@shinerx on buddycloud sent in an "autobiography" describing his travells in Buddycloud:
It all started this way... Being bored with IM, I started looking for more social networking apps in Ovi Store. After a tiring search, I found Buddycloud. I downloaded and installed Buddycloud v0.4 on my N78.
Buddycloud is just awesome! Though its way of social networking was new to me, it was exactly the way I dreamt about. I learnt using it within a few minutes.
The first channels I followed are "Help" (#help) , "Buddycloud suggestions" (#buddycloudsuggestions) and "New applications" (#newapplications).
In the "New applications" channel, I met @wenwen and he was the first cloudhead for me to follow. Gradually, I met and followed @vic, @gulli, @ginadee, @jules ... Lots of other Buddycloud users.
I had got lots of free applications for S60 v3.x phones, which I wanted to share with others. So, I created a channel for that- "Free S60 v3.x apps" (#frees60v3xapps), which is my first channel. It was really easy to share download-links and info about those apps using Buddycloud. I started inviting my followers and followers from other channels.
After 2-3 days, Simon (@simon) found my channel. He said that the channel is awesome and he would add it as a featured channel. I thanked him, being very happy and encouraged. I started writing about more and more apps. And he added it to the "Featured channels" list. As it was easy for the users to find my channel because it was listed in the "Featured channels" list, my channel started becoming popular.
Days passed, and it became one of the most popular channels.
Meanwhile, I learnt about Cheersbuddy from my channel. It was a special channel designed by @koski , which provides the followers with location-based photo-sharing and is also available in the web. I followed it and started posting photos. By then, I had many channels in my "Following" list.
Thanks to @gulli and @vic's co-operation, I finally became a beta tester. After joining Candy as a beta tester, I met Ross (@elvis) and Kirk (@kbateman) for the first time. Gradually we all became friends.
I've always been a strict moderator. I've always moderated my channels properly and I also look after "Help" and "Buddycloud suggestions", preventing it from being messed up by off-topic chat, which I hate very much. I feel very disgusted when users don't follow the channel's rules or don't care about the topic. I always warn them, kick them or ban them. So I'm jokingly called the "channel-police"!
I've subscribed to the RSS feeds of lots of blogs that provide info about smartphones. I stay pretty much updated about smartphone news, especially relating to Nokia and Symbian. And I wanted to share the "best extracts". So I created another channel named "The smartphone and Nokia club" (#thesmartphoneandnokiaclub ).
It's not a featured channel, so not very popular. But still I try my best to keep it updated with all the news about smartphones and Nokia products, as it's now my hobby and I don't want the followers to be dissatisfied. I always hoped it would be a featured channel someday and would become popular like my apps channel, which had made it to the top 10. Now, I think I follow over a hundred channels and users. I've created many channels by now.
My "Free S60 v3.x apps" channel now holds the 4th rank among among the most popular channels. Ultimately, I found myself as an addicted cloudhead, writing an account of my experience with Buddycloud while walking in the park. If I do become a software developer someday, I wish to join Buddycloud's development project.
-- Shouvik Saha