3Bubbles – a Bubble 2.0 Indicator?

(Updated)

I’m not trying to be funny with the title.  I think a pretty good indicator of being in Bubble 2.0 is when we see cute new applications that everyone likes yet very few use.  3Bubbles, announced by Stowe Boyd, featured at TechCrunch is a really neat idea: adding real time chat to blogs. 

But how many blogs are there to support a lively chat?   My guess is less than (the Technorati Top)  100.

When I wake up early morning (PST) the little flags on my MapStats view are all over Europe, Asia and Australia.  Later the day as we wake up here most of my visitors are from the American continent. Blogs do for conversation what wikis do for collaboration: enable a dialogue between people who are far apart not just  in terms of geography but in time, often in different time zones. Only hugely popular blogs will have the critical mass of readers coming together for a real time chat.  My feeling is that even with enough participants around, chat is  not an easy way to convey a coherent message.  I’ll be happy to be proven wrong though.

That said, I’m sure it will work on TechCrunch – and  a few others.  Is the business model than to deliver ads to a handful (a few dozens?) of blogs?  

Update (2/12):

• 3Bubbles – Why I’m Skeptical About Live Chat on Blogs
• 3Bubbles: Your Backstage Pass to the Rock Stars
• Post-Level Realtime Chat?
• Comments, trackbacks, and now chat?
• Two Dot Roundup

• 3bubbles is cool — but so what?

• 3Bubbles: The Narrow Point of a Big Wedge
• 3Bubbles Beta
• Is 3bubbles just one bubble waiting to happen

Update 2. (2/13).  TechCrunch reports 3Bubbles is (are?) open for a limited beta.  Right now there are 16 chat participants… I’m sure some of them expressed their opinion, but I can’t see that, since they all are in the chat session instead of leaving comments.  It looks to me that 3bubbles’ instant “achievement” is to reduce the conversation that used to span over days and different timezones to only the people that are present at the same time.

Tags: 3bubbles, bubble 2.0, conversation, blogs, blogging, wiki, collaboration, chat, blog chat