Instant business networking
Business networking is typically something that happens at organized regular events, with plenty of notice, rsvp lists, and planning. But it’s also something that happens spontaneously all the time, right? Well here’s one more way to be spontaneous with your networking: join Biznik’s “flash networking” SMS group. The idea is simple: If you’re working at a coffee shop or hanging out with a friend or two for a happy hour drink and are in the mood for a little quick business networking, you can snd a quick invite to everyone in the group by sending a single text message. Everyone in the group then receives a text message on their cell phone, containing your invite. If someone is nearby and interested, they can send a text reply and join you. If you want to be part of this spontaneous form of networking, just add your cell phone number using this widget, and let’s invent a new form of business networking!
We’re using a free service called Swaggle to host this. Swaggle just added a new web-based interface which makes signing up and sending SMS messages easier. There are full instructions on how to use the service on their website.
I suspect a lot of indie businesses can benefit from this service. For example:
- Someone running a crew of housecleaners or delivery people could use it to coordinate (”done with house x, moving to house y”, “Whoever finished at place z first, meet us at place a”)
And, I think it would be useful for smaller groups within Biznik, too:
- If you’re hosting a Biznik event, you can create a group specifically for that event, and then if there are any last-minute changes you can notify everyone instantly. “Event cancelled because of the snow today.”
3 Comments Welcome to a much faster Biznik.com
The fantastic folks at Wowrack have installed two new smokin’ fast servers for Biznik over the past week, and last night John and I brought the new configuration online. The result, those of you on the site this morning I’m sure are noticing, is a stunning improvement in speed: pages on Biznik.com are loading at least twice as fast as before, and in some cases, much, much faster. Overall the site feels snappy and responsive. Posting comments happens almost instantaneously now, whereas before it sometimes took 6, 7, 8 or 9 seconds to complete (i.e, “forever”). This new server configuration is not only fast, but it can handle an extraordinary amount of traffic without breaking a sweat. So invite your friends and bring the traffic - Biznik can handle it!
We have dedicated all of next week to one task: making Biznik.com run even faster still. There are many pages whose performance needs further improvement: viewing members in your network, for example, is still unacceptably slow if you have more than a handful of people in your network.
Enjoy the new speed, and as you’re surfing around the site today, if you notice any pages that you’d like to see load even faster than they do now, let me know by emailing dan at biznik dot com.
Biznik business networking server speedBiznik is about to run a lot faster
Am I the only one who’s noticed that Biznik has been running painfully slooooooooooow lately? I don’t think so. We’ve had hardly any complaints about it, strangely, but I’ve been keenly aware of the slowdowns, because I spend more time on the site than anyone (except maybe Joe Hage).
After consulting with Buster McLeod, who is no stranger to solving this sort of problem at 43things.com, we decided that a brand-new screaming quad-core Xeon processor 32-gigs-of-ram 15,000rpm hard-drives database server would go a long way toward fixing the problem. So we got one. And a smokin’ fast web server to pair it with. Jimmy Pandra and the awesome folks at Wowrack, which hosts Biznik.com, installed over the past couple of days. Thanks Wowrack, we’re thrilled that you’re hosting Biznik.com, because you take such great care of us. If any of you are looking to host your business website at a co-location facility, I recommend you talk to Jimmy. He’s the man.
Tonight, John and I are working overtime to install and test everything. We’ll spend tomorrow wrapping up the testing, and - barring any unforeseen snags - when you log into Biznik on Thursday morning, you will noticing that the site is running about twice as fast as it’s currently running. Maybe faster. Oh yeah, you’re going to love this upgrade.
And speaking of upgrades… are you and Active or Supporting member yet? Think of the $10 or $24/month that you spend as a teeny weeny investment in helping us pay for the $12K we just dropped on the new servers, and a huge investment in your own business. Active members, for example, get 8 times more clickthrough traffic from Biznik to your site than free members do, and Supporting members get 26 times more traffic! I’ll leave you with one last inducement to upgrade: if time is money, and the website runs as fast as we believe it will after the new servers are in place, you’ll actually be saving money by becoming a paying member! So: upgrade your account, and I’ll see you on the new site.
Biznik business networking servers upgradeBiznik’s best year ever, new Article feature launched, and what’s ahead for 2008
Happy New Year! 2007 was a year of solid growth for Biznik, and I’d like to share some numbers that we can all be proud of, and announce a fantastic new feature that we’re launching publicly today, and give you a overview of where Biznik’s headed in 2008.
At the close of 2006, Biznik had 2025 members. At the close of last year, Biznik had grown to 6605. That’s 4,580 new members in 2007, and the rate of growth is increasing, too, going from 7 new members/day in 2006, to an average of 12.5 members/day in 2007. More significantly in terms of the future of Biznik, we went from 70 supporting members at the end of 2006, each paying $10 month, to 357 paying members at the close of 2007. Again, the rate of paid memberships is also increasing, going from 3.4 percent in 2006 to 5.4 percent in 2007. We added an additional paid level of paid membership, called Active, in July, which helped Biznik go from collecting $600/month on memberships a year ago to taking in $5094/month in membership revenue at the close of 2007.
Despite that, Biznik has yet to make a profit: We invest in about 100 hours of web development a month, and we also just invested heavily in two new servers, which we’ll be bringing online in the new few days to both make the site run faster and handle big spikes in traffic that we anticipate due to increased promotional efforts we plan in the coming year. We also just added a great new tool that allows you to invite your friends to Biznik from popular online services like G-mail, Yahoo and MSN.
On July 1, we launched a completely new version of the website, and on Nov. 1st we launched a significant upgrade to profiles. Today we’re launching a new feature: a Learn section, which features business how-to articles and tips written by members, for members. More about that in a moment.
What’s ahead for 2008? Two words: growth and profit. For Biznik, and for Biznik members. We surveyed Biznik members for the first time late last year, and discovered that the #1 reason why people join Biznik is because they want to grow their business faster and become more profitable. Making a profit is fundamental to the success of any business, and we plan to become profitable this year by focusing on helping our members be more profitable.
The new Learn section that we’re launching today is part of our strategy to help your business grow faster and be more profitable. Members have already contributed 30 articles, all of which are written by members with the goal of providing you helpful how-to information on a wide variety of business topics. I invite you to read an article, rate an article, and write an article yourself. Authors who contribute enough highly rated articles will receive an “expert” badge that will display prominently on their profile, helping them attract more clients and build their reputation.
Our goal this year is to grow much faster, and to increase the percentage of members who support Biznik, because Biznik helps your business be more profitable and grow faster. We’ve already proven that supporting members get 26 times more traffic than free members do, and there are many more tangible benefits to upgrading your membership. We’ll be adding even more in the coming year. Think of it this way: What’s a new client worth to you? If Biznik helps you get just one new client in 2008, is that worth $10/month? Or for even more exposure, $24? Please consider helping us build this community by upgrading your membership, inviting your friends, and participating both online and at business networking events.
Thanks for a great year, Biznik. We look forward to great things from this amazing community in 2008.
articles Biznik business business networking education learn