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I could not sleep

kurtyordy

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Over the past few months I have been feeling weighed down with the attempts to promote my site. Much of that frustration came from a lack of web savvy contacts in my personall circle. So when I email all my friends to get a digg account, and digg the newspaper article about our project, I get about 8 diggs outside of those from this site (which btw thanks to those that dugg it) because my circle is not driven this direction. Same with stumbleupon, I only got 2, because, aaaahhhh run for the hills, I have to download a toolbar.

All that being said, this weekend I was struck by an idea, and I could not sleep all weekend until this morning so I could build it. I would love some feedback. The site is http://www.buzzcolony.com. Right now this is just a roughdraft to give you the idea.

My questions specifically are:

1. is this feasible, are there enough people like me that would be willing to pay for such a service?

2. is there a way to track whether or not my buzzers performed? My only thought at this point would be to make a buzzer required to be my friend, and as such I can see in digg if they dugg, but not sure how that works in stumbleupon, still too new.

3. is this the best domain to use- other options I bought were buzzbuyer.com, bizbuzzbuy.com, and shoutwithme.com

obviously, for the site side, I still have work to do, but any thoughts you guys can throw my way are greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
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Analyzer

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i think it's a good idea but maybe somewhat late. i'm not an expert but from what i read digg is changing its system exactly not to count this kind of diggs. i expect stumbleupon to follow the same path.

if you think about it this beats what made digg/stumbleupon sucessfull in the first place. people will digg/stumble content they like, its like a voting machine. if you let people buy votes it stops being usefull.

also i'm pretty certain there are already people doing this for money, specificall some of the top digg users that always get 1000s of diggs have been acused of selling their diggs.
 

Analyzer

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Here's an article on what I was mentioning:

So Called Top Digg Users Cry About Digg Changes

For years there has been a small group of Digg users who think they control the digg community. Kevin Rose has posted a blog about the recent changes to the Digg.com algorithm that will change the future of digg and the small community that controls it.
“Digg’s promotional algorithm ensures that the most popular content dugg by a diverse, unique group of diggers reaches the home page. Our goal is to give each person a fair chance of getting their submission promoted to the home page. Since Digg began more than three years ago, we’ve constantly been making tweaks to the promotional algorithm and will continue to do so. Most of our additions go unnoticed, and others take a few days to normalize as we watch them run live on the site. We spend a lot of time analyzing the data and improving the system.â€

These people have even been so bold as to come out with an outright “Open Letter To Digg†that is intended to TELL DIGG how to run their own site. An overview of the main points found in this open letter are as follows:
  • Lack Of Digg Communication: These “Top Users†these Digg elites think that digg reports to them, that Digg is somehow accountable to the user community.Look if 10% or more of the front page articles are controlled by 20-30 people that is a big problem and I comment Digg for “fixing†their algorithm. I attended this so-called “Live Protest†of Digg.com and they believe they are so important that Digg will go away with out them.
  • Unexplained Banning Of Digg Users if your account is being banned chances are you are violating the TOS of the website DIGG.com which allows you the privileged of posting on their website. If you sit arround and ONLY digg your friend’s posts there is a problem, if new users must bow down and kiss your behind just to get a front page ranking there is a problem.
  • Manual Editing the last concern of these so-called “top diggers†is that Digg.com has employed manual editors who are deranking their submissions because Digg has something against them.
Its amazing that these people think they built digg.com, here is a reality check you DID not build digg. If I am not mistaken Kevin Rose built Digg.com. There is a reality here you must accept, if MOST webmasters feel that they are unable to receive a front page digg because of “illegal†rings like yours then there is a problem. Digg needs to expand the webmaster base that can submit articles and still hope to hit the front page.
So in conclusion, there are other important websites besides yours, there is other VERY important information to be read on Digg.com besides yours. This community desperately needs to reach out to the general webmaster community and offer a fair opportunity to all, new and old Digg users alike.

http://www.briancarpio.com/2008/01/23/so-called-top-digg-users-cry-about-digg-changes/


(btw, this article got over 2500 diggs :rofl:)
 
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Jonleehacker

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A couple other links for you.

This one, to answer your question, has just increased its price from $1 to $2 per Digg/stumble, so I assume they would only do that if they are making money:

http://www.subvertandprofit.com/

Also, I use this forum:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=105

where there are always tons of people who will trade diggs and stumbles.

Also, you need to realize that your site may just not fit the Digg mindset, no matter how great you think the content is. Digg is mostly young geeks, so if your story doesn't have any Babe content or isn't about the latest Linux release, your odds of getting to the front page diminish.
 

kurtyordy

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Thanks for the great feedback. I actually just found the subvert site a bit ago and realized an opportunity to ad a video component with youtube and metacafe.

I am tempted to try their site and see what sort of results I get from it on the stumble side.

As far as them creating fixes to plug these leaks, the cannot stop it forever. Look at napster and what they created.

The next question is, can I do it better?

It looks like my names would be more brandable, just added buzzbowl.com, buzzbuddha.com, bulkbuzz.com.

If I launched now, it looks like I could ad more services, and better pricing. i.e., reddit, propeller,digg, and stumble all for one price, and youtube and metacafe for another.

It did help me realize that I would have to have multiple blogs to do writeups about the clients so one domain is not constantly dugg by the same people, I would also have to rotate my digg list. All doable.

I guess the next question would be, is the market big enough?
 

Analyzer

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That subvert site doesn't make much sense toe me.

If they are sucefull it means that soon enough digg and stumleupon will just be a collection of paid links with however pays more a the top. Real users will realize it, get bored and move to something else.

Also the price seems a bit steep to me, if you want to get 1000 diggs just to get to first page for a day is costs you $2000 of mostly untargetted traffic. Unless the spefic demographic your are targeting is digg users. I think you could make much better use of $2k with adsense $0,02
 

Andrew

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Good idea, and there is demand for it too. Sure, other sites do the same but so what.

I would turn it into a one-stop internet PR shop. Instead of just getting diggs, or just stumbleupons, you can have a database of an enormous number of websites -- news, social, blogs, forums, etc. With a $100-$500 price point you should be able to automate the system and turn a nice profit.

You could also partner up with someone who writes press releases. All a customer needs to do is give you their URL and submit payment. The writer builds the press release/article, its submitted to 100+ different web sites, a user base Diggs it.

Take it up another level, and you can work on getting articles published in real online periodicals -- newspapers, blogs. Then have those articles dugg/stumbled/ re-promoted. This builds a substantial amount of value with credibility because no one wants to read or believes a plain press release.

Spend 90% of your focus on bringing in more customers. Six figure a year business easily.

I would begin with the following sales approach:

First, this is a service to promote new websites and internet businesses.

Second, you want to try to take marketshare away from search engine submission and bulk traffic services. "Newbies" buy in to the snake oil of both, and both are BS. You actually have a real service that will deliver a lasting value for SEO (search engine submission is meaningless, only links matter) and real, targeted traffic (not a Chinese pop under e.g. bulk traffic service.)
 
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Jonleehacker

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Also the price seems a bit steep to me, if you want to get 1000 diggs just to get to first page for a day is costs you $2000 of mostly untargetted traffic. Unless the spefic demographic your are targeting is digg users. I think you could make much better use of $2k with adsense $0,02

To get to the front page of Digg, it usually only takes about 100 Diggs, from there the other 900 come because you have made the front page.

You don't get to the front page of Digg for the traffic, because like you mentioned it is largely a mob scene and low value. The reason you want to get to the front page of Digg is for the couple hundred (or couple thousand) people who are targeted and will go and write a blog post about your article and link to it.

So if you do the math, that's about $200 for possibly 1000 new backlinks from related, probably high quality sites. Considering that a single link can be worth $5 to $20 a month and the ROI starts looking pretty good...IF you develop a truly great piece of content before you get to the front page.

Now you can see why professional link bait services charge anywhere from $5000 - $10000 for this service (create the article and then take it viral).
 

kurtyordy

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Ok, I love the idea of turning this more full service and charging a higher amount, so I made some changes to the site, let me know your thoughts. http://www.buzzcolony.com

Also, still curious which domain everyone thinks would be best for this.

My 2 favorite at this point are buzzbowl.com, and shoutwithme.com
 

Andrew

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Run 3 ads on Google Adwords, all the same but with different domains, and see which one gets you the most clicks and/or sales (depends what stage you are at.)
 
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kurtyordy

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Thanks for all the input so far from everyone. I am going to launch this, so any critiques about the site would be great. Anything from price point to copy to colors. Thanks
 

rsant

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Overhaul and redesign your website. I am reminded of the "geocities website building tools" days circa 2000. But yes your idea is a great niche to penetrate.
 

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