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Are you an avid beader? Then you need to check out www.BeadHuddle.com

BeadHuddle.com is not just a beading forum, or a beading directory, or a site where you can watch “how to bead” videos, or a place where you chat live with dozens of other beading enthusiasts, or an online beading community, or an online beading gallery, or a beading articles site … it’s all of this and more!

BeadHuddle.com is a social networking site for people who love the beading crafts. It’s kind of like a facebook.com for people who love beading.

It was founded by a small home-based online publishing company that put out an e-book about beading, “The Complete Bead Guide” in 2005. The ebook publishers ran a survey amongst its customers and discovered that, despite the fact that most survey respondents were not very experienced computer users, most expressed a great desire to participate in an online community where they could exchange ideas with other beading enthusiasts and share their passion and knowledge of beading.

BeadHuddle.com members can set up their own profile pages, post photos of their latest beading creations and designs, upload and share ‘how to’ do beading videos, chat online, write articles and blogs about beading and beadworking, ask questions, share tips and participate in forum discussions and polls, post comments and rate other member’s contributions, take part in quizzes, post events and announcements about beading fairs, markets and shows in their local area, instant message other members and so much more. Members even have an opportunity to run classified ads and buy and sell items using e-bay style auctions that are displayed throughout the entire web site.

Here’s an example of a “how to bead” video you can watch at BeadHuddle.com:

Although the site has only recently launched, the word is already spreading among the beading community. Given the fact that most of its members are not advanced internet users, the developers were careful to ensure that the site is easy to navigate and explore. As members share their own experiences and add their knowledge of beading to the site, BeadHuddle.com is tipped to become the hottest destination for the online beading community.

Apart from being free to join, one of the nicest things about BeadHuddle.com is that it is a perfect complement for anything related to beading. It is an ideal site not only for beaders and beading enthusiasts to meet online, but also a site where beading-related businesses (such as beading suppliers, beading wholesalers, beading and jewelry designers, etc …) can set up their own profile and increase their visibility online amongst purchasers of beads and beading accessories.

Beadworkers spend a good deal of money each year buying beads, beading accessories and beading supplies from online retailers. A targeted social networking site like BeadHuddle.com allows beading-related businesses to go beyond the traditional online model of setting up a web store and attracting customers to what is generally not much more than an e-commerce powered online catalog of items for sale. By becoming a member of BeadHuddle.com, businesses can participate in and contribute to the online beading community through activities like running workshops using online videos, chatting with their prospective customers via live chatrooms, answering questions and sharing tips in forums, and publishing articles through blogs just to name a few, thus building greater trust online with their existing and potential new customers.

BeadHuddle.com does offer a reasonably low-priced “Professional Membership” option for beading-related businesses which includes several valuable features and benefits such as the ability to create multiple listings in their search engine optimized business directory, a dedicated “subforum” within the site’s main forum that serves as a “help desk” and as a point of contact for dealing with customer enquiries, and other benefits which I am sure members who are business owners (or even crafters who sell their own beading creations) will find to be very useful when promoting their businesses and products online.

At the time of writing this review, BeadHuddle.com is offering for a very limited time only to everyone who joins, a FREE upgrade to their paid “Gold” Membership level, as well as free auction listings until the end of the year. For business owners or those who do beading for profit, there are also some really great little launch surprises to be discovered, but I won’t give these away here. If you own a crafts or beading-related business, just be sure to click on the “Professional Membership” link in the bottom menu when you visit the site!

In summary, if you love beading, BeadHuddle.com is definitely a site you will want to become a member of and visit on a regular basis (did I mention it’s free to join?). A word of warning though … if you are as insane about beading as I know most of my friends are, you will probably end up spending a lot more time than you should hanging around at BeadHuddle.com and mingling with other beadheads. There are so many things to do and ways to meet and share there, that it could become highly addictive. You have been warned!

For more information, click here now to visit: BeadHuddle.com – Free Online Beading Community