15 of us CMers were heading down to SXSW. We all kinda new each other and we had met on the phone but we were more “part of the CM family” than “brothers and sisters in arms”. As we had learned from past SXSW years, it’s pretty chaotic and tough to keep everybody up to speed. Teams past have tried to use FourSquare, Twitter, Text messaging, and email…all of which kind of work but each has their drawbacks. We looked at a couple of group messaging apps and decided to go with Beluga (GroupMe was the first choice but it wasn’t available in Canada yet).
Group messaging is nothing new but the Beluga app (and web interface) makes it easy. There were a few immediate cultural impacts that we saw:
Constant communication breeds friendship in a hurry. Although the circumstances of the trip built an immediate connection between us all, the camaraderie was accelerated due to this fine little app. The culture of the group really took hold quickly and facilitated the face to face connections that really amplified the team spirit. Meet-ups, jokes, photos, observations, general news all flew around the group.
Sub-pods of the greater pods will emerge. Two sub groups appeared and they carried out their own messaging that was more appropriate for the smaller audience. Note: it can be really easy to message to the wrong pod (as somebody in our group quickly found out), so make sure you are going to the right pod!!!
It is really a club. 1 poor member of our group didn’t have the app and was instantly out of the loop, both in the locations of the group and many of the inside jokes group. He was quickly brought up to speed via text but this was, unfortunately, an afterthought as the main source of communication was via the pod.
Beluga doesn’t work well as a verb. One really unfortunate reality is that it is hard to describe. We all decided on “Hit us via Beluga” instead of “Message us”, as that brings in too many text messages, or “Beluga me”, which just sounds weird when you say it out loud.
As for the functionality, setting up the pod was pretty easy once everybody signed up (using Facebook connect). The communication back and forth was also easy. It works pretty much like the Twitter app, so sending messages with images works very well. All of the messages arrive instantaneously like a text message. There were a few drawbacks though. The connectivity was a little iffy. This might have had something to do with thousands of mobile devices sucking up the 3G or Wireless network but it seemed spotty regardless. As well, the pod keeps on running and can be a suck on your battery. The other item that seemed to bother most folks was that you were informed EVERY time somebody makes a change or message to the group. Group messages are fine but the administration messages were a bit much.
All in all, these group messaging apps really have their place. The barrier of access will be there, as it is for any app, but it is well worth it for any group messaging needs. How these apps survive along side the bigger messaging players like Twitter, Gowalla, FourSquare will be interesting. (I’m sure Facebook’s investment will help Beluga, or at least Beluga’s functionality, stick around.) I’m a fan and would definitely use it again.
Long live the pod!
