by Ed Sussman
Everybody.
On April 13, a little over two weeks ago, we released a demo video and blog post about our new business, Buzzr.com. The demo, which is kind of wonky, is aimed at the crowd of developers who live and breathe Drupal, the publishing platform underlying the new business I co-founded with Lullabot and Bond Art & Science. About 10,000 geeks have come to check out the blog so far. Our ultimate audience will be more ordinary people who run businesses, write blogs, publish online newspapers and magazines, operate non-profits and just want to create cool, great websites. We should have something ready for them to play with before too long.
For now, though, it was pretty amazing to hear from the developers who are immersed in website creation. Along with the comments from the blog post, we set off a twitter storm. I thought I’d select a bunch of the comments and tweets, edit them down a bit, and give those who didn’t follow the chatter a feel for the overwhelming excitement. “Jaw droppingly awesome” from @torgospizza is probably my favorite.
-
pilpi: Something beautiful to start my day: The Buzzr Demo Video – Making Drupal Usable http://ping.fm/l8ru9 -
yelvington: Watching Lullabot’s video demo of Buzzr.com: http://tinyurl.com/cfnfnd (expand) Tres cool. -
DamienMcKenna: Awesomeness + awesomeness = awesomeness^2: http://d7ux.org/buzzr/
)-
KatherineD: @jjeff finally made time to watch the Buzzr video
It’s awesome! boo-tee-full! the unix thing was pretty funny too 
http://is.gd/sNzH (expand) -
AmyStephen: I’m loving the excitement around #Buzzr – good job @lullabot http://tr.im/iVdr It’s the ease of use we are working towards w @Tamka
-
Sooz: @lizak Buzzr looks like great service for “the rest of us” who want to use Drupal. Curious to learn more as it percolates http://is.gd/sfxu (expand) -
openbookuk: watching the buzzr video, pretty darn impressive http://bit.ly/RW7SF (expand) -
jdschroeder: Just finally watching the @Lullabot Buzzr video. Very impressive. http://tinyurl.com/cfnfnd (expand)
-
rjdempsey: Buzzr? This is would bring Drupal to the masses for sure. No more joomla vs drupal debates. Drupal ftw. http://bit.ly/RW7SF (expand) #drupal #buzzr
-
-
timmillwood: @jjeff Buzzr is pretty impressive http://digg.com/d1oeN7, well done to @lullabot. -
torgospizza: @jjeff Simply put: jaw-droppingly awesome. Buzzr should be part of core NOW.
-
supaben34: RT @DamienMcKenna: Buzzr just made my year – http://tinyurl.com/cfnfnd (expand)
-
timeril: Lullabot’s Buzzr aims to make Drupal setup as easy as Ning & Squarespace: http://tr.im/iLcI
-
skangus: If/when Buzzr gets released it will change the Drupal world.
-
-
DamienMcKenna: Buzzr just made my year – http://tinyurl.com/cfnfnd (expand)
-
davereid: @jjeff @lullabot Holy crap! Neat stuff!
http://tinyurl.com/czkemf (expand) #drupal #buzzr #yourgonnaloveit -
-
darrenmak: @lullabot I think I have almost seen more tweets about Buzzr than I did about the @Macheist bundle Enjoyed the video, looks good!18 days ago from twhirl · Reply · View Tweet
appratt: this is really, really slick: RT: @kthread: pretty jazzed about the new @lullabot buzzr usability demo: http://bit.ly/bhGD8 (expand)
Comments from the blog:
terrific
On April 20th, 2009 Moshe Weitzman (not verified) said:
Well, this is a masterpiece, that won’t easily be topped. Just like Drupal builds upon Apache/PHP, Buzzr builds upon Drupal. It takes unusual vision and talent to execute a leap like this. And buckets of hard work. Thanks for taking drupal and content management to the next level.
Now I can see how Drupal will take over the world
On April 13th, 2009 Evan (not verified) said:
It’s always been powerful – but now I can see how it will be easy to use too!
o_O
On April 13th, 2009 JohnAlbin (not verified) said:
This is a very impressive demo! Holy cow! You took every recent Lullabot-related module and put them altogether!
Nice
On April 13th, 2009 Ben Finklea (not verified) said:
This will be fantastic when it’s available. It’s an “everything not Drupal” killer.
Favorite line: “Mildly OK-looking stuff…” LOL.
Favorite line: “Mildly OK-looking stuff…” LOL.
WOW!
On April 13th, 2009 NonProfit (not verified) said:
All I can say is “wow!” Drupal is now a product.
This is #!@&$ awesome
On April 13th, 2009 Shawn (not verified) said:
This is #!@&$ awesome, it’s something that I have thought about but didn’t have enough Drupal mojo to actually do. I guess if anyone can get it done it’s you guys.
Smooth…….
On April 14th, 2009 Kevin (not verified) said:
gr8 work guys cant wait for Buzzr to be realized & get my hands on it…
Holy Crap!
On April 14th, 2009 Waldo (not verified) said:
LOVE THIS!Believe it or not I think the “features instead of modules” UI enhancement is the best thing… and you saved it for last!
Just a thought. VERY VERY nice work. This is the future.
Kudos!
On April 14th, 2009 John Lewis (not verified) said:
This is a very good example of the type of thinking that developers have avoided and that designers and administrators need. Drupal is very back-end oriented and that is it’s greatest strength. While not losing any of that layer, you’ve captured many of the issues that the end user has to struggle with after the development is done.Keep up the good work and for the bravery to unveil something at the right time even if it’s still a work in progress and even if you were looking for VC for it. L
holy crap!
On April 14th, 2009 danneskjold (not verified) said:
Finish and sell this! Right now, I’ll buy it and finally leave ning.com!
Very exciting
On April 14th, 2009 Tao Starbow (not verified) said:
Ah this demo makes me happy in so many ways.I hope this demo give the money tree a solid shake for you.
excellent
On April 16th, 2009 sobi3ch (not verified) said:
That’s what I’m calling pushing forward functionality
It’s very original
On April 17th, 2009 Golchi (not verified) said:
The concepts are very original and the result is very cool. The UI is really more friendly (you have a feeling of less settings to ‘touch’ to customize drupal and it definitely don’t look like drupal ).Keep on guys, you are doing great as usual
).Keep on guys, you are doing great as usual damn … this is so cool. i
On April 18th, 2009 jonathan wagener (not verified) said:
damn … this is so cool. i was mentioning some of the issues i was busy trying to address in the blog post http://espresso-online.info/site/node/114. you seem to have covered the issues and then some. this is really exciting, drupal is beginning to become appealing to normal people and is not just something used by programmers surrounded by pizza boxes and empty beer bottles.
Awesome. Photoshop for web
On April 30th, 2009 Anonymous (not verified) said:
Awesome. Photoshop for web sites.
3 Comments
May 8, 2009 at 12:47 pm
love the background info on how you came up with the name but am wondering if there’s a chance the many questions raised in the comments you’ve cited above will get answered?
May 8, 2009 at 12:57 pm
You can sign up for news about Buzzr at Buzzr.com.
You can also read the original blog post with the demo video at http://www.lullabot.com/articles/buzzr-demo-video-making-drupal-usable
Several of the comments have specific answers.
May 9, 2009 at 9:29 am
hi ed, appreciate the quick reply!
i was sure my impression was false and you proved so – thanks for restoring the faith!
i have actually already signed up on buzzr.com and watched the demo after which i was totally stoked and a bit disappointed not seeing any reply to questions such as if this is going to be released as os or if you will be joining forces with d7ux.
anyhow, can’t wait for a mail from buzzr.com