When it comes to Blab… B is for BETA

If you haven’t heard of Blab yet you should probably check it out. Blab is where you go to hangout with your crew. You can setup a room where you can chat, watch videos and listen to music together. When you setup a new Blab you can allow up to 4 people to go live on video with while any number of people can watch and comment in the live chat. While people are on camera you can you can give them props (similar to Periscope) if you like what they are saying by clicking on their video. You can also follow any user by clicking on their name and interact with others in the chat room. You can use this service on your desktop or mobile device with a native iOS app or you can use your browser on Android.

My Experience with Blab

I first got introduced to Blab because 2 Udemy Instructors I really enjoy listening to started a show called The Passive Income Show. This show is all about 2 successful instructors on Udemy helping the rest of us with different tips and tricks and a new show topic every week. This is about the only show I watch on there and this is my full exposure to Blab. I think the more intended use for this is just a social hangout with friends but I see more and more people using this for business related topics. I get that I am probably not the target demographic for Blab but I thought I would share my thoughts anyways.

My Thoughts on Blab

Now that you have a little background on what Blab is and how I got exposed to it I think it’s time I share my thoughts on the service. I do think that the service has some real potential but I do believe they need to clean some things up for that to happen.

I was on a Blab yesterday that Udemy held for all of its online instructors. Again I am not sure if Blab intended this for business use but it’s being used that way. There were so many people in this blab that there were some real technical issues throughout the Blab. There were often times where video was frozen but the biggest issue was in Chrome. The screen kept flickering up and down and it was really annoying. A few other users in the chat room said they switched from to Safari and it went away so I did the same and that seemed to fix my issue. Below is a screen grab from our Blab yesterday and I want to talk through a few of the points.

1. User Experience (UX) — First off I am not a real big fan of the overall UX design. I am a programmer and when we are notoriously bad for designing anything so when we have an issue with it you know there are problems. I know some things weren’t working yesterday but the whole left side of the screen isn’t used very well, the overall look and feel isn’t very inviting and one of my biggest complaints is that you can go full screen with the meat and potatoes which is the video broadcasts.
2. Is this really the best place for a title and logo? Again I am not a UX guy but I have to imagine there is a better way to layout these elements. I do love the fact that you can record these Blabs and save that video for use anywhere else. I know Phil and Dave then take that video, slice it up and create a bunch of YouTube videos on that. Really Awesome Idea!
3. This is usually for questions. Anyone in the blab can ask a question by typing a /q in front of their question and it will show up on the left hand pane. I don’t think as attendees we need to see this information. We can see the questions asked in the chat and this pane should be more for people running the show.
4. In this scenario we had 3 people on video and 1 screen share. I wish that we could somehow go into “presenter” mode where the main focus of this meeting was the screen share and the videos were minimized. I don’t like how the focus of this point is in just another box and it’s very hard to read.
5. I think this is a new addition and I love it. I want to know who is talking and I want to be able to click on there names and follow them. This is also where you can give them props.
6. The Live chat is a great feature but I think this also needs some work. I think if you got rid of the left hand side you would have more room for the chat. I just think this needs more room and cleanup the font size and face. I would also add some chat options here. In a Blab of this size I don’t want a notification every time someone enters or leaves the Blab.

I also have a hard time finding other content to watch. It might be because I am not following a lot of people but I think discovery of new content is also a big issue.

Conclusion

I know It might sound like I have a personal axe to grind with Blab but I promise you I don’t. I think the service has some potential but I think there needs to be a clear definition of what it’s supposed to be used for. If it’s just going to be used as a virtual hangout then I don’t have a huge problem with anything here and I just have to understand that I am not their intended user. If they do want people to use it for business then I believe they really need to addresses some of these issues. For now I will continue using Google Hangouts for Webinars and Screen Share Presentations and would advise you do the same.