Friday, November 18, 2011

Bumbel.be Wants To Disrupt The Forum

Bumbel.be want's to replace forums and the like. Forums have been in use for over 15 years after taking the reigns from bulletin boards in the mid 90's. Forums, and similar structures, are heavily used today and are the primary means for online discussions. Even Facebook and Disqus are forms of threaded conversations.

How can you improve on the tried and true conversation methods provided by forums? Bumbel.be is building "a better way to debate, discuss, and argue about whats on your mind". Their "goal is to make a superior ground for discussions, talks, debates and much more".

According to Belgian DNS records Bumbel.be is owned by Koby Berkovich, co-founder and CTO of Ineze (a 2010 Seedcamp winner). There is probably more people involved and considering it has been in some stage of development for almost a year I expect something substantial.

The photo on the homepage sparked my curiosity. According to my microbiologist brother it is of a rod shaped (bacilli) bacterium viewed using a TEM scanning electronic microscope. The actual bacterium is most likely a Bacillus species, possibly Bacillus subtilis. Upon further inspection of the page after talking to him the image is called "bacteria.jpg".

Why is there a picture of bacteria on a website for a next generation discussion platform? I believe it shows their wordly aspirations. Bacteria is everywhere and is good and bad; it is woven into our everyday lives. Perhaps this product will be a replacement for forums, comments, chat, and everything else. You can follow Bumble.be on Google+ and sign up on their website for their private beta to find out.






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