Islandoo buzz
27 September, 2006It has been great to see the favourable reaction to the Islandoo launch. For one thing, it makes it much easier to explain what we are trying to do with BloomBox. Here’s some posts: Mashable, The Stage and, my personal favourite, the Selsius Real Estate Blog (MP3 version) drawing lessons from Islandoo for the real estate industry.
It is famously difficult to predict how a community will interact with a piece of software. What has astounded us is how friendly Islandoo is. As I write, our newest islander (our 9744th) is a girl named melodyblue. She joined Islandoo 12 minutes ago. She already has 12 comments and 9 fans.
Our recent research suggests MySpace is like a pub where most people chat to their existing friends, boys ogle girls and occasionally you bump into someone new at the bar. By comparison, Islandoo is the world’s friendliest party. As soon as you open the door, dozens of people want to say ‘hi’ and start a conversation. It is great buzz (and, anecdotally, a great way to meet people).
The flip side of this is “fan spam”. Islanders have quickly realised that a good strategy is to fan as many other islanders as possible - there is a good chance you’ll get fanned back, increasing your prominence. We are currently working on a couple of solutions that should reduce the noise of fan spam, but still maintain the community’s friendliness. Interesting new features coming soon. Watch this space: 
