Virtual bulletin board with Buzzbird
Some of the Buzzbird members
The idea for Buzzbird, Chief Executive Officer Amrit Rupasinghe explains, was prompted by an onslaught of communication channels. His previous workplace had three offices located in three separate sites and required constant liaising between each other. There was a Facebook group for the younger people to communicate with each other, official notifications were sent via group email and formal channels, skype was used to check in with the sales and research teams and top it all off, micro-Whatsapp groups would punctuate the day with updates, anecdotes and general office banter.
You get the picture here -the communication overload is one that we’ve become all too familiar with daily. You’d have to scroll through selfies and brunch pictures on Facebook, to get any information of an event you’d be interested in. Getting updates on Twitter means you have to be following the right people and that also, gets lost in the noise of other real time news and updates. And when you’ve woken up to 156 messages on awhatsapp group or a series of trailing emails, you’re hardly likely to painstakingly read every message to catch up on the conversation.
In one sense, Buzzbird helps cut through the clutter you’re subjected to daily and acts as a location-based digital sieve and a virtual public noticeboard. From a larger perspective, it opens up some interesting possibilities for geofenced communication by establishing a virtual fence around a predefined area. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, let’s backtrack a bit.
Buzzbird is the first product developed by its holding company, Bailatalk. Bailatalkwas established with a focus on building globally recognized social networking products with a Sri Lankan touch – ‘Baila’ in its name is a nod to the Portuguese-gifted music and dance unique to Sri Lanka. “The idea was that if we do succeed in making software that delights users globally, we want our software to be acknowledged as ‘Made in Sri Lanka’. The lighthearted name was also because the world knows us as ‘friendly and fun loving people’”, notes the company.
The idea for Buzzbirdcame about a while back and finally realized fruition last year. The app was launched earlier this year but has been cautious about creating any buzz about itself until some of the initial kinks were ironed out last week. With new updates being added to the app, the company is now rolling up its sleeves to kick things off properly. A small but dedicated team works behind the scenes while mobile architect,Nuwan Dehigaspitiya joined as co-founder and CTO.
Buzzbird began on the realization that there are certain location-specific conversations which needed to be had on a different platform but in a simplified manner. By fencing off conversations within a certain area and eliminating any other social media white noise, Buzzbird allows people to feel the pulse of a community. Amrit explains that Buzzbird functions in the same way a noticeboard functions at a university, only virtual and with more possibilities. He points that a lot of events and updates which take place are publicized largely through the grapevine and if you’re not following the right people on social media, you might be missing out on the conversations.
Screenshot of the buzzbird app
Since all the content is public, Buzzbird acts as a leveller. Buzzbird’s clear strength would probably be its use at event venues, workplaces and universities – all of which are hives of activity. In a university for instance, Buzzbird could help geofence conversations to specificities and encourage micro-conversations – a textbook for sale or a debate being organized for example – giving an aerial, bird’s eye view of events which unfurl. For now, the app has been globally launched with a focus on Australia and Sri Lanka.
As all content is crowdsourced, Buzzbird is reliant on creating a vibrant user base which propels the conversation. A point system and leaderboard have been built into the app to encourage users while security measures have been taken to prevent the abuse of anonymity, the app gives its users.
A mobile social start-up in Sri Lanka is a hard sell, as mobile in Sri Lanka is at a nascent stage and data conscious consumers would eye a data-heavy app dependent on video and photo with an understandable degree of apprehension. For Bailatalk, Buzzbird would be a technological springboard and a calling card – the technology built for the social product offers spin-off solutions for a number of problems which could be solved using the same technology.
Having studied and worked in the U.S., when Amrit moved back to Sri Lanka in 2011, he was excited by the possibilities that mobile afforded and it’s easy to see this enthusiasm in his work. Embarking on numerous side-projects and a continuous learning trajectory, the next few years were spent learning and experimenting until Buzzbird got off the ground. Embarking on a tech start-up and taking the risk to be an entrepreneur is never as easy or as rosy as all the inspirational articles on the internet paint it to be. “The biggest thing you learn as an entrepreneur is that it is continuous learning,” explains Amrit.
The driving force for any budding entrepreneur would be a natural sense of curiosity and a desire to augment the existing. For Amrit, Buzzbird began out of a communication problem which kept tugging at the back of his mind and needed solving. “I feel like if you don’t take a shot, you’ll never know the result – you miss a 100% of the shots you don’t take,” he explains, adding that the experience has been challenging but rewarding.
If you see something wrong out there in the world and the problem keeps persisting and if you have an idea on how to fix it – takethe plunge, he concludes.
| At a glanceBuzzbird acts as a public virtual bulletin board, providing news and real-time updates within a certain radius. Your newsfeed is filtered according to your proximity and updates are received via text, online links, photos and videos.Ability to tune-in to the buzz in a location of interest from the comfort of your home and adjust the radius accordingly.Content is crowdsourced and offers anonymity. A Buzzbird leaderboard features the top contributors. For more information, check out www.buzzbirdapp.com or the app’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Buzzbird1987/ |