Blender Network - an open business network for professionals

[vj23x]

having a community like this is gonna be a productivity resurrector, as FB and TWT are killers!
Seeing how blenderites move fast and grow is a HUGE inspiration, be us hobbist or pro's

[tischbein3]

However, the minimum is obviously to have similar public contact info as companies put on their own websites anyway. A company with a complete anonymous website is usually only raising suspicions.

Just to clarify since I was a bit short on this in the last post:

I'm perfectly ok, with the strict authentification proccess proposal and making _all_ contact data aviable to registered people on an obligatory basis.

But for anonymous acess I really would like to have some personal control on this. Not only to have a minimal amount of spamming prevention, wich is really helpfull, especially for freelancers, with lower ressources on that side.
But also, from my personal experience, people who usually do want to make serious buisseness doesn't have any problems registering, _after_ they are sure they got the right person. (Thats why I'm not opposed to the registered-free access-idea at all:).

On the other hand, people who didn't made this experience, have no problems with this issue, could also provide the information to anonymous access, and therefore gain a certain advantage on the expense of their own risk.


chris

[victorphellipe]

If membership fees appear to be a blocking aspect, I'd rather look into other ways to cover our costs for the network site & moderating.

No, I'm not saying that fee is a blocking aspect. As I said to some friends, I agree with the fee idea. I just thought in a way to earn money even with free users and encourage them to pay fee to compete with high bids. Because if you are a Freelance/Corporate member and pay fee to benefit yourself from BlenderNetwork, why not charge a percentage of the Academic user's job, who are benefiting from BlenderNetwork? This was my main idea when I wrote that text. Anyway, thanks for your answer and I understand your point of view.

[Azrael]

Allow people to work, collect income, be a broker, secure credit card payments. Collect 5% on the income people make.

eg: oDesk

[ton]

I'm perfectly ok, with the strict authentification proccess proposal and making _all_ contact data aviable to registered people on an obligatory basis.

But for anonymous acess I really would like to have some personal control on this.
chris

The authorization info can even be kept private completely. We can clearly communicate what we've authorized to visitors.
That doesn't take away I still prefer partners to be visible at a reasonable professional level. For freelancers we can be less strict, but for a company having an own website with office (mail) address, e-mail contact and names of people involved is quite normal.

[ton]

Allow people to work, collect income, be a broker, secure credit card payments. Collect 5% on the income people make.
eg: oDesk

I think that's way outside of a feasible offering for us to make.

Obviously; this kind of service anyone in the network can offer too; brokers or consultants accepting jobs from clients, finding the right artists/developers for it and subcontract work to them. Managing clients and analyzing with them the needs and make project schedules is work too! It's a quite normal practice in IT bizz.

[Hyuristyle]

Great idea!

[jbakker]

Hi Ton,

This is not meant as critic, but to start constructive discussion. Some parts of your plan are not clear to me.

My first opinion of the plan is that the 'customer' part is not described. The main focus is the Blender professional, I understand that, but who will place work into the network? Or are the customer also part of the network as Blender professional.

Secondly it sounds like a social-network where people can find/act with other people. My experience is that it will stick to a social thing (just like linked-in, how many business is really done with linked-in, except by head hunters)

I think it can be a good first step, but it should also not close (future) doors.

Keep up the good work,
Jeroen

[RonProctor]

I think it's a great idea. The automatic account for BFCTs is nice. I hope it goes live soon!

[imakerinc]

This is a great drive from blender community. I think it would help new blender users a lot. We as a pro should share tips and guidance whenever needed

Thanks,
Image Maker

[stormbreeze]

maybe I'm just not getting anything, but from what I understand it's more of a blender approved professional database, which is pretty neat, the slight social is also good

thing is though, with all the questions and misinterpretation it's starting to get confusing in here

I'd have to guess there is no customer aspect per say, although I think it has potential to attract quite a few being official, the focus is search options and clear contact details

there is also not as much "social-network thing", there is just the feature of acquaintances and friends which can be a big help sometimes, also, it has limited access

only problem I can see (if I wasn't completely wrong so far) is the actual name, I was hoping being a blender network it would have a wider range of the blender community than just the professionals, as well as some form of interactivity

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's an excellent idea and should be done, but you might want to keep the name of network.blender for a different theme? Don't know, just my feeling

anyway, sorry if I didn't make any sense, then again a lot around here didn't make any sense for me either so there

[MattOstgard]

This is just the type of thing that Blender could use to help build it's use in the workplace. A site like this would make it very clear that there are businesses oriented around Blender and make more companies and artists think about switching to it.

As it grows it would be cool to see other things incorporated into it, too.. Like a renderfarm dedicated and maintained for paying users.

[ton]

JBakker:

"who will place work into the network?" : It's an open system, anyone can contact the members via the network site directly, that's why the contact info should be there.

Especially during the startup phase, the Network Adminstrator can provide consultancy to potential customers as well, but I hope others - especially the well connected ones - will take that over soon.

This is where the social linkage comes in; you can see that way who's already working with others, or who has mutual good relationships.

[kat]

...I'm perfectly ok, with the strict authentification proccess proposal and making _all_ contact data aviable to registered people on an obligatory basis....

There are Data Protection Law implications with what you suggest where individual people are concerned (persons of "flesh and blood"). Anyone providing 'data' services is required by law to provide an opt-out mechanism where personal details are involved.

That doesn't stop the Blender Foundation from individually vetting applicants internally as that then precludes the necessity of posting personal details into an open system if no opt-out is to be provided. It would also in of itself act as something of a safeguard against spam/noobs registrations and be a valid 'trust' mechanism for those that get authorised.

[stiv]

Anyone providing 'data' services is required by law to provide an opt-out mechanism where personal details are involved.

The opt-out mechanism would be not signing up in the first place. The whole point here is to share information.