I know we’ve been quiet, but ya time has come. Fellow buzzers we know are gonna be there, Mr. Lady and Brillig for sure, so for those of ya in the D-Town hood, ya gotta make it on by.

When:
Thursday 7:30 to Close

Where:
Enoteca
August 28, 2008
Trios Enoteca
1730 Wynkoop·Denver, CO 80202

Why?
Shit, do ya really have ask?

For more information, check out my boys at Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash.

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!

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.

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, 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?

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?

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!

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.

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.

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!