retweets and likes. In fact, there are no points of feedback for updates - just a constant flow.


    Yobongo in Action. Note notifiers for private messages, number of people chatting.

The concept hasn't changed since October, with the idea being people in shared spaces may discover they have common interests and can engage in intriguing discussions. For the many of us who routinely bump into the same faces and avatars on every network, this could be refreshing. Yes, just like any other social situation, it's easier to talk to those you know than those you don't, but Yobongo eases that process by mixing everyone in a single space.

So each morning, after turning off the iPod's alarm, I peek at Yobongo to find Caleb talking with users in the private beta. Some folks I know, and others I don't, but I am getting to know. And it's incredibly easy to jump into the stream of consciousness. For one, your avatar displays when you open the app, so they can welcome you. Second, the app doesn't start with a blank screen, but shows all the text flowing through the river - with the newest updates below. Should you want to, you can scroll up and see how the conversation evolved, see updates from people whom you may have missed, and get caught up.

Posting to the site couldn't be easier. There are no groups to join, as with other apps, some I like a lot (including Beluga and TextPlus). There are no demands to friend folks, as you're already connected to everyone live. And once you start typing, everybody knows because the system lightly says "... is typing." If more than one person is typing, the system updates there too. So you immediately, even in a small space like the iPod Touch, get an idea for all the participants, the ongoing messages, you can get updated on private conversations and see the thread as it evolves. Not bad.


    An active Yobongo chat and a separate private message.

Caleb, previously highlighted on this site for his work with Toluu, Kallow and Kickpost, started the project with fellow Justin.TV ex-colleague David Kasper, who is responsible for engineering while Caleb handles product, the "yin and yang" of the operation as it stands now, he told me. While the company has been mentioned in the same breath as big group chat monoliths like GroupMe and others who have raised millions, Yobongo has not yet taken any funding. Lucky for them, they do have free residence at Dogpatch Labs, courtesy of Mike Hirschland and Ryan Spoon of Polaris Ventures, who would probably have the first in to a round A if Yobongo wanted to be YoFunded.

Like Quora, Facebook and other sites, Yobongo holds a few rules to help avoid abuse of the system. It's preferred that guests use real photos and use their real names. The app's short community guidelines ask to "be friendly", "be respectful" and "be authentic".

Does the world need yet another place to chat beyond the big social networks, and new places like Convore or the host of group messaging participants, including Beluga, GroupMe, MessageParty and TextPlus? It seems to me there is room for a lightweight system that doesn't feel like work, that is open to all who arrive, and leverages proximity. Whether Yobongo is the solution to an event like SXSW or not, only reaching those on iOS, remains to be seen, but I can see clear value to talking with both the friends you know, and the friends you don't yet know.

You can get in on Yobongo's private beta list by heading to http://www.yobongo.com. The service's first official intro video is below.

Beluga's Pre-SXSW Buzz Builds A Month Into App's Life

With services such as Twitter and Foursquare gaining incredible boosts through high visibility at the yearly South by Southwest event (SXSW), it has become something of a pastime to predict which service will be the breakthrough this year, if any. If early response to Beluga is any indication, the application, in addition to other candidates, such as Yobongo, is in the driver's seat to take that role in 2011. Only a month after the application debuted, the group texting service has gained high-profile mentions in publications as varied as Fortune and TechCrunch, and I can see new contacts joining the service every day - as each new connection from my address book notifies me from within the service.

As debated on Quora, it's widely assumed the best candidates for a boost from SXSW would be those useful at the event itself, be it for discovering top parties, debating keynotes and panels, and enabling people to communicate in the sometimes frenetic venue with spotty wireless support. This leads us to Beluga and Yobongo - the first enabling free texting between friends with intelligent linkage to location data and photos support, and the second offering location-based chat with complete strangers. But Yobongo doesn't have multi-platform support yet (including Android), and Beluga is already seeing good cross-platform engagement from early adopters, former Googlers, and is gaining awareness in the mainstream, especially after having been featured in the Android Market this week by Google - goosing the app's download numbers significantly.


   Updates from Beluga With Photos and GeoLocation

The group chat field is one that is becoming increasingly crowded, with TextPlus, GroupMe and now Beluga being the best-known players. But Beluga, without the 10 million in funding gained by GroupMe, already has an extremely smooth application that integrates well with both mobile and Web-based activity, supports multiple mobile OSes and is very lightweight. As I've seen new "pods" started within my groups of friends, for the casual to the more business-oriented, it's obvious that a simple and fast way to exchange messages in groups, independent of the larger networks, like Twitter and Facebook, is much desired.


   Tony Hung and Siobhan Quinn Rave About Beluga In the App(Note Also the Geographical Reach of this Pod)

Guessing where the application could go in the future would be especially interesting as well. Recall how Brizzly Picnics had both private and public options, letting you publish question and answer chats to the Web for all to see? Today, all Beluga Pods are private to only the participants. There could come a real opportunity to make select Pods public, or even to established tiered roles for such Pods, so you could have read-only participants and moderators for public events, such as SXSW and others.



Foursquare's Dennis Crowley on Beluga's Growth Beyond the Mainstream

If it wasn't enough to just speculate about how the app could perform on the public stage, I was backed by Siobhan Quinn, product manger at Foursquare, who said in one of our Beluga Pods that "Beluga is going to blow up SXSW." Activity in individual pods is jumping, users are joining and feedback so far has been very good. It's been an eventful month for the service already, even over a usually-quiet Holiday break, but the next few months could be very loud indeed.


New Friends Are Joining Beluga All the Time

If you're not already using Beluga, go check it out at http://belugapods.com. Want to add me to a pod? Just use my email address and I'll join.

Ex-Googlers Launch Beluga for Mobile Group Chat

Simple social apps, from photo sharing to intimate networks, to group texting services are gaining in momentum with the success of TextPlus, GroupMe, Path, Instagram and others. A new entrant to the scene is a company called Beluga, not to be confused with the Fail Whale, headed up by a small team of 3 ex-Googlers who hold pedigrees from Google AdSense, Google AdWords and Gmail. The slick product has dedicated applications for both Android and iPhone platforms, and chat archives are accessible through the company's Web site as well.

Diving into the trend of more intimate social networking, where you can share with a small group of people instead of broadcasting to an unfiltered list of friends on Facebook and Twitter, Beluga asks you to create "Pods", like groups, of people, and you can send text messages, complete with photos and embedded emoticons, to those in the Pod. The service helpfully taps into your phone Address Book so you don't have to remember everybody's number, and it lets you connect with Facebook to find friends who may already be in Beluga as well.

   Beluga Pods and Conversations, With Photos

As one tech friend suggested (within Beluga), the service is actually a lot like Brizzly's Picnics feature, but mobile. I quickly found myself sharing photos of my kids to both my wife and my mom within the app, and setting up separate lists for Geeks or other contacts.



   Beluga On the Android Market and One Photo In Line

Behind the app are a trio of former Google employees, including Ben Davenport, Co-founder and CEO, who sports Google AdSense on his resume, Lucy Zhang, Co-founder and President, who helped design AdWords, News and Docs while at Google, and Jonathan Perlow, also a co-founder, and CTO, who was a senior staff engineer at Google, with responsibility as the tech lead of the Gmail front-end team. He also lists Gmail Chat and Mail Goggles among his successes.

The Web View of Beluga Pods In Action

Beluga's approach asks you to "Start a Conversation". Add a person by name, email or phone number, and keep adding until you have the right folks. Then you can start sharing. On Android, the app leverages your existing photo gallery or prompts you to take new photos if you like.

For recipients who are not yet Beluga members, texts come from a 703 area code number, and include texts from both the initiator of the conversation and all respondents. If you have Beluga installed, new updates can come as notifications within the app, and don't live in your central messages folder.

textPlus has forged the way in this market with innovative pieces, including Communities, and photos, both items Beluga has from day one. You can find Beluga on the iTunes store or in the Android Market. If we're already connected on Facebook, you'll find me in your Beluga as well.

As for the name? No fail whales yet that I can see. So that can't be the reason.