[babblrco]

New version of babblr released!

Hi there, friends,

We’re very proud to announce the release of a new version of babblr! Our awesome team has worked tirelessly to add lots of new features to babblr, increase its capabilities, and give our brand a much-needed facelift.

New user? Get started now.

Current user? Click here for special instructions on how to upgrade.

NEW FEATURES

There are quite a few new features for you to explore but we wanted to draw attention to 5 major upgrades.

1. Anyone with an email address can join.

2. An all-new invitation system for friends and groups!

3. babblr works outside of your Tumblr dashboard. It doesn’t work everywhere but keep a lookout for it on popular sites. We’re adding more sites as we go, too.

4. Click-and-drag babblr. Click-and-hold the top of babblr and move it out of your way.

5. You now have a personal profile page located at babblr.me/YourUsername

Friends, we are far from finished. This summer we will continue to expand babblr and add even more new features that we think you’ll really enjoy.

Best Regards,

  The babblr Team

© 2014, babblr, Inc.

[babblrco]

How to Get the New Version of babblr

What’s up, babblr users!

These instructions are for current and/or past babblr users. If you’re a new user and you never signed up for babblr, go to babblr.me to get started. We suggest you read our official announcement as well.

If you have the old version of babblr you MUST follow these instructions in order for the new version to work properly.

You’ll only have to do this once. After this, all updates will be automatic.

REMOVE THE OLD BABBLR

Time’s up! Let’s do this! First, let’s remove the old babblr.

• Click the Settings icon in the top-right corner of Chrome. Click Tools then click Extensions.

• Find the old babblr with the old blue logo next to it. Click the Trashcan icon to remove it.

• If you don’t see it in the list you may have already deleted it. Continue on.

INSTALL THE NEW BABBLR

• Head to www.babblr.me. Click Get Started.

• Click Add to Chrome. Click Add to confirm you want the new babblr.

LOGIN TO THE NEW BABBLR

• Here’s where it get’s tricky.

• Back on babblr.me, click Login in the top-right corner of the page.

• Login using the original Tumblr username and password that you used to sign-up for babblr the first time. If you’ve changed your Tumblr username since then, you still need to use the old username and password combination.

• If you can’t remember the original password that you used, click Forgot Password.

• Enter your original babblr username. Click Retrieve Password. This WILL NOT reset your Tumblr password! It will only reset your babblr password.

• An email will be sent to the email address associated with that username with instructions on how to reset your password and enter a new one.

• From there you can login to your profile, change your picture, update your info, and lots more.

You’re all done!

Got questions? Visit our FAQ page or shoot us an email at [email protected].

[babblrco]

babblr’s CTO, Trevor Clarke, Dishes on Node.js

Why babblr Uses It and What’s In Store for the Future

We’re really glad Trevor Clarke works at babblr. The 24 year-old, Oregon-born phenom built the original iteration of babblr as a Tumblr-only chat application in June 2013 and then re-wrote the entire app since last Fall. As Cofounder and CTO of babblr he is responsible for managing an international dev team based in the US, India, and Portugal. In this blog post he shares his thoughts on the increasingly-popular Node.js: the server-side developer platform that is the cousin of the front-end developer language JavaScript.

“Node is scalable, and beautiful,” Clarke says only half-jokingly. “I taught myself Node pretty quickly and you can really make it do almost anything that you want. We chose it because it’s super efficient and its scaling capabilities are enormous--which is exactly what we need for the future of babblr as we expand its features.”

For a long time, PHP was the framework of choice for web developers but the server-side engineering aspect was difficult and slow. For example, when you compare a website running PHP and one running Node.js, Node could handle 50,000 concurrent requests where PHP may only handle 5,000 similar requests.

But as JavaScript became available on the server side it got easier to engineer logic overall. “That’s why you see companies like Walmart and PayPal switching over to Node,” Clarke says. “Walmart even built their own API engine that runs on Node to handle product data.”

Node for Startups

“For a startup like babblr, Node is the perfect solution because it’s so lightweight and extendable,” said Clarke. “It really is a framework for a new generation of applications like customer engagement, real-time services, and future e-commerce opportunities. For babblr, we have it doing our authentication, our product API platform, and also some pretty complex real-time socket operations as well.”

Another advantage of Node is that it can be used to quickly create prototypes. “The amount of code required to build out modules is a lot less when working with Node,” Clarke notes. “Startups that need to create working prototypes, like babblr, don’t have to spend as much time writing code which is a huge advantage and gives us a huge time to market advantage.”

“I see Node use multiplying year over year for probably the next 5 years,” Clarke muses. “Even if something comes in during that time it’ll take a few years for it to ramp up and become popular. But Node is increasing in popularity for very good reasons and I don’t see it slowing down anytime soon.”

[royallysocial-deactivated201609]

Great night w/forward thinkers! @peoplespaceOC @babblrchat @brandonsowers @crujonze #noimagefound #techtalk

[babblrco]

Check out a few pics from our babblr testing party a couple weeks ago. Thanks to all the people that came to help us test babblr!

[babblrco]

What’s New With Facebook’s Paper?

Facebook’s mobile content aggregator/creator has been around just over a month: here’s what we think about it.

What does “social media” mean? We use the words “social media” to describe our online interactions as well as the platforms we use like Facebook or Twitter. There is a social media “space” and industry. There are social media specialists. Companies devise social media strategies but what is it, actually?

To us here at Babblr, social media is quite simple: it is a conversation. A conversation is a social layer, a social medium, that we construct when we’re together. It is a constantly evolving membrane through which we let our ideas and emotions flow to other people. Conversations happen instantly and they change constantly. The volume naturally increases and decreases. The subject instantly changes as one idea transforms into another and people add their own information to it.

Does Facebook Paper add to our ability to communicate and share? Sure it does but only in the sense that we now have another option in a lineup of virtually indistinguishable apps. It has nice visuals, cool UI/UX, but how does it differ from the original Facebook Messenger app other than a different layout and some added publishing features? Furthermore, how does it differ from Flipboard, Feedly, and others?

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel started a venture capital group several years ago called the Founders Fund whose manifesto included a clever sentence which reads, “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” That’s how we feel here at babblr and when you stop and think about it you begin to realize that everyone is just tinkering with the same wheel instead of reinventing it. It’s 2014 and people are still flipping between social media apps to check for notifications. We’re still sharing things and then waiting for someone to respond. It’s time for a better way. It’s time to evolve. We think that babblr is the next step.

[babblrco]

What Facebook’s $19 Billion WhatsApp Buy Means for babblr

The social messaging space is the hottest market around: where does babblr fit in?

The social messaging space feels a bit like a feeding frenzy right now. There’s blood in the water, both uncertainty and opportunity abound, and it’s all complicated by a myriad of other players and factors in the mix. What does all this mean for babblr? Let’s first look at the WhatsApp acquisition by Facebook and why that is an important indicator.

2 Reasons Why Facebook Was Smart to Buy WhatsApp

Facebook’s decision to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion speaks volumes about the potential of the social messaging space. Zuckerberg has been quoted saying that he expects WhatsApp to have 1 billion users in the future. Whether or not they reach that goal it’s clear that social messaging is a growing market and Facebook has now positioned themselves very well to capitalize on it.

Another very compelling reason why Facebook bought WhatsApp was because many of its younger users had left in favor of WhatsApp. However, it has yet to be seen whether these same Millennials will jump ship once again now that Facebook owns WhatsApp. But Facebook’s move does let us know that the trend for young people is towards over-the-top chat apps.

Don’t Forget: Snapchat Didn’t Sell

Snapchat passed on over $3 billion from Facebook. Obviously, the smart folks at Snapchat feel that they’re on the upswing and that their company is worth more now or will be worth more in the future. This is another great indicator to us that the market has not matured completely.

WeChat Quietly Valued At $60 Billion

Last week, TechCrunch reported that one of Asia’s leading investment groups valued China’s WeChat app at $60 billion--more than 3-times what Facebook paid for WhatsApp. Why is that, you ask? Because WeChat has done a much better job of monetizing their app. They also have a strategy for allowing third-party organizations to integrate with their app.

babblr’s Future

Even with all the focus on the moves that big companies are making, here at babblr our attention lies on our target customer and our product. We know that the market can accommodate other apps and our focus is on bringing a product to market that surpasses our customers’ expectations and solves the pain points that they currently experience with their social messaging apps. babblr’s place in this market is going to be much different than other players  and we feel that we are positioned very well to offer more than just a terrific chat application thanks to our unique vision for our product and our strategic partnerships. We’re looking forward to joining the party in this awesome growth market in the very near future.

[babblrco]

The babblr Vision

A word from babblr’s CEO, Russ Lujan

When I first heard of babblr it was a chat app for Tumblr that had a somewhat sizeable group of consistent users. The app had launched in June, 2013 with impressive organic hype but had crashed shortly after and recovered. But what I saw with babblr was the potential to become something that changed the way people use the internet.

The Current Social Messaging Landscape

The social messaging space is quickly becoming the hottest market around. What’s more, the market also appears to be highly fragmented with different apps dominating in areas around the globe. Here in North America, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger appear to be the go-to options for many users. Additionally, many younger users, the Millennials, are abandoning platforms like Facebook and Twitter in favor of over-the-top messengers like WhatsApp, WeChat, and others.

Why babblr is Positioned Well

Even though babblr has been a chat app confined to Tumblr, it is a perfect foundation upon which to build a new and better experience for mobile phone and desktop users. We’ve created the flexibility to add in more universal features and it also has a base of active users that will allow us to grow the app organically.

In the next few months, babblr will begin the Fast Track program with Jack Porter’s Forward Accelerator incubator to help us quickly move through the foundational steps necessary to ensure that we can be successful. We look forward to releasing the new babblr to the public and will keep all of our followers and fans posted with new updates along the way.

[babblrco]

babblr’s Got a Few Buns in the Oven

Wow, time flies, huh? Happy 2014 everyone. Over the last couple months babblr has turned into a complete madhouse. We needed to come up for air and thought we’d say ‘what’s up’ and let you know a little bit about what’s coming in 2014 for babblr.

As you may remember, we brought on a CEO named Russ Lujan in October, 2013. Since then, we joined one of the premier incubators for startups and have been working at breakneck speeds putting all of the foundational pieces in place for babblr’s huge expansion.

The social messenger space is changing almost every single month and huge moves are being made by some of the largest players on the internet. While this is all very exciting, we’re focused on transforming babblr into what we believe will be the future of social messaging and sharing.

We can’t share many details right now. But our development team is literally working around the clock to make babblr’s pivot happen and be as successful as possible.

[babblrco]

Meet Our Chairman and CEO, Russ Lujan!

The babblr team is putting on its big-boy pants! We’ve come a long way since our official launch this last June, 2013. Our future is very bright but in order to take babblr to the next level we brought in some much-needed help. We’re very, very excited to introduce our new Chairman and CEO, Russ Lujan. We sound so grown-up, right?

Russ is an experienced entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience bringing startups into the big leagues and launching IPOs. But he also specializes in companies in the social media industry so babblr is a perfect fit for him.

The social media space is ripe for disruption and with Russ’ help babblr will begin to expand to meet the growing need for more robust and forward-thinking solutions. Millennials are abandoning popular social media platforms in favor of over-the-top mobile messengers. But even those OTT models aren’t robust enough. Russ recognizes that babblr has the potential to fill this need with several very important added features that we will announce in the coming months.

Under Russ’ leadership, we’re confident that spring and summer of 2014 will bring huge changes for babblr and lots of much-needed disruption to the social media landscape.

[babblrco]

The 2013 Summer of babblr

This last summer has been crazy for the babblr team. We’ve had our ups and downs but through all the hustle and bustle we’ve had the support of the Tumblr community and some new friends for which we are very grateful.

If you’ve been following our wild ride then you know that we’ve come back from the brink and are now stronger than ever. Our user base has been growing steadily to around 250,000 people that exchange several million messages each month. We also launched our website, babblr.me, which is doing terrific

We wanted to highlight one partner that came to our rescue after our launch: Realtime.co. They provided us with some much-needed back-end support which allowed us to continue to run babblr. We’re very excited to see where this partnership goes and expect great things from this relationship.