Webjam Publicly Launched

February 2, 2007 in Web by Carsten Pötter | View Comments

Last night UK-based company Webjam publicly launched its service. It has been in private beta since the end of November.

Features

So what is Webjam about? Well, that’s a difficult question actually. First, it is a startpage much like Netvibes and YourMinis. Webjam calls it Homepage. You can add modules – Flickr, YouTube, bookmarks, just to name a few – and RSS feeds to your homepage, re-arrange them, and edit them. All the basic startpage features.

It is also a profile page. If you have signed up to any social networking site you know what it is about. Besides an adequate profile users can add a blog which features a tag roll, archives, trackbacks, comments, WYSIWYG editor, and syndication by RSS. This is really cool because some users want to blog but don’t need a full-fledged blogging platform like Wordpress or TypePad.

There is also a third site called Main Site which is intended to be a community site. You can also add as many modules as you like.

So now you have three different sites with different URLs. But that’s not all. You can add more sites and replicate modules from one site to another. Replication even works from sites of other Webjam users if they allow it. Also you can apply different privacy settings to each module you have added, e.g. all visitors can view YouTube videos but not your Flickr pics.

Conclusion

At first Webjam seems to be complicated, offering too many features. It is not really obvious to new users how to use it and see the possibilities. Fortunately, tutorials have been added.

Admittedly I can’t make much use of Webjam myself yet, although I have signed up to it several weeks ago and tried a few things. Maybe if I had to start a community page Webjam would certainly be an option. Or I will use it as a small, second blog. I have to think about it a little bit more, I guess.

But have a look at the following examples to get an idea. Maybe Webjam is the service you were always looking for:

Guidejam
Artlike
Cafeole

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  • Carsten Pötter
    Hi Marcus,

    yes I have signed up to Webjam in November, I think. It's great news that Webjam doesn't create three sites right from the start because I guess many people don't know what they should do with each site.

    I always wanted to write about Webjam before but somehow never managed to do so. Knowing the day of your public launch (yesterday) I have written this blog post on Wednesday already (to be published yesterday) because I had some spare time. Yesterday passed and coming home from work today I have seen the announcement and have published this post without checking back to the site. Stupid me. ;)

    Carsten
  • Hi Carsten,

    Thanks for writing about us! Since you registered (which I believe was before the 1 Feb launch last night), We've done a lot of work on positioning Webjam to make it easier to understand for new users. To try to tackle the issue of being perceived as complex and especially not knowing where to start, we've made the following changes - When you register Webjam does not automatically create these 3 pages for you anymore. Users are now encouraged to create one of these 3 types of pages from our homepage and also proposed example topics on 3 key verticals - local community, media and small business. These are created through a 4 step page creation wizard asking the users a few simple questions in order to get them going with a fully working site, thus easing them into the process of creating a site. We'll be working on some more key improvements for the interface over the next few weeks.

    We've also realised that some users will register so that they can be parts of communities within Webjam and not actually have any of their own sites. This is also fine - and to make things simpler for these users, we've simplified the top bar which goes at the top of all Webjam sites - some people said it was a little overwhelming!

    We'd very much appreciate any feedback you have that would help us to make the product better. We now have a dedicated discussion forum on the site where we are asking users for suggestions on how to change and improve the product:
    http://www.webjam.com/webjam/webjamtalkback/

    Regarding you not having any use for Webjam - Remember, it is not just a tool for communities. Webjam basically enables people to create websites with no technical expertise required. We are just as much a blogging platform as we are a social network as we are personal homepage (startpage ;)

    Anyway, thanks again for your post.
    cheers

    Marcus (co-founder, Webjam)
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