Blellow is a new microblogging community for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and professionals. Users are encouraged to network, share, and talk about work.
Blellow was created because the founders of the network discovered that small businesses employ almost half of U.S. workers. Fifty-two percent of those workers telecommute. This site is hoping to provide an open forum for those telecommuters and professionals to get their questions answered and fulfill a need for interaction that many at-home workers crave.
“When you work alone as a freelancer, you don’t have a group of people at your fingertips to help you figure things out,” says Mandi Leman, Blellow’s CEO. “You can’t just stop someone in the hall to ask a question. That’s why Blellow is so important: It’s a way to get instantaneous advice from the right people, who have the expertise you need at that very moment.”
Blellow groups are categorized by skills, interests, organizations, conferences, or events. Users can pose questions to others within the group or offer their own flavor of expertise.
Users can also tap into Blellow’s networking forum to find work or ask others in the same field if they’re aware of job openings.
The San Antonio-based company launched their site in private beta on March 3 and expects to launch publicly on March 13 at SXSW in Austin.
The name “Blellow” comes from an episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Reese says he mixed the color blue and yellow together to get . . . blellow. The founders took that insight and created a site that could potentially bring a new mix to social media.
Popularity: 2% [?]
March 11th, 2009 at 12:56 am
That could be the single greatest naming story I’ve ever heard.