Blauk
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (February 2013) |
 |
|
| URL | http://blauk.com |
|---|---|
| Type of site | Social Network Service |
| Registration | Required |
| Available language(s) | English (US) |
| Content license | Creative Commons licenses |
| Owner | Blauk.com |
| Created by | Samson Manickaraj |
Blauk allows college students to collect positive comments about themselves, their attire, their looks, etc., from others by way of Patches. Collecting a Patch updates all the known circles of a user and exponentially increases popularity among ones peers. The site was founded by entrepreneur Samson Manickaraj. While describing the concept, Samson Manickaraj said "If someone thinks you look well-dressed, hot or cute, why let that thought go waste? Blauk allows users to share these thoughts and when you collect such positive feedback about yourself from the society around you, it adds a positive energy to your life. Someone you want to date might decide to go out with you based on the number of 'trendy' or 'dream date' patches you have collected, and it makes a big difference to your life. Patches are the reason we dress well when we step out of home, because it feels nice when others find us appealing."[where?]
Website Functionality [edit]
Blauk was launched on 29th February 2012 as a Campus Social Network. College Students can activate their Colleges, which allows access to the their Campus Update where Patches are posted. Students post Patches on the Campus Update when they want to leave a compliment or positive comment for someone. The Patch posting contains a description of the person it was posted for, which allows others to identify if the Patch was posted for them.
To Collect a Patch, a user sends a Claim which displays their Profile Picture to the poster. The poster can Issue the Patch if they identify the profile picture in the Claim as the person they posted for.
Users who Collect Patches are showcased in the Campus Update along with other users who have collected Patches. Campus Update is seen commonly by all students of the particular College. In addition, when a user Collects a Patch, all friends of the user are Updated that this person just collected a Patch. Reacting to this, Founder Samson Manickaraj said, "It tremendously increases your popularity among friends when they get to know that someone at the cafeteria just thought you have an Awesome Smile or you look Cute"[where?]
While the Patches System allows students to engage with everyone they like at their College Campus, Blauk Conversations allows users to engage with their existing friends. Users can share thoughts, opinion, photos or videos with their existing friends, by either posting as themselves or Anonymously. When a user adds 4 or more friends, the Ghost Status is activated which allows them to post Anonymously to their friends. Every new Conversational post has a Reaction Cluster consisting of 6 popular reactions. The Reaction Cluster allows users to quickly react in case they do not want to type a detailed response.
When friends want to reply to an Anonymous Conversation, they do so by taking up Anonymous Characters such as "Hot Head", "Couch Potato" etc., "Hot Head" could be one friend in a Conversation and another friend in a different Conversation, so true Anonymity is preserved among users. There are 6 Anonymous Characters in each Conversation which are automatically assigned to users as they reply. Anyone replying after that can only Comment once in the Conversation.
