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Bebo beta, a decent start

Bebo beta from Team Blab.. a decent start

So Team Bebo tweeted that they were looking for beta testers for their new app called Bebo.  So I grab a couple of guys and decided to see what this shin-dig is all about.

First Impressions

Well i will say this.  The set up process is a hell of a lot easier than sighing up people for Semaphor by SpiderOak.  You can read about that debacle here.  So it relatively straight forward.  I downloaded the app on my Nexus 6 and started the process.

When you first download the app and then open it up your shown this screen.

Screenshot_20161003-185312

It’s pretty simple. You just click on the create a group button and off you go to the races.  But if you are given a code from someone then you click the enter an access code button.  That way you can join a very specific group.  So much easier than Semaphor.

Once you click on the create a group button, you are taken to the screen that lets you choose the name of the group you want to create. Create the Group Name and give yourself a user name and your off to the races.

Once you are in the app, it takes you right to the Camera Roll section.  Why it takes me here EVERY SINGLE TIME, is beyond me.  I guess they had to pick a spot to go to, so they said that.  But unless I do nothing but videos, this is about the dumbest place to start off.

The good thing is that you can swipe from the left hand side going to the right and you will bring up the different locations/menu items that you can choose from. I wish more apps did it this way.

 

Menu items

You access all aspects of the app through this Menu section.  I actually like how this is done.  It simplifies everything here and makes it easier to navigate to where you want to go.

  1. Camera Stream – This is where in theory you can have a group photo stream. So if you want to have a place to put all the photos where everyone in your group can see and also add photos to, this is your place.
  2. Chat – this is just straight up chatting.  Nothing fancy here.  It sucks though.  You can’t edit a chat, or delete one either.
  3. Direct Messages – This is where you have those super secret one on one messages.  Again, can’t delete the messages.  Anything.  Not the thread or anything within the thread.
  4. Discussions – A place to have a discussion about something particular.  Maybe want to know about a new idea for the company.  Or maybe you want to have a general discussion about the lunch for Saturday’s meet up.  The thing is, you can’t specify who can or can’t see this.  So it’s open to everyone.  No bueno, that idea is
  5. Events – Think of this as a calendar thing, within a thing, that is about a thing….. And that’s how useful it is as well.
  6. Video Lounge – This is where up to 8 people can have a face to face video conference.  Never worked for me.  Every time I tried to “take a seat” it never worked.  EVER!
  7. Group Settings – This is where you can send invites, leave the group or do a few other things.  So basically the setting area.

You can view all the photos here.  I have put the screenshots from the phone and also what it looks like on the desktop.

Thoughts

Bebo, is billing itself as the one place to put all your conversations and stuff your business does in one place.  This is a bold statement.  For me, and the guys who tested this, it was a miserable experience.  Somethings worked, some didn’t.  It was very beta.  VERY BETA!

I will say, there are two things that this has going for it.

  1. It does work very seamlessly with the desktop.  I was able to have both the web browser up and the phone going at the same time.  It synched very well and I didn’t see any type of hesitation from it.
  2. When you hit the little GIF button in a chat, it slides Giphy over from the left and you can chose something.  it’s a novelty, but a cool one.  If nothing else, it’s a little fun.  For about 5 minutes… But a good 5 minutes it was.

That’s it.  I can’t see a single reason why I would want to recommend this to anyone.  The only advantage this has over Ryver or Slack is the video thing.  And to be honest, that isn’t that big of thing.  This is a decent start, but it isn’t even close for anything that will replace what else is out there.

We test a lot of different things here at ByronDoss.com and in this testing, it took us all of about 30 minutes to just delete the app and move on.  That IS NEVER A GOOD SIGN! 

 

 

Published in Review