What is Bubbalon and Bubbalonia?
Bubbalon is a capital of Bubbalonia. It is a Social Rating website, where its members can freely share their experience on countless subjects, create affiliations by interests, find new friends and (very soon) build communities of their own. Think of Bubbalon as a new Universe with infinite possibilities, and countless discoveries to be made.
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Okay, aside from it being a capital of a very cool place, what else is Bubbalon for?
Bubbalon is a new way to share and express your likes, loves and everything in between about anything in your world. Bubbalon is a place where you can find trusted opinions from experts, your friends and people you trust. We are working to put Bubbalon wherever you are so that you can capture your emotions when they matter most, as you experience them. Whether its from your PC or your favorite mobile device, you can share your sentiments and rate things on-the-fly, adding to a trusted community of opinions.
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What sort of difference can Bubbalon make?
Imagine this: your expressed views could influence the way our current social models work. We are standing on the brink of massive cultural and social changes, and Bubbalon is there to make that leap with you. The old world is based on dictatorship, non-transparency, rigidity and social divide. The new world that we are building on Bubbalon, is a total, complete opposite of that. Each Bubbalonian stands firmly for positive evolution, good social merit, total freedom, responsibility for one's actions, transparency and balance. We are working to make your views MATTER.
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What mobile devices do you support?
You can access Bubbalon from any web browser, so as long as your mobile phone has a web browser, you can access Bubbalon. We are working on integrating with iPhone, Android and others in the future.
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What services do you support?
Initially out-of-the-gate, we support Twitter and Foursquare, the geo-location based free service where people check into a particular venue as they arrive. Bubbalon works both Twitter and Foursquare so not only can you rate a place you have just checked into instantly as you experience the venue, but you can tweet it out. All your ratings also get saved in Bubbalon so you can access your rating later and friends and others in the community can benefit from your ‘share.’
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What do people do on Bubbalon?
The most important aspect of the site, is expressing one's opinion, or feeling, in a form of a rating. The more in-depth your approach, the more Bubbalon will give back in the form of tools, connections, conversations and so much more. Bubbalonians can also find like-minded people, and add new things (we call them "items") to the system.
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What kind of stuff is on Bubbalon?
Anything and everything. From cars, toothpaste, stores, hotels, restaurants, musicians, to sports celebrities, country leaders, books, movies, songs and TV shows, you can even rank things that nobody else knows about except you.
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What's the difference between a review and Bubbalon ranking?
A review is an in-depth process of written evaluation, often done in detail and, usually, quite long. In case of Bubbalon, ranking is a numeric number, assigned to an experience. Each rating can be enhanced by a short feedback (up to 140 characters long) to better capture your "feeling".
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What's an item? How do I add an item?
An item, is our data unit — visually it looks like a card, and it represents anything that can be rated or talked about. People, consumer products, cool things, interests, ideas, books and even silly things (like a Glowing Toilet) — anything and everything represents items on Bubbalon.
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How do I find item's ratings? How do I rate items?
You can do a search using keywords, or use our Categories list on the Ratings page. Once the item is found, use the slider and assign the rating. To make the rating complete (more Karma points!) — add your feedback in the "thinking cloud" text box.
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What happens after I rate an item?
The information gets compiled into a "World" (average of all ratings) score for each item. That allows the users to easily compare the popularity of all items. Your friends will see your ratings as an average with all their other friends when they view that item as well.
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What's a Smart Connect?
Smart Connect is a recommendation service that helps Bubbalonians to connect with some interesting people (based on compatibility of ratings).
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How does Smart Connect work?
Smart Connect recommendations are based on some clever algorithm built by Bubbalonian programmers. As with any recommendation mechanism of the kind, the more one participates on the site, the more ratings one gives to items — the better the results. Besides the obvious numerical match, we factor in such things as frequency, quality and subject matter of ratings.
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How do I find people?
The best way, is to pay attention to the "stream" on the main page, follow the Smart Connect leads, or look through the comments that users leave while rating an item.
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What is the way for me to provide feedback to the site?
Glad you asked! For now, please use the Feedback tab located on the right side of each page. We are also building a community blog, where all the ideas will be discussed.
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How do I rate something?
You find an item to rate first (or add a new item), then slide the Smiley-Slider — and you are almost there!...
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How can I make my ratings better?
In addition to sliding the Smiley-Slider, you write a Micro Review (up to 140 characters long), that way your feedback completes the rating process.
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How do I rate the helpfulness of a rating?
You can choose from "Useful" or "Not". Micro Reviews with more "Useful" ratings will appear closer to the top of the comments stream, whereas "Not" helpful comments will be pushed down.
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How do I compliment comments I found helpful?
There are Comments options for each post, so you can engage in a conversation with any Bubbalonian whose posts you find helpful.
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What is Karma?
Basically, it is a way to reward active users — the more Karma — the better life is on Bubbalon! For more information on Karma, please check out the Karma page.
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Where can I find photos to support an item?
The best way, is to use a digital camera, or your phone camera, or you can also find pictures online.
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How do I upload photos to an item?
Having gained Moderator privileges, you will find an "Edit" icon on each item card. In the Edit item interface, you can update or add the pictures.
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Why don't my pictures appear?
Please make sure, you choose the 4X3 horizontal ratio for the images, and do not use pictures over 10Mb in size. The preferred picture formats are JPG (JPEG), GIF and PNG.
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How do I change my account information?
Click on your picture, or the “my profile” link on the top menu, this will bring you to your profile page. Next, click on "Edit profile".
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How do I add someone as my friend? Do I need permission?
There is an "Add to Friends" button on all User Cards. (As well as "Remove from Friends"). You don't need someone's permission to add users as "Friends". People may or may not "Friend" you back.
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What are status updates? (Profile Cloud)
You can use the cloud the update people on your status, or for any message you want to appear on your profile page. Along with the Smiley, it can represent your mood of the day.
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Can comments be deleted?
At the moment no, but in the future we will be adding this functionality.
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Can I say negative stuff about an item?
Sure! Go ahead. Express your feelings if they are positive, or negative. Both "positive" and "negative" energy is very important and very good for each item.
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What's not OK on Bubbalon?
Common rules of behavior that all media sites stand for also apply here. Not to be repetitive, we have outlined our rules of conduct on the "Terms" page.
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Do I need to give you my email address to sign up for Bubbalon?
Yes. That allows you to stay in touch with discussions, threads and other touch points on the site.
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I see a menu button called “groups”, what is that?
Groups are a way to find out what a larger number of Bubbalon users think about a particular subject. Create a group so you can discuss your favorite subjects or join one that you might like. You can participate in discussions, get opinions from group members and share your own. On the groups page you will find a list of groups. Clicking on the group Title will bring you to that groups page.
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What if I want to form my own Group on Bubbalon?
That's easy, just click the “Create a Group” link on the bottom left of the groups page, than enter the key information for your group. Choosing a related object or objects for groups will help to provide some focus for your group. Tell friends about your group by sending them the link to your group (we are working to make this easier in the future).
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How do I Join a Group, and leave one I don’t like?
Click the “Join this Group” link on the Left side of the Group page under the Group Title. If a group is no longer right for you, you can leave it easily. Just click the “leave this group” link which will be in the same place you found the “join” link.
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How do I find out whats going on with my groups?
We are working to make it easier to see what is happening with your groups, but for now you can go to your profile page and click the links for the groups you are a member of.
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