Biznik business networking events can now have co-hosts
You’ve been asking for this one for a long time, and now you’ve got it: event co-hosts. This new feature gives you the ability for more than one person to host an event, and get credit for it on the event page. Like most everything else on Biznik, using the tool is drop-dead simple: Just look for the Add Host link immediately under the name of the event host field. Clicking that field brings up a text box that you can begin typing the name of the co-host into. Select the person’s name from the list to add them. In pictures:
1. Click “Add Host.”
2. Find co-host by beginning to type first name. Add second name if necessary to limit results to one your want. Click on name to add.
Host is added:
The first host in the list gets to be the one pictured on the main events page and in search results. The person who creates the event is, by default, the one pictured. Change the order in which hosts are entered in order to change who is pictured.
0 Comments Biznik business networking community gets 10,000th member, Arvis Northrop
On April 1st, I blogged about Biznik getting its 9,000th member. I estimated that, with a little help, we’d have 10,000 members by May 1. As it turns out, we got a lot of help. (Thanks to Wendy Kaufman’s story about Biznik on NPR.) As a result, less than two weeks later, I’m thrilled to welcome Arvis Northrop as the #10,000 member of this business networking community. Welcome Arvis! More about her in a minute…
When Lara and I started Biznik, we used to dream about having a network with 100 members. It seems like a pretty small number in hindsight, but it took us 7 months to reach that first milestone. Then we dreamed about having 500. Then 1,000, and then - dared we imagine it - 10,000 members. So it’s a big thrill for us to cross this psychological line. And it’s a big deal for the whole community, too, because the more members Biznik has, the more potential business relationships you can form here. And that, of course, is why we’re all here.
In the past 24 hours, Biznik has added 79 new members (well above our 30-day average, which currently stands at 57 new members per day). Our new dream: 15,000 members in time for BizJam Seattle on July 10.
Meanwhile, let’s learn a little more about Arvis. She’s from Napa, California, and she joined Biznik 5 days ago (yes, I should have blogged about this soooner, but I have been busy hiring an extraordinary team of developers - more on that in the next day or two).
What Arvis does
I am a freelance writer specializing in travel writing, ecotourism and Fair Trade. I write/edit newsletters, email campaigns, website content, press releases, etc. for businesses. I also do desktop publishing: flyers, postcards and PowerPoint presentations.
What Arvis does best
I consult small business owners on producing eye-catching marketing materials and creating interesting newsletters and email campaigns that people look forward to reading!
I write a series of local excursions called “Rambliin’ On” that encourage people to be aware of traveling responsibly, aka “eco-travel” whether around the Bay Area, California or worldwide.
I promote responsible travel and Fair Trade shopping with my e-newsletter, The Connection; bringing people articles and interviews about Fair Trade companies, independent businesses, and environmental news.
What does Arvis need?
I would like writing assignments and desktop publishing projects with businesses and non-profit organizations that work to make a positive difference in the world…and have a sense of humor, enjoy their work and insist on having fun!
Biznik wins Best of Class in 2007 Interactive Media Awards
Biznik got another nice email today: we won the top honor in the 2007 Interactive Media Awards in the Events category. Every Biznik member who has hosted an event deserves to share in this honor, and I want to out a big “thank you” to all of you - you know who you are. Here’s the scoop:
awards Biznik eventsCongratulations! We are happy to announce that your entry into the IMA competition, the Biznik: Business Networking Community Website (entered March 13, 2008), under the category Events, has won the IMA Best in Class Award with an overall score of 486.
The Best in Class award is the highest honor bestowed by the Interactive Media Awards. It represents the very best in planning, execution and overall professionalism. In order to win this award level, your site had to successfully pass through our comprehensive judging process, achieving very high marks in each of our judging criteria - an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each year.
Biznik has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Social/Networking category in The 12th Annual Webby Awards
Now, this is the kind of email I LOVE to get. Without further ado, I’ll share it with you all here. PS - I think with the added developers we’re brining on board we can win this next year! Thank you call for making this awesome business networking community happen.
Dear Dan:
It is my pleasure to inform you that Biznik has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Social/Networking category in The 12th Annual Webby Awards.
The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to work that scores in the top 15% of all work entered into the Webby Awards. With nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 states and over 60 countries, this is an outstanding accomplishment for you and your team.
Congratulations!
David-Michel Davies
Executive Director
Biznik welcomes Intuit as first major sponsor
Today I’m am thrilled to announce that Intuit is Biznik’s first major sponsor. We’ve been working closely over the past couple of months with some fantastic people at Intuit, to come up with a form of sponsorship that works for both Intuit and for this community of small business owners. Check out the Learn section this morning, and you’ll see what we came up with - a new section on the Learn page featuring articles provided by Intuit on topics that we’re confident you’ll find helpful, relevant, and interesting.
After working with Intuit to develop this sponsorship, I totally understand why Fortune magazine this year called Intuit - for the third straight year - “the most admired software company in America.” Intuit really does work hard to understand and support small business, and today’s sponsorship is certainly an indication of that to us.
The sponsorship, which will run for the month of April, will help us develop Biznik more quickly, so that this community can grow faster and do a better job at our core mission: helping you grow your business faster and making it more profitable. From all of us and Biznik and on behalf of the entire business networking community here, thank you Intuit!
To give you a complete picture of why Intuit is sponsoring Biznik, I interviewed Laura Messerschmitt, a product manager at Intuit.
Q: There are a lot bigger communities on the web than Biznik! Why is Intuit interested in participating on Biznik?
It’s true there are a lot bigger communities on the web, but bigger isn’t always better. At Intuit, we pride ourselves on customer-driven innovation…staying tuned-in to the needs, concerns & issues of emerging/growing businesses. Forging a relationship with Biznik (a small business itself) and their community of business owners seems like a great way to accomplish this goal.
Q: We’re delighted to welcome Intuit as the first major sponsor of this community. I’m curious, though: why not simply purchase advertising here? Why is Intuit interested in joining the conversation, rather than simply flashing ads at us?
Thanks. We’re delighted to be here and hope to establish a long-term relationship with the Biznik community. In fact staying tuned into the business community, establishing ongoing relationships & the desire to engage in 2-way conversations with business owners is exactly what excites us about the Biznik sponsorship. We’ve found traditional advertising helps people learn about the benefits of our products and services but it doesn’t often give us a venue to really talk with business owners. And talking with business owners is part of Intuit’s DNA.
For the past fifteen years we regularly go on what we call “follow-me-homes” where we visit business owners in their office, garage, kitchen table – you name it– to learn more about what keeps them up at night and what drives them during the day. These conversations help us improve our products/services or even create new ones to help them. So joining the conversation is what we’re really about and we hope to do this by both learning from the Biznik community & sharing our own experiences.
Q: Who will be writing the articles? What kind of experience are they bringing to the conversation?
Intuit has pulled these articles from a variety of sources. Some are coming from other small businesses. Some are coming from subject matter experts who know a certain field really well. Others are coming from Intuit studies as well as our employees, who have spent a lot of time researching the needs of small businesses. We tried to pick the articles that we thought would be the most valuable.
Q: Do you think small, personal businesses are a significant force in the economy? Why?
Absolutely! There are approximately 26 million small businesses in the U.S. They generate 50 percent of the private, nonfarm gross domestic product (GDP). That’s roughly $5 trillion in annual sales. If US small businesses were a country, that would make them the fourth largest economy in the world!
The number of small businesses is expected to go up as Baby Boomers, Gen Y, women and immigrants increasingly start their own businesses. Technology is also allowing small business to do more: to go global, to produce high quality products and services from home, and to partner with big business. We recently did a study about what small business will look like ten years from now. You can check it out at: www.intuit.com/futureofsmallbusiness.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges that solopreneurs face? How does Intuit help solve them?
Your Biznik members really should be answering that question, since they’re the ones on the frontlines. That said, we’ve learned a lot over the years, having served over 3 million businesses. The biggest challenges we see businesses facing are getting customers, prioritizing time, managing money & staying confident/motivated.
1. Getting new customers and retaining current customers. A new startup doesn’t always have the network and presence in the community that a more established business might have. Thus, finding customers can be hard.
We are doing a lot right now around trying to help small businesses find customers. We have some new services that recently launched that make it easy for a small business to create a website, get listed in online directories, and manage their customers. Those resources can be found at: http://marketingtools.intuit.com.
2. The Time Crunch: Running a business is very time consuming, especially for solopreneurs. We hear things like ‘I am the only one who does everything & there’s only so much time in the day.’ They’re looking for ways to streamline all the administrative tasks and paperwork so that they can focus on the more important parts—getting customers, building their business & staying competitive. But, this can be challenging.
Finally, helping small businesses with the time crunch problem is at the core of what Intuit does. Our back-office software solutions are designed specifically to help small businesses to manage their books and records easily and quickly. We have free versions of our software that would be quite appropriate for the solopreneur that makes up a large portion of the Biznik membership. To get the free software, go to www.quickbooks.com and search for “Free Simple Start.” That will pull up the link to allow you to download the free Simple Start software.
Staying confident & motivated can be challenging, especially when you’re a solo entrepreneur working out of your home.
In order to help small businesses find trusted advisors, we developed a website. That site is http://www.quickbooksgroup.com/. Click on the “Local Help and Events” tab. We are also working with groups like Biznik to help them help their members develop connections with advisors and friends.
To help businesses get started and stay motivated, we’ve also launched an online community called JumpUp.com. It’s an online destination where you can get your business questions answered, get advice from peers & experts, and find free tools/resources for growing your business.
Managing money is really important for solopreneurs, especially those just starting out. (Poor money management is the #1 reason new businesses fail.) Our QuickBooks line of financial software is great way for businesses to stay on top of their finances. It helps track sales & expenses, generates invoices, pays bills, manages inventory & provides all sorts of really useful reports.
Intuit’s payroll and merchant account solutions are two additional solutions that help small businesses manage money.
The innovation and customer-driven focus that inspired these breakthroughs and alliances leads us to expand further, solve larger problems, and bring new products and services to more people and businesses. As the world evolves, so do we. Yet we remain driven by our passion for inventing solutions to solve important problems, perfecting those solutions and delighting our customers. We started small in 1983 with Quicken personal finance software, simplifying a common household dilemma: balancing the family checkbook. Little more than two decades later, our revenue tops $2.6 billion, we’re publicly traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, and recognized as America’s most-admired software company and one of the country’s best places to work.
Biznik business networking intuit sponsorBiznik business network welcomes 9,000th member: Bridgette Boudreau
Biznik got member 9,000 yesterday morning when Seattle life coach Bridgette Boudreau signed up. Welcome, Bridgette!
Bridgette hasn’t created a profile that I can share with you yet, but she has added three members to her network and she’s signed up to attend Chris Haddad’s and Beth Yockey Jones’ event, You’re Awesome and Here’s Why, or All About Your USP.
Biznik is currently adding an average of 32 new members per day to this business networking community. At that rate, we should ALMOST be able to welcome member 10,000 by May 1. Breaking 10,000 members is a number I have been dreaming about for a long time. I don’t think it’s just a dream at this point, do you? So, invite your business-building friends and let’s make it happen!
1 CommentInstant video profiles add new dimension to online business networking
Biznik is launching an extraordinary new online business networking feature today: video profiles. We teamed up with another Seattle startup, EyeJot.com, to provide you a way to instantly record and post up to 5 minutes of video, all from within your profile on Biznik. No need for editing software. No need to shoot first and upload later. No need to cut and paste the link from Youtube. All you need is a computer with a video camera and we take care of the rest. Well, you still have to have something to say. You’re on your own there!
To get started immediately, watch this two-minute video in which I show you how it works:
As far as I know, Biznik is the first online business networking community to include recordable video from within profiles. LinkedIn didn’t even give users the ability to upload photos to their profiles until last September, so don’t hold your breath on seeing video there any time soon. If you know of any other business social network that offers this, let me know and I will stop making bold claims! Until then, I’m going to keep bragging, because this is worth bragging about. In fact, why don’t you hop on to your profile, record a profile, and we can all brag together.
All of the current Mac laptops already have video cameras built-in. If you don’t have one of those, you can get an inexpensive USB camera, and mount it externally. The video tool is pretty good at automatically figuring out your settings, and within minutes you should be recording your first video. If you have any problems, we’ve created an extensive video FAQ page that should have you up and running right away.
So, what do you think of video on your profiles? Will you use it? Will you watch video on member profiles?
business networking social media videoSnow day!
Biznik’s lead developer John Adair, left, and Dan McComb send you greetings from snowy Seattle!
Articles now automatically appear on your profile
Since we launched the Articles section in early January, we have accepted for publication only articles that are sharply focused on business. That’s because we want Biznik to become a resource for independent business people, a place where you can be confident you’ll find articles that will help your business grow faster and become more profitable.
We’ve noticed, however, that we’ve had to decline a lot of interesting articles that are perfectly relevant to YOUR business, not ours. So we thought: Why not automatically publish every article than members submit to their own profile? Then, we’ll promote the ones that fit with Biznik’s editorial guidelines to the home page, the Learn section, and elsewhere on the site. So that’s what we’ve done.
Now, when you submit an article, it immediately appears on your profile. So you can write articles on topics that YOU choose, not us. If you’re a painter, for example, like Eric Beemer, you can write an article about 10 questions you should as your local painter before hiring him or her.
Save the Date for BizJam 08!
Biznik is proud to announce the date for Seattle’s 2008 BizJam event on Thursday, July 10, 2008.
BizJam 08 is Biznik’s second annual “indie” business conference. The event includes a day of educational workshops and organized networking opportunities, followed a fun social networking soiree in the evening.
Target audience: Entrepreneurs, freelancers, consultants & small business owners.
Expected attendance: 350+
Speakers at BizJam 07 included:
- Scott Bourne, president of Podango Productions and founder of Netradio
- Ron Sukenick, founder of Relationships Strategies Institute and co-founder of the Indiana Business Network, currently known as BNI
- Scott Berkun, author of The Myths of Innovation (O’Reilly 2007)
- DL Byron, author of Publish & Prosper: Blogging for Your Business (New Riders 2006)
- Michelle Goodman, author of The Anti-9-to-5 Guide (Seal Press 2007)
Statistics: 4000 members of Biznik in Seattle, 8000 world-wide; an average of 40 new members joining per day. Current web traffic: 340,000 pageviews per month; 60,000 visits per month, 33,000 unique visitors per month.
Reach small business people and indie professionals by SPONSORING BizJam 08.
Networking events, online advertising, hands-on demonstrations and onsite marketing promotions are available, along with a limited number of exclusive corporate sponsorship opportunities.
Detailed list of benefits will be available soon. Please contact Lara Feltin - lara (at) biznik.com - for more information.
Events and BizTalk posts now taggable on Biznik business network
You’ve probably noticed that, ever since we launched Articles and Tips in early January, you have been able to add tags to all the articles and tips. Tags are descriptive keywords, which help describe the content. Every time you add a tag to an article, it helps us show you related information. How? Look in the column to the right of any tip or article. You’ll see a headline “Related Articles” and “Related Tips.” Those are there because someone tagged it.
Tagging has worked extremely well to help us present relevant, related articles and tips to you, when you are reading an article or tip. So well, in fact, that we’ve decided to adding tagging to Events AND BizTalk posts. So please, start tagging your events when you create them, and events that you are attending (any member can tag things).
Why are we doing this? Because we want to start showing you more relevant related info all over the Biznik site. And we need your help. So next time you’re looking at an event, BizTalk post or Article, tag it!
Biznik relevant social media taggingBiznik business networking community adds 8.000th member
Biznik passed another membership milestone early last week, when Christa Ward from Houston, Texas, became the 8,000th member of this business networking community. And Biznik’s membership growth rate is continuing to accelerate. The monthly average is now just over 30 new members per day.
Christa has not responded to my requests for an interview or completed her profile, so unfortunately I can’t tell you much more about her other than the fact that her business name is “Web Designs by Miss Chrissy.” Don’t forget to complete your profile - people really do look at them, and so do search engines.
Since Christa joined Biznik 6 days ago, 200 more people have joined Biznik. But the fact that she hasn’t replied to my interview request may point to a less positive side of growth: bigger community = less trust? Or maybe she was just too busy doing what we all should be doing right now: running our business! OK, back to work. I’m saving the big celebration for member 10,000 (which, at our current growth rate, should happen some time in early May).
business networking community social media web communityBiznik changes home page to increase prominence of business networking articles
Articles have been a huge hit since we launched them two months ago on Jan. 2. Since then, members have published an average of four new articles per day with helpful how-to advice on a wide variety of business topics. Our traffic has climbed as a result, and we’ve been thrilled to notice how much business networking is happening between members who meet each other by posting comments to the articles.
Today, we’re acknowledging the increasing importance of articles and the members who write them by giving both significantly more prominence on Biznik.com: the home page now prominently showcases the featured article at the top, followed by the four most recently published member-contributed business articles. Article authors get prominent photos and links to their profiles with every article they publish, on the home page.
We’ve also added a new sidebar on the home page: Business networking advice. This new section pulls in the headlines of the most recently contributed articles about business networking.
We’re delighted to see that articles have become a way for members to raise their profile, build their reputation, and share their expertise. Since we launched, 5 Biznik members have earned “Expert” status from having four or their articles rated 8 or above. Meet Biznik’s Expert members:
Barry Hurd
Mark Silver
Kaya Singer
Ilise Benun
Stephanie Ward
Intriguingly, just one of the expert members is from Seattle. So articles have turned out so far to be a fantastic way to broaden the reach of Biznik beyond Seattle, where Biznik now has more than 4,000 members.
So, what business topic are YOU an expert on? The whole community is waiting for you to share your expertise, and with the change we made today, you’ll have a bigger audience than ever on Biznik.com.
articles business business networking online business networking social networkingStay on top of new articles, members and more with new RSS feeds
It’s easier than ever to keep track of new articles, new members, individual members, and much more with RSS feeds that we’ve recently added. One of the benefits of using an RSS reader: You’ll be automatically notified whenever new content is added to the site. For example, if you’re subscribed to the new member rss feed, every time a new member joins, you’ll know about it instantly. And all without having to check your email. For more on how to use an RSS reader, check out this article.
Each member profile now contains its own RSS feed. Subscribing to the feed shows you a list of that member’s activity on Biznik, which is drawn from the “recent activity” list you see on the person’s profile.
Subscribing to the RSS feed on the Biznik home page shows you new members near you. Make sure you set your local city BEFORE you subscribe to this RSS feed - otherwise you’ll get the default setting, which is Seattle. Head to the member directory, and select the radius that you want to see members near you. Now go back to the home page, and subscribe to the rss feed. The RSS feed now contains only new members within the radius you defined in the rss feed.
Events feeds operate in the same way - make sure you select your local city before subscribing - you’ll be following events within the user-defined radius of your community when you subscribe, as per above.
BizTalk is full of RSS feeds that make following conversations easy. You can subscribe to see all new posts as they are made, or you can follow a single category, such as “general discussion.” You can also subscribe to individual posts to see new comments as they are made.
Here’s the feeds that you can subscribe to:
Members feed (shows new members as they join within 50 miles of Seattle)
Articles feed (shows new articles as they are published)
Tips feed (shows new tips as they are published)
BizTalk Feeds (many feeds are available)
Events feed (shows events near you)
Angela Halsey is Biznik’s 4,000th Seattle business network member
Today was an awesome day here in Seattle. And not just because of that amazing lunar eclipse (as if by magic, the clouds parted and Seattle was able to see it tonight). Also eclipsed was the Biznik record for new-member signups in a single day. Molly Gordon plugged Biznik in her newsletter today, and the result was almost three times the normal rate of new-member signups - 62 in the past 24 hours. Thanks Molly!
And another milestone today: Angela Halsey joined Biznik. She is the 4,000th Seattle member to sign up for “business networking that doesn’t suck.” She was invited by Keith Gormezano, and already she’s got Melody Biringer (perhaps the most networked person in the entire Northwest) in her network. Go girl! And as is my habit, I’m going to tell you all about her, because I love celebrating milestones in the development of Biznik, and more importantly, because she took the time to fill out her profile! From her profile:
Angela Halsey
Payroll & Benefits Administration
Halsey Resources
Seattle, Washington 98116
http://www.halseyresources.com
What Angela does
Outsourced payroll and benefits administration for small businesses.
We are here to manage the areas of your business that you do not have the time, or the desire, to focus on.
Specializing in payroll and benefits administration, we will be your point of contact, for you and your employees, when payroll or benefits related questions arise. We will help negotiate your annual benefits package to make sure you are able to offer a competitive benefits package with affordable rates.
We will calculate, file, deposit, and reconcile your payroll taxes. We’ll even respond to inquiries from taxing agencies regarding the deposits and returns we file for you.
Payroll Services Offered
* Direct Deposit * Check signing and delivery * Payroll reporting * W-2s * Federal income and unemployment taxes * Social Security/Medicare taxes * State income and unemployment taxes * State disability insurance * Local income taxes
Benefits Administration Services Offered
* Benefit Enrollment * Health & Dental Plan Management * New Hire Reporting and Background Checks * Flexible Spending Accounts
Bookkeeping services are also available to clients who need help keeping their financials up to date.
What Angela does best
Payroll, benefits administration, organization and implementation of employee records.
What does Angela need?
Referrals to small businesses who are growing in size, but still small enough that they don’t have the need for a full-time, in-house HR person.
Collaboration with CPA’s who would like to refer clients back and forth who are in need of bookkeeping and accounting services.
Education
Front Range Community College Boulder, Colorado
Experience
Over 15 years working in human resources, office management, and bookkeeping for small businesses. Industries served include: Software Development, Web Development & Design, eCommerce, Medical and Dental.
New feature: Personal invitation link
Biznik business networking community members have been asking for this feature for months: a simple, personalized URL that you can share with your friends to invite them to Biznik AND automatically get credit with inviting them when they follow the link and signup. And now, you have it. You can grab your personal invite URL from the top of the invite a friend page.
The URL is nice and simple, and is formatted the same for everyone: http://biznik.com/join/[your-name].
The reason so many people have been requesting this is so that you can put this link into the footer of your emails or in the sidebar of your website when you link to Biznik. Then, when anyone follows that link and signs up, you will get credit. The points you get from each signup will help you earn a connector badge, and more importantly, make you more visible on Biznik.
Enjoy!
Biznik code invitation social mediaBiznik recognizes top contributing members with new badges
I’m delighted to announce a new feature for the Biznik business networking community: member badges. These little icons will display under your profile photo, and elsewhere on the site, so that members can tell at a glance how you are contributing to the community. For example, if you’ve hosted at least one event, an “event host” badge will now automatically appear under your profile photo.
Many of the badges are awarded by the community: for example, to earn an “expert” badge, you must have published at least 4 articles that the community has given an average rating of 8 out of 10. A “tipster” badge is earned the same way: you must have published 5 tips that are rated at least 8.
Here’s what the badges look like, and how to earn them:
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To earn a Connector badge, 10 people you have invited to Biznik must have followed your invitation link and signed up. |
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To earn a Tipster badge, you must post 5 tips with an average rating of 8 or above. Write a tip. |
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To earn Expert status, you must write 4 articles which are rated 8 or above by the Biznik community. Write an article. |
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Event hosts build community by hosting business networking events, such as happy hours, and workshops. Host an event. |
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Instructors teach Biznik Business Essentials workshops. Instructor badges are awarded by invitation only. Contact me if you’re interested in becoming an instructor. |
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Biznik staff moderate forums and events, and are always happy to answer your questions and help you out. |
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Biznik editors review articles and tips, and will work with you to prepare your article for publication. |
NOTE: We’re still working out some bugs on these - for example, there’s a bug that is preventing some article authors from having an “expert badge” because it’s calculating incorrectly - that will be fixed next time the script runs that updates your status. That runs every night at midnight, so if you hosted an event (defined as recording attendance) don’t be surprised if you don’t immediately receive a badge - you’ll see it on your profile the next morning. Also, event hosts are being calculated incorrectly - my badge shows that I’ve hosted only 18 events, but I’ve actually hosted 52. We’ll get that fixed asap.
badges business networking members social network statusWelcome 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.
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