How SPNbabble Can Help Web Professionals

SiteProNews Launches SPNbabble, a Micro-Blog for Web Professionals
Copyright © 2009 Titus Hoskins

SiteProNews, a well established website geared towards webmasters, has recently introduced a new micro-blogging service called SPNbabble. Describing itself as "Micro-Blogging For Web Professionals" - SPNbabble.com lets you share your ideas with friends and colleagues. It also incorporates such popular services as Twitter and Facebook. To find out more about this interesting new platform, Bizwaremagic.com did an interview with Mel Strocen, CEO of the Jayde Online Network, which runs numerous websites, including SiteProNews and SPNbabble.

1. Lets cut to the chase, why should anyone use your micro-blogging program, SPNbabble?

The main reason, and the reason we created SPNBabble, is that it provides social media marketers with a means to post to multiple micro-blogging sites simultaneously. Currently, SPNbabble members can configure their accounts so that a post on SPNbabble will also appear on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Plurk, Tumblr and 5 other micro-blogging sites. If time is a factor in your marketing endeavors, then using SPNbabble is a no-brainer.

2. Not everyone is familiar with micro-blogging, could you go into more detail and fully explain how your program works or functions?

Well, anyone who uses Twitter will find SPNbabble very similar in features and functionality. For those unfamiliar with micro-blogging, it's basically a concise form of blogging. Most micro-blogging sites, including SPNbabble, restrict blog posts to 140 characters. It takes some practice to get your message across in shortened form, but for busy web professionals less is more.

Micro-blogging is ideal for getting short snippets of useful information out to a potential audience of millions of micro-bloggers. Short blog posts can be about news, articles, products, services, programs, links to interesting sites, what you happen to be doing at that moment, or about almost anything else you care to share with others.

3. Can you elaborate on the SPNbabble Community Toolbar and how it works?

The SPNBabble toolbar was created using the Conduit.com custom toolbar creation service. Conduit allows site owners to create their own branded toolbars in minutes. We selected from some of the standard components that Conduit offers, but component choices literally number in the thousands.

The toolbar is available for the Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari web browsers and can be downloaded in seconds from

https://spnbabble.ourtoolbar.com

In addition to common toolbar features like search, weather, radio, pop-up blocking and a drop down link menu, the SPNBabble toolbar also offers more unique features like online chat between SPNbabble members, a RSS feed reader for SPNbabble posts, a Twitter post reader, an email notifier that supports virtually all webmail providers and most POP3 providers, and a Message Box that enables us to send messages to members in real time to which they can respond.

4. How much does it cost to use SPNbabble?

There is no cost. SPNBabble is FREE to use.

5. Seems like everyone has gone Twitter mad, can you give your views on Twitter and how it is connected with your new program? How is it different from using Twitter?

Twitter is an acquired taste. Either you immediately grasp its value or you find it to be a total waste of time. For many people, the latter view is based on their personal tastes and preferences. They see no real benefit in reading about what other Twitter users had for breakfast, where they are going or what they are doing.

The trick, of course, is to follow the message posts of people with whom you have something in common. Finding those people on Twitter isn't that easy or intuitive, but there are Twitter related services that can help you find people whose message posts you might find interesting. I personally like Mr Tweet, but there are a number of other similar services that assist in pinpointing Twitter members with similar interests.

Like Twitter, SPNbabble allows members to follow each other's message posts, invite their friends, add custom promotional backgrounds, direct message other members, search message posts and setup groups devoted to specific interests.

Unlike Twitter, SPNbabble caters more specifically to business professionals versus the general public, although no one is prevented from using the service.

6. What types of Data or RSS feeds does your program support? Do you have a Wordpress Plug-in?

SPNBabble supports RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom data feeds. If you use a RSS feed enabled browser or one of the many available RSS feed readers, you can browse and read message posts in the SPNBabble public timeline without actually visiting the site.

SPNBabble also offers a Wordpress blog plug-in. Details can be found at the Wordpress Plugin Directory:

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/spnbabble/

In brief, the plugin, once installed on a Wordpress based blog, allows a blogger to select the blog posts he/she wants converted to micro-blog notices and automatically added to SPNbabble and the other micro-blog services SPNBabble supports.

7. Spam is an ever constant problem for every site on the web, but blogging sites with comments are especially vulnerable, what measures have you put into place for SPNbabble or is this a non-issue?

Spam notices are definitely an area of concern, for SPNbabble and other micro-blog sites.

The question is how does one define spam on a micro-blogging service. In our case, we define spam as notices that are inappropriate (adult, inflammatory, illegal, etc.) or repetitive and identical. We are looking at ways of automating the spam monitoring process, but currently notices are manually scanned and removed as necessary. In extreme cases of abuse, members are banned and all of their message posts removed.

8. In a slightly different vein, not everyone reading this will be aware that you're the CEO of the Jayde Network, which has many popular sites such as SiteProNews, GoArticles, ExactSeek... Plus, you also co-founded the iEntry network, which also runs some very popular sites on the web. How do you see SPNbabble fitting into these comprehensive online networks?

My connection with iEntry ended 8 years ago. iEntry has thrown its own hat into the micro-blogging ring with Twellow.com, a comprehensive directory of Twitter users broken down into hundreds of categories, and has been successful in popularizing Twellow very quickly.

We chose to go in a different direction and provide our core audience - webmasters and site owners - the means to market and communicate across multiple social media sites. It's a service that I personally find useful as a marketer and entrepreneur and one that I believe will strike a chord with other web professionals as the micro-blogging phenomenon continues to grow.

Obviously, we plan to promote the service across all of our websites and we are also approaching other companies in the social media arena to form mutually beneficial partnerships.

9. What are your goals and objectives for SPNbabble? Where would you like to see it in a few years?

My main goal for SPNBabble is to make it a one-stop destination for anyone interested in effectively utilizing the social media bandwagon for meaningful and profitable communication.

Specifically, I would like to improve, and add to, SPNbabble's feature set. That might entail tying into additional micro-blogging sites, providing additional search functions, adding a directory of categorized users, notice ranking and/or voting, etc. I'd also like to see SPNbabble eventually added to desktop social media applications like TweetDeck, Twhirl, Twitteroo, Bitter, and others.

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For more information and to join SPNbabble Click Here:

SPNbabble.com

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Information on the SPNbable Founder:

Mel Strocen - President and CEO, Jayde Online Network

Mel Strocen held a senior executive position in an international, Canada-based management and development corporation for 20 years. In 1996, he founded Jayde.com, one of the first web directory and search engine sites on the Internet. Jayde Online gradually evolved from a simple directory site to a full-featured search engine with over one million members, indexing more than 30,000 unique URL's daily. In 1999, he co-founded the iEntry Network, one of the largest newsletter networks on the Internet. In 2001, Mr. Strocen sold his ownership interest in iEntry and founded the Jayde Online Network, currently comprised of 15 websites, including the highly visited sites GoArticles.com, SiteProNews.com, and ExactSeek.com.

In June 2005, Mr. Strocen founded the Independent Search Engine & Directory Network (ISEDN.org), established for the purpose of offering webmasters and site owners a reasonably priced advertising alternative to the major pay-per-click search engines. He is currently focused on expanding and building the Jayde Online and ISEDN networks.