About Bricklink 2.0

icey117

This is more than a month old, but it does look like a lot of cash is going to be thrown into making Bricklink better.
http://www.bricklink.com/news/20130813/BL_news_page.html

On time, I'd say!

dougts

I don't care what they do, I'm going to stick with BrickOwl whenever possible going forward

kylejohnson11

Agree 100% with @dougts on this one. BrickOwl's got a great feel from a site standpoint and the catalog is coming along nicely. It helps that Lawrence is very hands on with BrickOwl and gets after the suggestions/issues.

caperberry

It is great that someone with serious money (and *some* purported degree of love of the brick) has potentially saved BL. Despite the loss of its "open source" catalogue, which is a huge price to pay, without Jay Kim I expect BL may have been hacked to death, or abandoned by the community, and I don't want that to happen. (I also wish Brick Owl to thrive btw but that's slightly off-topic.)

I hope Kim not only has a lot of cash but also a lot of acumen and skill. If he rushes it or uses a development team that don't understand the whole picture, it won't be good enough. He needs to involve the community and frankly, do some PR on us - genuine, honest, transparent PR. Having that round table event was a very good idea but it will take more than that to deliver a site that meets needs and expectations.

I'm intrigued by the MOC thing. Just including galleries of MOCs is pointless, that won't draw people away from Flickr etc, nor will it make any money for BL Ltd, so what is his plan exactly? It could be implemented really well or really badly.

legoprods

Unfortunately I heard of a few sellers that didn't like this roundtables at all, as in their opinion they showed the intentions of the new BL. Concentrate on the bigger sellers and making money and not care too much about the smaller ones.

Unfortunately, I couldn't assist, so can't say wether that was true or not.

SilentMode

It sounds like selling was the focus of that roundtable event, I hope there will be some on the buyers as well.

bluedragon

caperberry said:

I'm intrigued by the MOC thing. Just including galleries of MOCs is pointless, that won't draw people away from Flickr etc, nor will it make any money for BL Ltd, so what is his plan exactly? It could be implemented really well or really badly.

I guess the point will be to enable a user to add the parts needed for a particular MOC to a wishlist. That will require the builder submitting the MOC to share the parts list.

I think Bricklink has a lot of catching up to do. BrickOwl is really good!

CCC

The first rule about bricklink 2.0 is that you don't talk about bricklink 2.0.

And that is not a Fight Club reference. It is because of their new terms about access and republication of data from bricklink.

caperberry

bluedragon said:

I guess the point will be to enable a user to add the parts needed for a particular MOC to a wishlist. That will require the builder submitting the MOC to share the parts list.

More needs to be shared than just the parts list, the buyer needs to know how to build the model.

caperberry

SilentMode said:

It sounds like selling was the focus of that roundtable event, I hope there will be some on the buyers as well.

My thoughts exactly. There are so many things buyers want that many sellers might be opposed to. From the list in the article, the only representation of buyers appears to be Jeremy, and no offence intended but he himself describes his talk as only a beginners' guide. Surely BLL could have accessed their data to find out who the big buyers are? Or found people on their own Forum with good new ideas?

CCC

I mentioned the lack of buyers on a thread at bricklink. And was told that sellers are buyers too.

I think that attitude is one of the main problems at bricklink. It is always the bigger the seller, the bigger the knowledge of what is needed. I know some sellers are only sellers. I know some sellers buy and sell. Yet some buyers are only buyers, and their wishes are not necessarily represented by sellers that are buyers. But on the forums there is an attitude that if you have 1000 feedback you know more than someone with 100, who knows more than someone with 10. In some cases that is true. But in some cases it is blind. Even identifying big buyers is nto necessary a good thing. Expert users may know the system, yet they do not necessarily know what parts are difficult to use for new users (who are most likely to be buyers). And if you ignore new buyers, you have no future.

simplyoooo

legoprods said:

Unfortunately I heard of a few sellers that didn't like this roundtables at all, as in their opinion they showed the intentions of the new BL. Concentrate on the bigger sellers and making money and not care too much about the smaller ones.

Unfortunately, I couldn't assist, so can't say wether that was true or not.

I was there at one of the roundtables and didn't get that impression from any of the attendees.

The roundtable meetings were supposed to be the first of many to be held, although there was no schedule for the next ones or where they might be, and they do plan to talk to small/hobby sellers, medium sellers and also buyers only, but they can't do that all at once so they opted for a few big sellers in the beginning to gauge their input and it's easy to identify them as there are relatively few large scale sellers. With the amount of small, medium and buyer only they couldn't possibly accommodate everyone at a meeting so they would somehow have to select a representative group and it gets more problematic as there will always be someone who thinks they should be invited if they were not.

The problem with very large meetings, on any topic, is that a lot of people would want their say all at the same time and it gets difficult to manage discussions.

Jay has a long term vision for BL, he shared some of that at the meeting, but I'm not at liberty to share that information because nothing was finalised or set in stone and I don't want to give out the wrong impression, but there were some really good ideas there.

What I do know is that there is a large team of developers working hard on BL2, not sure of the delivery time frame though although I do hope that it's not going to be before February next year as changing a website during the critical christmas and new year shopping periods would not be a wise move, especially if they change the way it's navigated.

All of the above is my personal impression from the rountable I attended and my own opinions. Personally I have a lot of confidence in the new owners of BL.

Emma

FollowsClosely

Given their last move, i am quickly loosing optimism. I am close to shutting down my bl store for good.

legoprods

Really glad to know that, Emma.

A big problem and cause of desesperation is the lack of knowledge (Plato anyone) about any work or development being made. And the only type of work that has showed up was the copyright fiasco, or finally today fixes and improvements made by... what seemed Eric alone.

I really hope I can ever assist to the future round tables.

kylejohnson11

http://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=760477 fyi

caperberry

Fun! I'm more intrigued by the sample page, but almost certainly this is just a dummy layout with little relevance to any actual page so probably not worth commenting on.

I hope this is a sign that communication with the community will be extensive. Logo choice is a cosmetic thing and it'd be great to be consulted on features and structure... however I guess that won't happen; it'd just be handing over their secrets on a plate to competitors.

Anyway hats off to them... providing exciting fun like this is a good tonic after the horrors of previous weeks.

CCC

It worries me that one of the supposedly biggest lego sites was bought by a "real big" lego fan and could come up with and ask it's users to vote on a logo like this one ...



How is that related to lego? Regular hexagons, really?

ColoradoBricks

Looks like a rainbow of 6 Owl if you ask me...

simplyoooo

caperberry said:

Logo choice is a cosmetic thing and it'd be great to be consulted on features and structure... however I guess that won't happen; it'd just be handing over their secrets on a plate to competitors.

You'd be surprised how invested people get in a logo! There was uproar at a company I worked for once when they changed the logo slightly, you'd have thought they'd have announced they were relocating to the Arctic Circle the way some people carried on (and on and on etc.) :D

caperberry

simplyoooo said:

caperberry said:

Logo choice is a cosmetic thing and it'd be great to be consulted on features and structure... however I guess that won't happen; it'd just be handing over their secrets on a plate to competitors.

You'd be surprised how invested people get in a logo! There was uproar at a company I worked for once when they changed the logo slightly, you'd have thought they'd have announced they were relocating to the Arctic Circle the way some people carried on (and on and on etc.) :D

Oh I wouldn't be at all surprised :O) I've worked in website creative a long time. Graphic design is cosmetic... and cosmetics are very very important, but not as important as functionality (nor as important as the commercial structuring). Hence it's the perfect thing to reveal now...

CCC

^ Yeah, get people arguing about the logo and they'll forget the functionality for now. But at some stage, they need to reveal some of that new functionality.

cheshirecat

I do love the Brick Link (I'm going to say it as two words now just to annoy them) forum... someone posted this "I have just checked out all the new logos, i must say, if you want to change the logo from what it is now, you will have to come up with something looking better that any of the suggestions you already have now." Have they seen the current logo? My 5 year old draws better dragons that would be a better logo than the current one.

Their logo choices are interesting though - they like the multiple colours and they like speach bubbles. The also appear to like Pinterest. Oh and they like things that don't look like LEGO.. As the design team will have worked from a brief that surely aims to represent the future site its interesting.

kylejohnson11

The layout reminds me of Pintrest... http://www.howaboutwe.com/date-report/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/pinterest.jpg

cheshirecat

Yes the pinterest type of page and the speech bubbles suggests a much more social site. Now if you could order the pieces of the pinned MOC with just a few clicks then that's great but that would only work with MOCs that have parts lists and instructions. So presumably it's just pins from bricklinks own MOC pages? So who is uploading them? And as bricklink is a commercial site surely they're paid for their designs? If you can't do that then it's just another list of MOCs with no tie in to the buying and selling. Are they hoping to create a new one stop shop for all things brick? Sales, MOC Showcases, News?

CCC

I thought I read somewhere that the idea was that people can upload MOCs and instructions, and then there will be links so that people can buy the parts from BL stores. The designer of the MOC then gets a small amount of commission. But it could be wrong.

ColoradoBricks

^ that would be very similar to Rebrickable...

gmpirate

dougts said:

I don't care what they do, I'm going to stick with BrickOwl whenever possible going forward

Totally agree. I dread the thought of having to go to Brinklink to make some purchases -- such a pain. Made a couple purchases through Brickowl recently and it was so easy and quick!

dougts

^ and even if their redesign takes the "pain" part away, the attitude and actions of the site owners over the past year or two have already lost me. Going to take more than a nice redesign to get me back.

caperberry

ColoradoBricks said:

^ that would be very similar to Rebrickable...

It's Rebrickable... it's Pinterest... it's Etsy... it's a social network... it's a one-stop shop etc etc. Great if he can make a tonne of new ideas fit into Bricklink but it's a risky model.

CCC said:

I thought I read somewhere that the idea was that people can upload MOCs and instructions, and then there will be links so that people can buy the parts from BL stores. The designer of the MOC then gets a small amount of commission. But it could be wrong.

Interested to know where you read this CCC? Let us know if you remember. So, builders need to create instructions and a part list, which would rely heavily on LDraw or LDD (unless the new Bricklink is those things also!). My first thought is that BL Ltd would therefore be profiting from third party data.

legoprods

cheshirecat said:

I do love the Brick Link (I'm going to say it as two words now just to annoy them) forum...

Thanks for that gratuity. I also wouldn't like people to say Brick set.

cheshirecat said:

someone posted this "I have just checked out all the new logos, i must say, if you want to change the logo from what it is now, you will have to come up with something looking better that any of the suggestions you already have now."

Hey, every forum has to have it's own bad guy. Here we got prof... ;-)

CCC

@caperberry - it was probably on the bl forum, or possibly eurobricks.

caperberry

CCC said:

@caperberry - it was probably on the bl forum, or possibly eurobricks.

Hmm, I may well have read it then, but I guess what struck me when you said it was that the builder gets "a small amount of commission" (my emphasis). Wanted to read how the source phrased it.

Soooooo... my mind is still ticking over this concept of uploading your own creations... and that new clause in their Terms of Service is haunting me:

By uploading any content to the Site, you grant to BrickLink an irrevocable, a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive and sub-licensable right to use your content in any manner as BrickLink deems appropriate in relation to the operation of the Site.

dougts

^ in other words, you give BL rights to make money off your work, and you are entitled to nothing, nor can you change your mind later.

No thanks

legoprods

Let it mature. BL made a bad move and I'm pretty sure they know it. We'll see how the MOC thing works when it comes out.

SilentMode

dougts said:

No thanks

**** no. That's what I say.

caperberry

legoprods said:

Let it mature. BL made a bad move and I'm pretty sure they know it. We'll see how the MOC thing works when it comes out.

Aww c'mon, what's an AFOL Forum without endless speculation on a matter we know very little about?

In honesty though, I am actually holding back from dumping here all the thoughts going through my head about how this might be implemented as we just don't know Kim's intentions. But given the ToS are known, and that MOC uploads will fall under them unless of course they're changed, I felt that aspect was solid and important enough to see how people felt about it.

To take a lighter angle on it; would Bricksetters like to buy MOCs? I know "bricklinking" sets is popular with many here.

legoprods

Don't they (we) sometimes do? Many people put up custom instructions for sale on many marketplaces.

caperberry

Yes, true, including BrickLink 1.0. I suppose what I actually meant to ask does contain an assumption - that BrickLink 2.0 will make it somehow easier or at least more attractive - so you're right the question is redundant for now.

legoprods

We need to rename the thread: Speculation and predictions on Bricklink 2.0 and it's foreseeable changes.

Don't we love doing it!

caperberry

Or maybe: Why so much anger towards the resale of a reseller's selling place?

JOKE

MathBuilder

CCC said:

How is that related to lego? Regular hexagons, really?

It could have been worse! Heptagons anyone?

DadsAFOL

The person designing potential logos apparently has never seen a lego brick. Most of the designs like the hexagon above are based on shapes/molds that Lego doesn't make. Well at least they'll have a new logo to eventually build an eCommerce platform around. Good to have your priorities straight.

CCC

"small" was my word. Presumably BL would still take their 3% of the sale, so I cannot see the percentage for the moc author being more than 0.5%. Unless of course fees go up for sellers.

But it is a very good point about mocs and the tos. No doubt the author retains copyright but once they have an inventory and the instructions and you grant them access to sell, will they ever be removed?

gifinim

DadsAFOL said:

The person designing potential logos apparently has never seen a lego brick. Most of the designs like the hexagon above are based on shapes/molds that Lego doesn't make. Well at least they'll have a new logo to eventually build an eCommerce platform around. Good to have your priorities straight.

Maybe they need to avoid having anything that looks too much like a real brick or minifig head in case LEGO object.

Xefan

I can see what they're doing with that logo - they're using a hexagon because it's suppose to be a chain of bricks all linking together, but yes they could still probably do better. It fits the modern design fad though of pastel colours on white background.

That TOS clause about giving them rights to your MOCs is fairly standard. You agree to pretty much the same thing when you sign up and hand data over to Facebook, Flickr etc. It's basically so they can republish the content you've uploaded and gain revenue from it for example through ads, or publish it on their frontpage or in their marketing materials and not have you sue them for doing so. You don't lose rights yourself, you can still sell it on, in fact that's what the "non-exclusive" section of the text means - you're not granting them exclusive rights to it but it's the "sub-licensable" bit that should be of concern because that suggests they want the right to be able to license it on to others.

If that bit goes it's not too bad a clause in all honesty because other than that it's just merely arse-covering.

paul_merton

Is it true that they're suspending Bricklink stores that mention Brick Owl, or is that just a coincidence?

CCC

Xefan said:

I can see what they're doing with that logo - they're using a hexagon because it's suppose to be a chain of bricks all linking together, but yes they could still probably do better.

And anyone that has used lego will know that it is impossible to put bricks like that (unless using hinges with gaps between brick edges, but those are not shown). Whereas four links forming a square is simple and recognisable as lego.

I would have though someone with lego knowledge would have looked at them before suggesting these to the public.

DadsAFOL

paul_merton said:

Is it true that they're suspending Bricklink stores that mention Brick Owl, or is that just a coincidence?

Not true. I've posted multiple times. The new BL owners have not interfered with free speech on the forum, so they get a + for that.

paul_merton

I meant stores rather than the forum. I took it as a given that the forum isn't very well moderated as it still contains posts from the self-alleged hacker :)

legoprods

At first they quickly hid the first post the hacker posted, but after a few comments from the members that actually saw the post, they un-cancelled it.

Where did you hear that, Paul?

paul_merton

https://twitter.com/SilentMode1/status/385410226976866304