January 19th,2007

Talk To Us: Opening Up the b5media Forums

By Jeremy Wright

As a virtual company, we rely a hell of a lot on online tools. I mean, during our first year and a half of life as a company, none of the founders had even met, so it’s probably no surprise that tools like wiki’s, blogs and Skype became integral to our internal communication.

One of the tough decisions we made early was replacing our internal blog with a forum. As a blogging company, an internal blog seemed to make a lot of sense. However, the culture of blogging is such that you only post when you have a complete thought, and one that’s really worth talking about. In addition, we had a mailing list for general chatter - but that got real onerous real quickly (hundreds of emails a day).

Forums, on the other hand, are perfectly suited to just having off-the-cuff forums. We originally launched the forums as a test (mainly because I wasn’t convinced, from memory everyone else was for it). Within days we know that forums was the way to go (for us).

So we tightened up the forums, imported all the blog data and retired the main mailing list for everything but announcements and important discussions.

Ever since we created the forums, we’d been wanting to create a public area. Old school b5 followers will remember that we actually had a forums at (or soon after) we launched b5media. I managed to corrupt the database, but until then it was a fantastic tool to gather feedback and really talk to our readers directly.

Well, good intentions have finally come to fruition. The forums now have a publicly accessible area. As with our original forums, the goal here is to listen, answer questions, and allow outsiders a minor view into the fantastic community that actually makes all the magic happen here at b5!

You can ask authors questions, give us feedback (positive or negative, constructive or otherwise) and just hang out. As with all b5media “features”, if you don’t like it or need it, let us know! We’re huge believers in trying things out and, whether or not they fail, making them better.

On a side note, we’ve also reworked our Blog for b5media page. It now proivdes a full application form, as opposed to vague instructions on what we’re looking for. While the new application form might seem a little onerous, it is our attempt to balance our need for high quality applications that we can actually evaluate with our desire to make it easy enough for those who really want to apply to do so.

The Conversation

Easton Ellsworth on January 19th, 2007 at 14:59

Rock on! So great to see you guys moving forward and your business progressing so well. See ya in the forums!

HART (1-800-HART) on January 19th, 2007 at 16:00

I signed up to the public forum as I had an urge to comment on one of the blogs - but, then I wasn’t signed up as after I verified my email address - I now have to wait to be moderated access? Not publicly forumly friendly you know. I’ll probably come back and look around again, but I lost my train of thought for today

Keeping the Castle - Come Visit b5media’s Forums on January 19th, 2007 at 16:15

[…] The public forums are here, and you can read the announcement at the main blog here. I hope to see you there! […]

Administrator on January 19th, 2007 at 19:45

Whoops, sorry, that was a bug. Fixed now!

Martin Neumann on January 19th, 2007 at 19:49

Nice idea Jeremy, letting us on the outside a sneak inside b5.

will check it out over the weekend.

CFS Squared: Tales of CFS » b5media Forums now Public on January 20th, 2007 at 11:40

[…] A really cool happening is going on at b5 media right now, and that is we have made a section of our forum public. So if you guys feel like hanging out and chatting with the fabulous and crazy bloggers of b5, you can do so. All details can be found on how to do so at the b5 homepage which you can access here. […]

A Feed Is Born » b5media Public Forum Is Open - RSS, Webfeeds and Information Overload! on January 21st, 2007 at 11:18

[…] Finally - the long anticipated launch of the b5 public forums is here. Here’s what the announcement says: The forums now have a publicly accessible area. As with our original forums, the goal here is to listen, answer questions, and allow outsiders a minor view into the fantastic community that actually makes all the magic happen here at b5! […]

Bobbi Crouse on January 22nd, 2007 at 08:55

wow! I’m impressed! i have visited many times and have enjoyed reading the different blogs . I be back often now.

Online Media Beat » Join the b5media forums on January 23rd, 2007 at 05:30

[…] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. RelatedPosts: […]

Artist Hideout » Grand Opening: b5media Forums - Where art comes alive. on January 27th, 2007 at 17:16

[…] Not too long ago, we decided to let some of you other bloggers and readers see a peek into the …erm, night life that is b5media. […]

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