Last month I was lucky to be drafted into Dribbble by a fellow designer. It’s a private beta site with a lot of buzz. It will eventually grow and go public which got me thinking about the ramifications.
If you haven’t heard about it, Dribbble is a community created last year by Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett. Designers can upload and share 400×300 samples of whatever they’re working on, kind of a visual corollary to Twitter’s “What’s happening?” Just like Twitter, you can follow others’ updates, comment on their work, mark favorites, and view the whole thing in a stream:
Notes about Dribbble
- Uploads. There’s a basketball theme so it counts as a “shot” on goal every time you upload something. 20 shots per month are allowed. Most are “leaks” or sneak peeks of upcoming design projects. You can also make “rebounds” which are visual responses to others’ designs.
- Streams. You can filter shots according to People You Follow, Most Popular, or Everything at once. This means that no matter how big it gets, you still have control over what you see. But there are downsides too, discussed below.
- Quantity. There are currently about 1000 members.
- Quality. The quality of designs on Dribbble is very very high. Nearly everything in my stream makes me click to view the details. Most any shot gets favorited a handful of times. I’m currently following 70 designers, almost 10% of Dribbble’s whole user base.
True, you can’t deduce much from 400px crops. You don’t have insight into the projects they’re for. Many things can look great out of context but still not serve their project well. But there’s something addictive about seeing the sheer variety of styles in all these designers. So in terms of quantity and quality, Dribbble has them both in spades.
- Discovery. Dribbble has also introduced me to designers who are seemingly unknown in the blogging and Twitter world. Yet looking deeper into their work, it’s better than nearly anything you’ll find from the A-list designers we all follow.
- Discussion. Because the crops are small and somewhat inconclusive, Dribbble isn’t always ideal for workshopping an idea. Discussion is about 95% compliments, which is great for designer self-esteem, but doesn’t do much for critical thinking or the mutual back-patting that folks like Tim Van Damme noticed has gone on way too long in our industry.
At the same time, certain feedback from a few great designers can open your eyes. It recently gave me the confidence to try out a radically new masthead idea for a project, which got approved by the client, against the odds.
- Openness. There are currently no third-party services or APIs until beta testing is complete.
- Privacy. I spoke with Dan this week who mentioned the public Dribbble will be visible to the public, but membership is required for participation. Facebook-style privacy filtering is not yet in the cards.
Intimacy
Finding intimacy among groups of friends and colleagues online isn’t always about limited numbers. Sometimes it’s just a matter of finding the right people. But once you’ve found an intimate place, how long can it last?
At some point in 2008-2009 everyone I’ve met in my entire 35 years got a Facebook account. Instead of trusted recent friends, my circle expanded to acquaintances from high school. People who I never intended on re-establishing contact were now privy to my every silly status update. I got self-conscious and had to create filters so that certain people didn’t get certain updates. This idea of relationship-filtering will continue being an uncomfortable part of our lives as social media grows.
Currently, Dribbble feels pretty intimate. Among the nearly 1000 members, there are still clusters of friends that form little subgroups. Within your trusted circle, you can be yourself and post private/client work without worrying much about it.
This intimacy is important as many of us designers spend our time maintaining an airtight wall of professionalism on our personal/portfolio sites. We publish only the most pixel-perfect portfolio samples. We still use the royal “we” when describing the work done at our one-man design studios. The web allows us to contrive whatever identity we want for ourselves.
Dribbble is a nice escape. You can be loose and be yourself. It’s more personal. There is no veil of professionalism. Because it is private, people post wacky stuff they might not share otherwise. There is less noise, more focus. You don’t feel lost in the shuffle.
Currently only a select group can offer invites and “draft” others into Dribbble. But eventually there will be more. And then….
The Public Dribbble
Some questions that come to mind:
- Will the feeling of intimacy disappear when Dribbble expands?
- Will the signal-to-noise ratio suffer?
- Will users feel less private and start thinking twice about what they post, re: client work and privacy?
- Will users feel obligated or subconsciously guilted into following people who follow them, as with Twitter? Will their stream become diluted, and eventually, less useful? Will Dan need to build in relationship filtering, like with Facebook?
It’s natural to get protective over an online community when you sense it’s changing. Same with bands and companies and media sources—there’s an impression that once they get big, they start to suck. Sometimes it feels genuinely true. Sometimes it’s a myth that the magic has gone. Sometimes, it’s you yourself that has mentally moved on.
Back in 2002, the MetaFilter community experienced a popularity surge. Up to that point, MeFi conversations had a reputation for being meaty and substantial. Users were overwhelmingly a smart bunch. There were lots of in-jokes and meetups. The mods closed memberships for awhile. When they opened them again, charging $5 for a membership, there were surges of new members. In the next few years, the site went from 10,000 to 60,000. Loyal community members complained that the level of conversation had changed and too many newbs spoiled the experience.
On the surface, that sounds like a snobby and short-sighted reaction. Should communities perpetually expand to include everyone? What happens if they don’t?
I’m curious what would happen if Dribbble went the Metafilter route and “pre-qualified” many of their existing members while slowly allowing in additional members for a small price, reminding people with that $5 fee that what they’re getting is not Just Another Social Network. Metafilter’s successful model has done wonders for that site’s manageability. It would be a monetary reminder that Dribbble is not for spamming, causing trouble, and so on.
Merit Systems and The Open Web
Any follower of Dan Cederholm knows his reputation as a very nice guy and brilliant designer. I doubt anyone believes he envisions Dribbble as an ivory tower where elite designers interact without sharing with the greater public.
Granted, the only invites in Dribbble’s early days were given to the top designers in the industry. Judging from comments of non-members, there was a perception of exclusivity, though really this crowd was simply beta-testing. I sympathize with Dan trying to make this distinction clear to the general public.
In the real world, there are exclusive restaurants, prestigious universities, private clubs and other institutions that require money, merits or influence to even gain acceptance. No one is trying to hide it—exclusivity is the entire point. Those institutions seek small numbers of like-minded people to qualify based on stringent standards. Some charge them with elitism.
The web is a different animal. Many services and communities are free and don’t require application, unlike universities. Can you imagine YouTube telling you you couldn’t use their software because your father was not a YouTube user and, considering the poor quality of your videos, you just weren’t YouTube material? The internet in 2010 has such a strong philosophical undercurrent of populism and open access, the idea of “applying” to a website is unthinkable.
Many think forward progress depends on the philosophies of the Open Web. Namely, sites should aspire to be transparent, decentralized, hackable and accessible to all. These notions are so overwhelmingly supported by pundits, I sympathize with the pressure anyone feels to abide by them, especially when trying to keep a community small and retain its intimacy.
In order to be all-inclusive while maintaining quality, there need to be more faders, filters and switches to tune your web experience more finely, or people will abandon ship and go elsewhere.
Maintaining Control
Just to be clear, I don’t want to imply the sky is falling when sites like Dribbble go public. And I’m not saying it’s net loss for the design community if the quality control at Dribbble gets a little muddy and the site becomes hard to sift through and feels a little less special.
Also I don’t think anyone consciously wants to discourage new, young designers from participating. But it is tough to reckon masses of people joining just to join. Following others, not because they’re fans of their design, but in hopes of being followed—joining for all the wrong reasons.
Think of when you get a new Twitter follower. You view their profile and see they’re also following 35,000 other people. They are clearly not there to exchange information or make intimate relationships. They’re serial networkers. They want a microphone and a gigantic audience. When they follow others, it’s merely an overture for you to follow them back. Which I never do. I would hate to see this kind of mentality invade Dribbble.
I think I’m just having a reaction to the general loss of control. This is why tools like Readability get created. A more calm web experience. More raw content. Less compulsive networking and and “me-too!” commenting. Smaller tribes rather than one tidal wave of unfiltered humanity.
1:05 pm
It’s such a tricky situation.
I’m on Dribbble and I love the idea of it being open to whoever wants to join, but I know in my heart of hearts that when it does go public I won’t be able to post half the designs I’ve been posting.
This is for fear of clients catching on and getting sneak peeks before I’m ready to share with them and just generally feeling a little over-exposed (exactly the point you made with comparing Dribbble to our portfolios.)
I’d imagine this is worse for the big name, incredibly talented designers as the more potential eyes there are on their work, the more they might feel pressured to show only polished pieces of work which could really spoil the working draft feel of Dribbble.
1:18 pm
I’ve yet to get a Dribbble invite and have to admit it’s hard being on the outside when I see so many people I follow on Twitter tweeting out their stuff via Dribbble.
That being said I can understand the concern of when it goes public and beomes potentially swamped by different grades of designers as well as non designers and social network hanger oners.
I do wish dribbble opened up a little more simply because I’m still wanting to be in the club but I see that it potentially a worthier resource as a closed system.
2:10 pm
I’m on Dribbble and have been, in a selfish way, hoping that it doesn’t go public. The reason being as you mentioned above, it’s quite an intimate little community at the moment and my biggest fear is that will be lost when the rest of the world gets access.
There is something special with being able to share something with a small bunch of well respected individuals. Makes it feel all cuddly.
2:15 pm
I’m not on dribbble but the article you’ve made makes me want to. By the way this is a good article, you spoke your mind on it, it was worth of reading.
Going public can be really great for people like me who want to us it, however it can loose its interest since there won’t be just designers from who we can appreciate their work. These times everyone call themselves designers, and maybe the community will be spammed by this kind of people. Maybe a form to fill out with example of designs we made and questions about how it can useful for us could be a filter.
2:18 pm
I’m on Dribbble, and I’ll admit that I enjoy the quality of experience currently there.
By and large, I’m not afraid of the doors opening to the masses simply due to quality dilution. After all, I can control who I follow, and Dribbble’s limited shots-per-month prevents people from getting too spammy.
This isn’t to say that I think the overwall quality won’t go down. It will, by the virtue of having literally anyone entering and pasting up whatever. Rather, thankfully, I’ll only have to drink from the public fountain when I choose to do so.
However, I do believe that the megaphone wielding serial networkers and eventual porn spambots are going to taint the pink basketball in the same way that it does Twitter. I suspect, in particular, that the rebound feature will result in me clicking the occasional link I wish I’ll immediately regret in the post-public era.
But, such is the price of any public networking site.
2:26 pm
To preface my comment, I’m a non-dribbbler. That being the case, and to continue the basketball analogies, I just want to watch the game. It is a “game” being played by professionals. I don’t want/need to see the local JV team play. Drafting talent into the league should remain with a certain expectation of quality. Additionally, I can cheer from the sidelines, but only real coaches and players “call plays” (give feedback). If you want in the game, get better, get drafted, and inspire those around you to do the same. No one likes an armchair quarterback (differernt sport, sorry) who is only yelling at the screen. But what do I know, I’m not in the club, probably don’t deserve to be right now, based upon my remarks and I still want to see what is going on.
2:37 pm
Agree 100%. I’d like to see a system similar to what’s available now, where your get drafted by another designer. Maybe the amount of draftees your allowed to draft is tied to how many followers you have? Then, make the shots public for folks who want to watch.
Middle ground?
2:38 pm
Nice read. I joined Dribbble less than a month ago, and I really love it. There is so much talent there that was hidden away somewhere.
An interesting thing is that I actually don’t have to follow anyone really, since everything there is pretty good. I can just click on the Everyone tab and scroll through. I am assuming that after it goes public I will have to start following my peeps and maintaining my list, which may turn out to be work, and work takes time, time which I don’t have.
Something that will happen for sure, is that I wont be able to post as freely as I want to. There may be too much client drama when it comes to early exposure to the public.
2:42 pm
I’m on Dribbble and I do like the little exclusivity – I think maybe continuing the draft system to keep the community growing would be worth considering?
I think once it does go public I’ll simply stick to browsing offering from people I follow rather than looking through everything.
2:45 pm
Post turned out excellently Darren—very well put.
I don’t have much to add other than a vote of support—designers need something like Dribbble for the reasons you outlined. If it does go public perhaps I’ll have to plunk down and build something similar for the uses Dribbble currently has. ;)
2:46 pm
Why not make it invite only permanently. Really only designers would want to be a part of this anyway.
Give every account unlimited invites. Once there are a few thousand people using it, all with unlimited invites, it wont be very hard to get in. Just hard enough to keep out the casual non-designer users thus preserving that intimate feeling that makes it special.
This will in effect make it a walled community, albeit a very low wall.
2:57 pm
I’m not on Dribbble, but I would much prefer it to be a private site. I’m all for the web reflecting the rest of reality in how it operates, and that means some things come by discipline and excellence. While there is certainly a philosophical beauty to the [very] relative equality provided by the web, the simple fact is, not all content is equal. Places, virtual or otherwise, where excellence is a qualifier provide a healthy level of motivation and distinction. I like seeing the target so I know where to aim.
2:58 pm
if this is a re-post i’m sorry, lost the network connection for a few so i have no idea if it went through.
well written. looks like the post hit a nerve. it’s always good to stir things up every now and again.
seems to me people are upset that they didn’t get invited to the party. boo hoo. get over it. i currently do not have a dribbble account, am i intrigued? most definitely. will i sleep tonight? most definitely. i think it is a great idea to give designers and developers a place to call their own and let their (metaphorically speaking) hair down.
sheesh there is twitter and facebook and God know how many other social network site. be patient for crying out loud.
.mike
3:03 pm
I am also a dribbble draftee and love the site. I have had thoughts that it should remain invite only but it’s always been in the back of my head that the exclusivity of the service wouldn’t last, nor should it. While I do hope it remains intimate and would be thrilled if it stays invite only, it’s an awesome site that the masses deserve to be a part of, no matter what we as current members think!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and great post!
3:08 pm
I’m confident that whatever they end up doing – they’re not going to let anything spoil the experience for too long. It seems to me they’re not afraid to change things around and try things out. So whatever they end up doing I’m sure it might be hit upon after a few attempts.
Great points though, and very well put.
On the point about people just being polite and not offering enough feedback, I think I’d have to say that yes, on the whole this does happen. But I think if you make it known you’re looking for feedback etc there does tend to be a different kind of response.
But a lot of the time I think people aren’t just being polite for the sake of being polite, it’s genuine. A lot of my comments are quite useless and don’t go beyond “Nice work” etc. It’s not an interesting comment or helpful for the designer in terms of progress, but 10 times out of 10 I’ve truly appreciated the work and just felt I had to say something to let them know.
- On that point though, I think the “like” system works to cut down a lot of these comments. There’s a lot more “likes” than comments generally, and a “like” is similar to a comment just saying “well done” or something.
On a personal note, I quite agree with @Mark ^just above. A limited number of invites for drafted up members seems to already have grown the site & kept a good level of quality. Perhaps they should just continue with a similar system.
3:09 pm
When a small group of people, many of whom are considered to be among the elite in our industry, become self-anointed gatekeepers for what constitutes “quality” and use the “exclusivity” of a club to determine who is and who is not worthy of being a member … this is the absolute definition of “elitism”.
All this attitude does is perpetuate the back-slapping sychophancy that dominates our profession. If you know the right people, your golden. If not, well, your not.
Simply put, dribbbler’s seem to be arguing that in order to raise the level of design, they need to exclude themselves from the general population. The arrogance of this attitude is stunning.
Let’s just say for the sake of arguing that I am a talentless hack … How can those of us who are not “worthy” be expected to learn what constitutes “good” design if the alpha dogs hide behind one another’s egos?
This isn’t the kind of “community” I want to belong to …
3:10 pm
Nirvana before “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Nine Inch Nails before “Closer”
Barenaked Ladies before “One Week”
Twitter before Ashton and Oprah, etc.
Those who were “in” before will wax nostalgic about how X didn’t suck before Y because we were cool enough to be an early adopter. Yet when we’re early adopters, we wish our friends would “get it” already. Weird dichotomy.
I enjoy Dribbble and I (of course) wish Dan success. At the same time, exclusivity and quality of content are *features.* And I think Dan is smart enough to know that already. I hope he finds a way to keep the tight-knit, high-quality, helpful, and fun aspects of Dribbble as he opens it up.
3:16 pm
Hi Darren,
I understand your position and may be you are right. If dribbble goes public it may loose its quality and its intimate feeling.
Any way there is a problem to solve.
There a lot of users (I suppose it) like me: I asked for a Dribbble invite some weeks/months ago and did not get it. Why? I think because my “small tribe” is not there because in Spain there aren’t users on Dribble and it’s not popular.
This means I can’t acces to Dribbble and I must wait when site goes public or anybody invites me. Ok, I’m going to wait for it. These are the rules. :)
I really want to use dribbble because I’m involved on webdesign and I love pixel-perfection designs, I enjoy discussing/viewing/sharing web design (others designs and mine) and I want to follow the works other designers (famous or not) post.
So the problem is: how to accept some designers/users and not accept others?
It’s goign to be difficult. Sure. But I think the community can be better if the number of users are increasing, and in the same way may be worse if new users are only “serial networkers” who only want to get followers and a “microphone”
Hope you understand this explanation. My position is not to get public or not. The key is how can other users get in and why.
Regards, keep in touch!
ps: if any of you have an invite…i would be glad to accept it! :)
12:05 pm
Well, there are spanish designers on Dribbble :)
I got my invitation by asking politely someone who was offering Dribbble invites on twitter. I didn’t know him personally but he thought my work was goog enough to enter the community.
5:31 pm
Hi Jimena!
Nice news!
I supposed there are not many spanish designers because a lot of spanish designers I know are not dribbble users. Sorry!
Any way nice to meet you, I’m just following you on Twitter.
And finally, this message wants to be an announcement about my desire to be a Dribbble user. So if you have any invite and thing my works are good enough to be on dribbble, I wopuld like to recieve an invite.
Thanks and keep in touch!! ;)
3:17 pm
I’m not on dribble, but it sounds like the kind of community Dreamless or o8 had back in the day. You either know what I’m talking about, or you don’t, and I’m not going to explain it.
Dribble should look into a sponsorship system, not invites. Basically if a member sponsors me, they’re responsible for my actions, and if I muck up, their account can get banned to. Users would only be allowed X number of invites a year, no exceptions.
It can also throw in a bit of a paid fee on top of the sponsorship so only truly interested and contributing people join.
Throw both of those into the mix, and don’t even let people see the content unless they’re a member, then it’ll remain a small and controlled community.
3:50 pm
It’s not just the watering down of quality that worries me, it’s the sheer volume of what would be posted if it was public.
A few weeks back I was having a tough time getting the perspective right on an icon, several amazing designers jumped in to give advice and it turned out way better than it would have otherwise. Some of those designers don’t follow my stream, they just saw my icon in the recent uploads. Most of those who helped me out never would have if Dribbble was public.
When there are 15-20 new designs being posted a day it’s easy to skim and see them all. If there were 200 posted a day my icon would probably have been overlooked.
3:55 pm
Finding good quality inspiration is hard to come by. I think that professionals are willing to pay for that and I think that’s where you try to make the distinction.
By charging $100/year, your exclusivity is maintained and the application is valued.
4:06 pm
Darren, great article. I only wish I could know what it’s like without it being open to the public. :-(
4:10 pm
@brad c – kinda my point. if it gets to big then the community feeling is lost.
4:13 pm
@Brad – That’s a definite point.
I guess the problem is this: How do you make an intimate gathering on the web without raising the ire of average webbites, other than obnoxious secrecy? Even if Dribbble isn’t meant to be that sort of site, it’s current beta points to the fallout that the perception of such a site causes.
4:22 pm
While I’m not on Dribble, I’m hopeful that someday I will be.
That said I’d rather join Dribble in it’s current incarnation as a sort of designer invite only community. Even if that means I might be waiting a long time to join, I’d rather not see the site sacrifice the intimacy and respect it’s built for a shotgun doors open approach.
4:51 pm
I agree with Jarrod above, in that I’ve been eagerly looking forward to dribbble opening up — merely as a fan of great webdesign. It’s a real bummer that the best players on the court feel they have to play private matches, but I understand where they are coming from. I never really had plans to post any of my farm-team designs, I just wanted to check out their moves.
Ugh, OK, enough of the b-ball analogies. Sounds like Dan might have plans in place already (via his Twitter account), but I sincerely hope it doesn’t shut the rest of us out from seeing something truly inspirational.
4:57 pm
I don’t dribbble, but have wanted to be involved for what seems like ages. Many of the people I follow on Twitter post about it a lot, and its great to finally hear what the fuss is about – it sounds awesome.
Sounds like those who are involved want to stay a part of this ‘elite’ group, but unless more people become involved, then I don’t see how other designers can benefit and learn.
I just can’t see how the concern is any different to the whole quantity vs. quality issue that is found all over the web.
More design(er)s = more rubbish. Its a fact.
As I was writing, I checked my Twitter to see: “Here’s a sneak peek for the @dribbble folk: http://drbl.in/8314“, I think each time I see this I want to be a part of it even more. Certainly creates hype!
5:55 pm
Personally I felt very frustrated at not getting access to dribbble. It is not helped by a certain amount of bragging going on on twitter.
6:11 pm
Interesting article Darren. Still hoping to get my hands on an invite… ;-)
7:45 pm
I’ve got it… To beat the basketball analogy like a dead horse, consider the current format of the NBA, AKA “The Show”, and its Developmental League, the NBDL. Create an open to all Developmental League, and if you’re successful enough, you can get an invite to “The Show”.
My apologies to Mr. Cederholm, as he’s a whole hell of a lot smarter than I, and I wouldn’t presume to tell him how to run a business/successful site.
11:33 pm
The quality of designers on Dribble is so high that sometimes I think I should be doing something else other than designing heh.
But on a more serious note, I try to offer criticism when I have something constructive to say, but it’s true, I think a bit more interaction would be a good thing sometimes.
1:56 am
Please keep it close, but invite me first :)
6:47 am
Auditions.
Why don’t you have auditions for new users sign-ups. As a new user you would need to prove your worth by submitting a few shots and once you get enough positive vote ratio (say you need 200 votes with at least 80% being positive). Why 80% you ask? Well as Dribbble is being acclaimed for its quality, 80% would separate the mediocre from the simply great.
Once a new user makes their shot submission, it can be filtered into a different section of the site, away from the drafted players shots. Therefore the quality of the main section won’t suffer. For those who want more from Dribbble or those who perhaps fancy encouraging raw talent can view the submissions side and do some voting and provide some feedback.
Perhaps a good idea would be to only allow influential players to vote, those who have been on the site for more than 6 months and have a good feedback ratio (I don’t know how feedback works as I haven’t been drafted). This will then stop users who have been recently drafted to then get the ball rolling and draft in their friends, or even (unlikely) a group of people who ‘get you into’ Dribbble for a small fee, you may laugh but it’s plausible).
11:22 am
Hey Darren – Your bring up a lot of good points that are relevant not just to Dribbble but also to the broader opportunities for top designers to get feedback, broadcast their work (SELECTIVELY), and ultimately take advantage of new technology and communities to improve their careers.
Our team at Behance built the Behance Network (http://www.behance.net) with many of the same goals. Over the years, we have realized that while 90% of the work published is “public,” there is an amazing 10% that is marked “private” and viewable ONLY to particular individuals or groups of people in the network.
This secret project stream is a bountiful source of feedback and idea exchange among elite groups of designers and other creative professionals.
In the current version of Behance.net, this feature is not so pronounced. However, in our upcoming version (now in testing) we make it more accessible – and there are some other surprises that will restore intimacy by breaking the Network down into small circles of people that can help develop each other – privately OR publicly.
I found your post really helpful. As a company on a mission to help organize the creative professional world’s work, your points were heartfelt and reinforced why our team has been up day and night trying to get the new version out the door!
Regards,
scott
2:11 pm
I think it’s funny that people get so “up in arms” over the whole exclusivity thing. If you make something for yourself then you have the right to set the limitations on who uses it. I think what Dan and Rich have created is pushing the envelope a bit on the current state of social networking, and they’ve done it in a very tasteful manner. I don’t really get the impression that they’re out there flaunting it in peoples faces. Maybe you get the occasional D-Bag who flaunts it, but that’s their problem. The support and interactions I’ve seen on dribbble have been nothing but encouraging. My wish is that they would keep the posting as invite only when they finally go public. I’ll be honest, I don’t want everyone to have the ability to post. Call me selfish, call me an “elitist”, but I think without the quality control in place dribbble will become just another twitter.
2:07 pm
Great article Darren. Being a part of Dribbble has brought this extra excitement to my design process. Sharing the “in-process” work with other designers is something you don’t really ever get to do as an individual designer who works out of their house. This has created an outlet for that. To share things as I am designing them and not have a huge amount of people seeing it.
With it being private and kept somewhat small provides a sense of security to share the work.
The intimate community side of it plays a huge part of why I login and contribute. I dont have a huge following on Dribbble but that doesn’t discourage me from posting because of it’s small size. I know my post will still be able to be seen by other people without getting lost in the mix. This would happen if there were thousands of posts coming through if it were public.
And on the other side, i like to check out the work by all the people Im following but even more I enjoy being able to browse the the ‘Everything’ stream and see quality work from people I normally would ever be able to connect with.
2:10 pm
Great article Darren. Being a part of Dribbble has brought this extra excitement to my design process. Sharing the “in-process” work with other designers is something you don’t really ever get to do as an individual designer who works out of their house. This has created an outlet for that. To share things as I am designing them and not have a huge amount of people seeing it.
With it being private and kept somewhat small provides a sense of security to share the work.
The intimate community side of it plays a huge part of why I login and contribute. I dont have a huge following on Dribbble but that doesn’t discourage me from posting because of it’s small size. I know my post will still be able to be seen by other people without getting lost in the mix. This wouldn’t happen if there were thousands of posts coming through if it were public.
And on the other side, i like to check out the work by all the people Im following but even more I enjoy being able to browse the the ‘Everything’ stream and see quality work from people I normally would ever be able to connect with.
6:48 pm
I guess it all comes back to the idea that “red carpet” networking sites are the future (at least in some regards). Really small, tight niche social sites that are targetted at a very small market. The users of that site feel like they have something special going on. This is what Dribbble has achieved and you almost have to wonder whether they should just leave it this way. Why ruin a working model?
JB
9:21 pm
I’m not on Dribbble and while I really want to be, I shouldn’t be. While I am a huge fan of design, I’m not that great of a designer myself.
I have gotten the chance to check it out and the work is fantastic, which is why I hope that they never make it completely open. The community has enough ways so share and there is a need for a high-quality area for top-notch designers to share.
If you want to see an example of why I feel this way, check out the stream of “designs and interfaces” from the last 8 hours on deviantART. http://www.deviantart.com/#catpath=designs&order=11
If you’re a dA fan, you’ll know that there is some wonderful talent in the community. However, you have to sift through lots of lackluster items to get to it. I would love to see (or well, not get to see) Dribbble’s public stream remain high quality.
Once all of us little fanboys (and fangirls) get in there and the designers have to start evaluating the politics of not following back on streams that they’re not interested in, it will ruin it.
Heavily restricting the ability to draft others, maybe even requiring multiple drafts before admission is the best thing that could happen. While I may never get in, I want to know that something like this is out there…
7:39 pm
I’m not Dribbbling as yet, and because most of my clients would be offended if I showed beta designs to anyone other than them, I may never be much of a Dribbbler. But I have a suggestion.
Given the level of fear around loss of quality content when the site goes public. wouldn’t it be a good idea to provide a way for groups of designers to network themselves into semi-private teams with the use of a stepped permissions system? That way, as with Facebook, some stuff can be shared with everyone, and other stuff shared among a more confidential list.
11:50 am
I have been using Dribble from the start of November of last year and I have invited a good 20% of the people commenting on this post so I do think I should say something.
Regarding people moaning about the exclusivity of the site I don’t see this as a problem. As Brad pointed out that soon as the site goes public there will be a mass of posts that will drown out what is good for the site.
We will then see people moaning about not getting their work seen and the people that will only get noticed is the so called big designers because your going to get the “fans” following them to see what they are working on and this will defeat the whole purpose of the site.
I like the way that it is now, I know if I post something and ask for feedback (even though I have not done that yet) I know I will get help and vice versa. But the moment the site will go public and even Tom, Dick and Harry posts showing this new outer glow setting they are seeing it will dilute the quality that is there.
I think it is a fine line as you don’t want people to feel left out but you don’t want to ruin what is there already and makes the site stand out over sites such as Ember app etc. The best way would to give each member back the privilege to invite members each month and let it grow again that way.
7:49 pm
Designers – on the whole – are a very egocentric lot and, while the pursuit of quality should definitely be at the forefront of any design-led community, the formation of cliques and elitist bubbles isn’t necessarily healthy.
A defining feature of a meritocracy, should be that the system is accessible to all. People need to be able to have a ‘punt’, even if they are likely to fail.
Let’s be honest here…. I’d be very surprised if there are many dribbble members who _don’t_ currently enjoy being able to tell people that they’re part of this site. I’d also be willing to bet that a large number of these people don’t want to loose the ‘social currency’ that dribbble provides. However, I don’t think this is a good enough reason to keep a community closed.
The site sounds like it can provide a valuable resource for peer revue – which is a process that ultimately helps us all to become better designers. I believe the focus should be on self-improvement rather than hero-worship and self-validation.
If this web-application isn’t able to effectively sort the wheat from the chaff in it’s current form – perhaps it needs to remain in beta until it is able to allow quality content to automatically rise to the top?
I agree that intimacy is something that’s very important in the creation of on-line communities, and I find the subject incredibly interesting; but, it’s important to be honest about the motivation behind keeping a community closed.
I’d argue that it should be possible to create closed (private) sub-alliances (groups) within the site. This way, the founding members of the site could still interact with each other, without fear of contamination from the great unwashed :) At the same time, other designers would be free to form new groups and create their own criteria and goals.
Or is dribbble simply destined to become ffffound 2.0 ?
12:01 pm
We’re low we’re low, mere rabble we know…
I’m in agreement with the man Paul Burton above; the way it’s being operated right now is elitist by default. I like Dribble and I want to use it, but until the invites trickle down to my network, I’m not going to get an invite. This is frustrating and brings out the class warrior in me, I don’t want to feel this way, but when I see the top table metaphoring away, it riles me.
I say open it up, and see what happens, I think you’ll find the quality stays well above average. It won’t turn into ffffound because it has a different purpose, it’s not about posting any image that caught your eye, it’s above showcasing your own work.
11:16 am
Designers – on the whole – are a very egocentric lot and, while the pursuit of quality should definitely be at the forefront of any design-led community, the formation of cliques and elitist bubbles isn’t necessarily healthy.
A defining feature of a meritocracy, should be that the system is accessible to all. People need to be able to have a ‘punt’, even if they are likely to fail.
Let’s be honest here…. I’d be very surprised if there are many dribbble members who _don’t_ currently enjoy being able to tell people that they’re part of this site. I’d also be willing to bet that a large number of these people don’t want to loose the ‘social currency’ that dribbble provides. However, I don’t think this is a good enough reason to keep a community closed.
The site sounds like it can provide a valuable resource for peer revue – which is a process that ultimately helps us all to become better designers. I believe the focus should be on self-improvement rather than hero-worship and self-validation.
If this web-application isn’t able to effectively sort the wheat from the chaff in it’s current form – perhaps it needs to remain in beta until it is able to allow quality content to automatically rise to the top?
I agree that intimacy is something that’s very important in the creation of on-line communities, and I find the subject incredibly interesting; but, it’s important to be honest about the motivation behind keeping a community closed.
I’d argue that it should be possible to create closed (private) sub-alliances (groups) within the site. This way, the founding members of the site could still interact with each other, without fear of contamination from the great unwashed :) At the same time, other designers would be free to form new groups and create their own criteria and goals.
Or is dribbble simply destined to become ffffound 2.0 ?
12:28 pm
Why have you copied by comment verbatim?
11:12 am
@Jon Bergan
What of the ?’The users of that site feel like they have something special going on. This is what Dribbble has achieved and you almost have to wonder whether they should just leave it this way. Why ruin a working model?’
1:19 pm
If a so-called famous designer uploads a flat black circle on a while background, it will get hundreds of “likes”. If an unkown designer uploads a really good piece, we can only hope it will at least get one “like”.
11:55 am
My thoughts on this matter are these. Don’t go public, why should you? People look up to dribbble members. Not because their members. But because they offer something rare… Beautiful talent, in many different ways, you guys make the day brighter! Some of us (hint!!!) none members marvel at the your talents and crave for a chance to be involved in shaping the future. The future is built by the masses by visionaries like us :)
I would be honored if you would visit my page http://www.rave3000.com and see if I’m worthy of being a member.
As you know, building your own website is slowwww. So if you send me a email I’ll send you some of my works (images), in hope of getting an invite to dribbble.
Thanks
Raven.
8:36 pm
What of the ?’The users of that site feel like they have something special going on. This is what Dribbble has achieved
8:36 pm
What of the ?’The users of that site feel like they have something special going on. This is what Dribbble has achieved and you almost have to wonder whether they should just leave it this way. Why ruin a working model?’
9:36 pm
Just a follow up . I’m a proud member of dribbble for two months now and, + now I’m a proud Pro Member. I’ve now been granted two invitation to dribbble and I’m looking for prospects to join. I’ve gone through lots of porfolios and I’m still looking for good talent. This is what sets dribbble apart from any other site. People are looking for good talent not just average talent but strong design, illustration, website, User Interface … Top notch #”$% talent. Something to inspire you in the morning when you use up your 15 min. before you open up your mail.
Feel free to send me a link to your stuff and I’ll check it out.
Best
Raven