In the upcoming weeks, our next steps will be to invite more people to create accounts and get a peek at Tenporium. We will be releasing the next version with new and upgraded features.

So, be on the lookout for Private Beta Round 2!

To those who have already signed up, but haven’t received an invitation yet, we’ll be sending out more invites over time as we widen the beta. We’ll probably send out the second batch of invites sometime this week, so be on the lookout! Also please check your spam and junk folders in case your email provider ‘accidentally’ places our invitation there.

If you are interested and haven’t signed up for our private beta yet, head on over to Tenporium and enter your info. It’s quick and easy. You’ll be added to the invite list and we’ll send you an invitation soon!

P.S. What is private beta and the purpose behind it?

Purpose of the Beta Test:

The purpose of the beta test is to receive feedback and see how people respond to what we currently have in place. We want to see if things are working the way they’re supposed to and fix anything that isn’t. We also want to hear what features you guys like, what sucks, what you’d like to see, and any other suggestions you may have. Ok that’s great, so what’s in it for you?

Benefits of Becoming a Beta Tester:

- Cool Prizes: Limited edition Tenporium t-shirts, giftcards, and other cool stuff for active beta testers!
- Make a Difference: Help improve and shape the experience with your feedback.
- Exclusive Opportunity: Be among the first to participate and contribute to the site. Get a head start on earning member level points before we open the site up to the public.
- It’s FREE

What is Tenporium?

Tenporium is a product reviews site built around collectively determining the top 10 products in various categories.

It had to be fun and fresh, but most importantly unique and recognizable. We engaged the services of a logo designer and went through numerous logo concepts. Here are some that were proposed:

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All were rejected.

The revolving shopping doors in the shape of a Roman numeral X was clever conceptually, but aesthetically, the style was not what we had in mind. It simply looked like two intersecting planes. We wanted something with more curves and charm.

Not completely satisfied with any of these, we asked the designer to craft one more. He had saved the best for last and delivered his coup de grace. None of the earlier concepts were a hit for us, until he debuted this little guy:

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The Tenporium monster. Courtesy of Nido.

The inspiration behind this was to represent “consume” for consumer products and the “monster consumes all” concept came to mind. It was a brilliant angle, and the connection to our site was subtle and thought-provoking. Visually, it was simple, clean, and charming. Its air of simplicity and purity made the logo identifiable and memorable.

To stay in tune with the logo, our tagline was just as simple: Consumer Driven. Feed the Beast.

It was short, sweet, and captured the essence of the site. The double entendre was slick too.

As a start, we had the original concept for a blog about top 10 things in general. And after all, it was this initial concept that drove us to our name, but we weren’t sure if it was one we wanted to run with.

Why should only our opinions be expressed as opposed to that of anyone else? Doing so would be bias and limiting, selling ourselves short as well as everyone else. We wanted to provide a platform upon which anyone could provide their input and decide what the top ten things are.

With that thought, we decided to ride the “web 2.0″ wave. The site was going to be driven by user-generated content and collective intelligence. But instead of doing top ten things in general for anything and everything, we wanted to narrow the scope. We weren’t sure what top ten “things” we were going to focus on, so we turned to our name to help us define our niche.

We played the game of word association again, but in reverse. In choosing our name, we tried to see what words our idea brought to mind. This time we wanted to see what ideas our name elicited. From the word emporium, the thoughts that naturally came to mind were shopping and consumer products. The scope of our site became apparent: Top Ten Consumer Products. We would enable users to collectively determine the top ten consumer products in various categories and also provide product reviews while they were at it.

With that, our concept was solidified and Tenporium’s purpose was established.

Check out the About section for a more detailed explanation.

The initial concept was to just write a blog about top 10 things in general. It was going to be about anything top 10 with no particular focus. Playing a game of word association, the words that came to mind to represent these ideas were:

Enter words into the Name Generator:
Ten + Emporium = Tenporium

Ok, we didn’t need a name generator for that.