cre8Buzz Blog

Sup ya’ll visiting from Camp Candid Carrie, we are happy to have ya. Enjoy ya time checkin’ things out. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, give us your thoughts or just say hey.

cre8Buzz is a social media site designed to get more exposure for talented people and their content. We rate and rank everything put on the site. We also segment the site, so ya can find what ya lookin’ for. Want a good recipe, check out cooking, want to find a good Mom’s blog, go to Mom’s. Want to see some cool photography or learn how to take tight pic, check out photography. We’re all about getting people connected based on their content and information.

We hope you enjoy ya stay and if ya so inclined, become a buzzer, it’s all the rage.

Peace ya’ll.

Antman!

A quick update on our commitments.

We had a few things we had to get done by the 21st of July. On July 8th we talked about execution and said we needed to execute on three critical things.

1) A complete and robust business plan, outlining our goals, strategies, initiatives, etc.: OK, bad new first. It ain’t done. Good news, much of that has to do with the fact that ya’ll have givin’ such good feedback and ideas, we’ve torn a lot of it apart and started over. We have learned a lot from ya’ll. We are listening and it’s makin’ a difference. (We’re gonna post the plan when we are done.)

2) A list of potential candidates who can and are interested in joinin’ the team: Done, we have a list of people who are interested in joinin’ the team. We are working through the list AND adding to it.

3) A pipeline of potential friends and family/angel investors to raise 100k: DONE, this list was the easier part.

Progress is being made.

We noticed a disturbin’ pattern here at cre8Buzz. As cre8Buzz grows and our user numbers increase, visits and unique views do not. Instead, visits and views stay steady or have dropped slightly. Site visits and views are NOT increasing with member growth.

Why?

What we have seen is buzzers pass, they move on and are rarely seen again. Buzzers are leaving or stop playin’ after just few a months of fun. What is most disappointing, it is not only casual buzzers, but in some cases, some of the most fervent users eventually slow down and then stop coming to the buzz. Many of these passed users at one time called the site “addictive.” and were extremely active.

cre8Buzz has seen several “waves” of power users and casual users every several months. Many of the power users today, have replaced many of the super active users we had 4 months ago. Therefore, the new wave of users has only filled the void created by the former users departure.

This effect has hurt our ability to grow. Limiting this effect is critical to the cre8Buzz Re-Do effort. We need to determine why cre8buzz does not remain sticky and addictive and why users don’t stay with us longer.

What is at the root of these desertions? Do the members of other social media sites lose their passion quickly and move on? Is it that cre8Buzz doesn’t offer enough to keep people over the long haul. Is it because of our size and lack of hundreds of thousands of users? Why is it folk’s leave?

What do you think?

Alright ya’ll we got straight up pounced by S.W.O.T. They surrounded the place, and were mad crazy about bustin’ the buzz . . .

Alright, not really. For those of ya that don’t know a S.W.O.T. analysis is a way to evaluate how a company or organization is positioned. It is a holistic evaluation of an organization. S.W.O.T. stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

As part of our B-Plan development cre8Buzz did a S.W.O.T. analysis. Tell us what ya think. Did we get it right?

Cre8Buzz S.W.O.T. Analysis

How would ya’ll fill it out?

What do you see as our, Strenghts, Weaknessess, Opportunities, Threats?

So, one of our users gave some fantastic feedback. They broke down their thoughts on our market opportunities.

He did a great job, I thought it was worth a post!

Here’s my thoughts on the specific 5 opportunities listed:

1. I understand what is said here, but with so many different companies offering free or low cost opportunities to create individual social networks (Ning, KickApps, etc…) I think as the demand for networks in those niches surfaces someone with a large, pre-established offline network could easily build an online network with thousands of built-in members. Essentially, I think this would make a sub-section of cre8Buzz irrelevant or a secondary destination point at best. Still, I think having the niche categories on the Buzz for members to join is an important part of the business model. I just don’t think it is a significant market differentiator.

2. Social networking communities in which content is king already exist, on both ends of the spectrum. On one end, you have the social media sites, like Digg, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Reddit and Propeller; then, on the other end you have Newsvine, Gather, Zimbio and more. These sites have tens of thousands to millions of members already, and it’s not easy getting people to leave them to spend more time elsewhere for a similar service. Again, it is important that the Buzz features content heavily, and I like that content plays a bigger part in Karma points than social activities; however, this too is not a market differentiator.

3. A whole new user is coming….really? I agree that the Buzz is filled with friendly people, and I’ve made some amazing connections here. I believe that others could do the same too, but…Technorati says that there are 15 - 20 million bloggers out there, yet in reality, there only a couple hundred thousand worldwide that are really active. I’m not sure exactly how believable this point will be to anyone who is already invested in Web 2.0 companies, and I’m also not so sure that you want the Buzz to be known as the training ground for newbies (it implies that once they figure things out that they will ditch the community and move on to more sophisticated things).

4. You had me on “promotion of content and people,” and then you lost me on the rest of that paragraph. In my opinion, this is a key opportunity for cre8Buzz, and it is one that I would think should be more heavily emphasized with some concrete objectives. Like it or not, the big social sites are only going to keep getting bigger because of the HUGE opportunity to network and friend people. The opportunity seems to lie in the ability to give users something more than networking opportunities, and I think the Buzz does this in some ways through the Karma system and such. Why not expand this to being a primary focus of the site? Why not hold more contests for users around content? Why not “create Buzz” that gets people with good content career, sales or offline publicity opportunities? I’m thinking along the lines of Business Development strategies here in which revenue streams can be diversified: sponsorships, job boards, book deals, licensing, merchandising, and so on. Make the Buzz a place where members can promote content and make money, and in turn the Buzz can make money too.

5. Authenticity…again, I don’t understand what this really means. Personally, I believe that anything that becomes popular that is not authentic is weeded out and cut down by the masses in short order. Again, I’m just not sure where this is going.

Here are a few opportunities/questions that came to mind for me:

1. What is going to happen with the Buzz when portable profiles are the industry norm? Google and Yahoo, among others, are already working on this. The Open Social ID is just the first step in the process of a much larger movement to give people a profile package that can be plugged into every kind of site possible, with social networks probably leading the way. Recognizing this as a key opportunity up front might help to instill confidence in potential investors.

2. What is the significant market differentiator? I’m still not sure I know what it is, and I think that if it was readily apparent that there would be more members by now.

3. What are you doing to increase stickiness of the site? Is there a Chat function coming? What about an expanded Share function - for people to share good content with more than one friend at a time? Or a Stumble-like function to randomly browse through content based on certain search and/or rank criteria? You get the idea.

This is exactly the kind of feedback we were hopin’ for.

So what do you think? Is he right?

One of the most important challenges we are addressing right now is determining where to focus our efforts and what are the best opportunities for cre8Buzz’s success.

To determine our direction we had to answer a number of questions, including: What market opportunities exist that cre8Buzz is well suited to address? Are there groups or communities NOT being served by the larger, traditional Web 2.0 companies? Are there opportunities with specific, under served demographics? Is there a need within Web 2.0, the blogosphere, or social media that is not being met; one that cre8Buzz can meet?

Answering these questions is important. Getting them right, is critical, most likely the difference between success, failure or another “Re-Do”. We don’t like the idea of failure or another Re-Do, so this what we identified as the best opportunities for cre8Buzz

cre8Buzz Opportunities:

1. Underserved/Niche Communities – there are thousands of offline communities that may never have a dedicated Social Network. The cre8Buzz segmented community structure can provide niche communities with their own social network. Many of these communities are large and passionate, medical causes such as Multiple Sclerosis, Breast Cancer, and Adoption are great examples of large, under-served offline communities cre8Buzz could serve and provide tremendous value.

2. The need for content over connection - we believe that as more and more people use social media the value of connection oriented sites (like Facebook, Myspace etc) will wane. Users will expect more substance than just connecting them with friends. Sites offering, easy to find, relevant, user-generated content will benefit. Content will be KING and cre8Buzz delivers content. We are a social CONTENT site

3. Blogging/Web 2.0 Newbies – Despite the massive growth of the Internet and sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc. Web 2.0 is still in its infancy. Millions of people have yet to jump in. Newbies will be looking for a place to gain an audience, get support and meet people like them. cre8Buzz’s older demographic, friendly, mature user base and segmented community structure serves the newbie well. A whole new user is coming.

4. Promotion of Content and People – Finding good content is difficult. Stumble, Delicious etc, provide excellent tools for finding and promoting content. However, as the market grows, we believe the need will grow as well. cre8Buzz’s ranking algorithm and robust community segmentation provides a competitive alternative, especially for the Long-Tail, those relatively unknown yet talented people.

5. Desire for Authenticity- The influx of new people and information into social media everyday, has created an environment where the importance of authenticity is becoming increasingly more valuable. Social Media users will need and want to know the people and information they are engaging are real and trustworthy. The cre8Buzz buzzrank, structure, and ranking algorithm can provide this level of credibility and authenticity.

What do you think? Are these real opportunities for cre8Buzz? Will cre8Buzz be successful by capitalizing on them? Are there some we missed or are we off the mark entirely?

Put on ya thinkin’ cap, pull out those B-School papers and let us know what ya think.

It all starts here. We get these wrong and it’s a long ugly road.

Peace!

I’ll be talkin’ about this one a lot as we go through this process. At the end of the day getting it done is all ya got. I think we have fallen down here. We got mad excuses why we don’t get things done: no money, other activities and distractions; family, hobbies, paying jobs, etc. each one of us has an excuse or excuses why we can’t or don’t get something done and it has hurt us.

Beyond “getting it done” execution is also a real world skill, the ability to break down an effort in a way that allows you to actually accomplish what it is you want to get done. We need to improve here as well

Execution is about knowing “How” you are going to get something done and having the right people engaged in the process that can get it done.

We’ve done some good stuff to date BUT we still need more of the right people and less of the excuses.

We are workin’ on the b-plan. We’re callin’ it phase II. One of the key parts of the plan is to determine our goals. We needed to be clear in what we wanted to get done. This is always an interesting exercise as there are so many things you want to do and so many efforts required ya can caught in the minutia. To get clear and determine what our goals were to be we decided our goals had to meet a certain criteria. First they had to be critical to our success. In other words, if we accomplished them would we be in a much stronger position. It was critical to us to make sure our goals were key measurements of our success. Many call these type of goals KPI’s or KPM’s (key performance indicators, or key performance metrics) Second we wanted to make sure the goals were S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time Bound).

Understanding all this we determined our goals should measure members, views, visitors, new features, revenue/cash.

Therefore, drum role please, cre8Buzz 2008 goals are:

1. 10,000 users (currently 2,500)
2. 110,000 unique visits (currently 27,000)
3. 750,000 Million Page Views (currently 181,000)
4. Launch 3 key content promotion features (features TBD)
5. Raise $100k (critical for above)

We believe these goals are a stretch. They represent 4X growth in the next 6 months. They are also user and site use specific. We have confidence in our users to spread the word, and use the site to increase the first three goals.

Raising more capital will allow cre8Buzz to improve the UI (user interface), and add some creative new feature ideas we have to increase the level of exposure the content and content owners get.

Whaddya think? Are they realistic? Should we be MORE aggressive? Are we being too aggressive. Have we missed something? Anything we should add?

We’re listening.

We got a lot of things to do to get over this wall. Ya’ll have given us a lot of new feature suggestions, and slammin’ ideas and we appreciate em. But, before we implement some of these slammin’ ideas, we gotta get to the core and we gotta execute.

What do I mean by execute? Execution is the “HOW” ya get something done. With out being able to execute, good ideas are wasted!

Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability. It includes making assumptions about the business environment, assessing the organizations capabilities, linking strategy to operations and the people who are going to implement the strategy, synchronizing those people and their various disciplines, and linking rewards to outcomes. It also includes mechanisms for changing assumptions as the environment changes and upgrading the company’s capabilities to meet the challenges of an ambitious strategy.

In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality an acting on it.
-Larry Bossidy, Execution

When we look at execution this way, we need to get our sh*t together. We need a plan, we need to articulate our strategy, we need to be clear about our direction and were the business environment is headed, and how to make sure we have the right resources to execute on the plan/strategy.

So first things first!

1) We’re gonna do a plan
2) We’re gonna get technical expertise
3) We’re gonna get some money

To do this the boys and I have committed to have 3 things done by July 21st!

1) A complete and robust business plan, outlining our goals, strategies, initiatives, etc.
2) A list of potential candidates who can and are interested in joinin’ the team
3) A pipeline of potential friends and family/angel investors to raise 100k

If we get this done, we’ll be closer than we are today.

Let the journey begin ya’ll . . . Let’s Git-R-Done!

I’m sure many of ya have noticed the buzz has been awfully quiet lately. We haven’t had an update since the photo albums, the blog has been quiet, no new pictures or slammin’ content on the Antman’s profile, etc. The reason; we have hit a wall. Havin’ been at this for over 18 months, we are struggling. Like we said before, Start Ups Are Hard!

When ya start something new it is exciting, full of energy, and captivating! Building something new is the bomb. However, once ya get into it, things can start to change, the energy dies, the failures begin to mount, yes there are failures, things take longer than expected and they never turnout like they are supposed to. This all starts to take its toll and ya hit a wall.

cre8Buzz has hit it’s wall. The energy seems to have waned, we have lost momentum, defeats have gotten the best of us and we are at a crossroads.

We started cre8Buzz to give the little guy a chance to be seen. We wanted to extend the long-tail for everyone, regardless of interest, or talent. That passion and commitment has not gone away. Our goal of allowing people to be seen, heard and found, while making the best user-generated content on the web easy to find is as fresh as ever. Now, we need to leverage our vision to re-energize us and get over the wall.

To get over the wall we need to get back to basics. We need to build a plan, lay out our strategy, identify and capitalize on opportunity, and most important, execute, execute execute. The wall is BIG. We are out of money. We no longer have a full time developer. Original founders have left. New partners have come in. Some of our most active buzzers are gone. We have more competition. The site needs mad updates and “slammin” new features. We need to turn it up. It’s gonna be hard.

Despite how hard it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be tight for real. cre8Buzz is the most mature, content rich, active site on the net. Our members are supportive, intelligent, creative, and talented. cre8Buzz content is engaging, funny, and informative. It is for our users and because of our vision we’re gonna get over this wall. We’re gonna build a plan. We’re gonna execute on a strategy, and we’re gonna create opportunity.

Our first commitment in our journey back, is we’re opening the kimono. We’re gonna blog daily. We’re gonna share our plan, and strategy. You will see it all. We’ll tell you what we are planning before we do it. We’ll share what happens once we do do it. You’ll have a front row seat. You will be exposed to it all. We won’t hold back; the ups the downs, the disagreements, and the fights, the frustrations and the jubilation, you will see it all. Beyond that, we want YOUR thoughts. Tell us what you think of our plan. School us on what you think we should do. Tell us if you disagree with our direction. Share ya knowledge, thoughts and opinions. We’re listening. We’re gonna lay it out there for you to pick up.

We’ll post everyday. We’re gonna add Disqus to improve the dialog We’ve created a new category, “cre8Buzz Re-Do”, so ya can stay up to date.

We’re ready to blow it up in here. Ya’ll have more than a front row seat. You’re gonna be in the game.

We can’t tell ya where we’ll end up, but we will know how we got there.

Wall, what wall?

Peace!