Buzz+Up!

**Advertising on Buzzup!**



Overview
[| Buzzup] is a social media site where you can find the hottest tech news. Buzzup applies mainly to the tech and financial communities. Users can submit stories to the site where other users can vote on them. In addition to stories, users can also post documents, photos, videos, deals and finance information. When the story you submit reaches enough votes, it will be placed on the front page of Buzzup for all users to see when they log on. When a user first submits a story, it is placed in an area called “unpublished.” When the story reaches a sufficient amount of votes the story gets promoted to the main page. The stories are based on news about the reviews and analysis of startup companies, web applications, web technology trends, social networking and social media. Buzzup currently has applications for the iPod Touch and iPhone, Facebook, Google IG and buttons and badges for users’ personal web sites. Buzzup not only has a United States based site; they also have Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom based sites as well.

Reasons for Advertising
People may register to Buzzup to give other people information and advice about technology and web services. Users can submit stories and documents about technology that may improve their life or make their life easier. The more votes the user receives, the closer they get to having their story posted on the front page. This video reached enough votes to reach the front page of Buzzup. Video on how to make your PC faster media type="custom" key="7556521"

This video provides users advice to finish winter projects around their house, and that it's never too late to finish a DIY project "How to" video on finishing DIY projects on your home media type="custom" key="7556579"

Here is a helpful story to users about how the Android phone platform will become the dominant platform for smartphones. [|Click for story!!]

When other users log on to Buzzup and see these stories and videos giving them advice in the technology world, they are likely to vote on them.

Other users may use the site to promote a product or a business. Users may even advertise products for sale on the site, such as this user who is a musician promoting his new album. He directs you to a site where you can pre-order his album at the end of the video. media type="custom" key="7556687"

Limitations
Buzzup takes a very long time to load, even on computers with very fast connections. Multiple Google searches may be completed in the time it takes for one page of Buzzup to load. Buzzup is also not acknowledged anywhere on the internet except for Twitter. Most internet and Web 2.0 resources do not acknowledge Buzzup. Advertising agencies such as [|Advertising Age] and [|Adweek] do not recognize Buzzup. [|GreenBook], a market research service do not recognize Buzzup either. Buzzup is also not listed in books, journals, nor are they listed in newspapers and magazines. On the right side column, where advertisers should have a banner placed, Buzzup also has a section for their sponsors. This section is empty, which leads the audience to assume that Buzzup is completely independent and has no sponsors. A story written on [|Mashable] calls Buzzup " just another unimaginative tech news oriented version of Digg" (Schroeder, 2009). Company filings for Buzzup are also not listed on the Security and Exchange Commission. The SEC holds company information and filings for companies since 1994. When you want to purchase a banner on Buzzup for advertisement, the only way to contact them is through email. They do not list a phone number and they are very hard to reach through email as well. Under the FAQ section of Buzzup, they claim if you have not received an email back from them within 24 hours it is because you may have contacted them outside of their working business hours and to send another email to info@buzzup.com. I sent Buzzup two emails but have not received any responses. After the first email, I waited 24 hours and did not receive a reply. Following the guidance on their web, I sent them a second email. After more than 72 hours elapsed between sending my first email and writing this article, I have not received any responses from Buzzup. Those registered on Buzzup to promote their business or products may not be able to be recognized due to the lack of knowledge about Buzzup and also clutter on the site that has nothing to do with tech news, the web, or social media. Many videos submitted to Buzzup are simply because they are cute or funny and may take away from the advertisements.

Bike Faceplant Video media type="custom" key="7579811"

Video of a Prank at 6am media type="custom" key="7556661"

However, there is hope for Buzzup. Mashable says, "if Buzzup Docs takes off, it might become a valuable resource for everyone looking for free documents of any kind" (Schroeder, 2009.)

Costs
If you wish to purchase a banner of the right column of every page on Buzzup, it will cost you $2000 every month. Your banner will consist of 125x125 pixels and links to the company product page. In order to advertise on Buzzup, contact sales@buzzup.com. However, you can register to the site for free. Registration entitles you to add a story, photo, video or deal to Buzzup, all free!

Reach and Frequency
Buzzup is more focused on frequency rather than reach. As Buzzup is not highly acknowledged and recognized, they are very limited in the amount of users they can reach. However, the users that they do have may frequently check back on their site to see what new stories, photos and videos have been posted to vote on. Buzzup does not tell you how many users they currently have registered on their site, nor do they tell you how many users actively use their site. On Buzzup's Twitter page, however, they are shown as having 20,577 followers.

Audience Qualities
The general audience of Buzzup consists mainly of highly influential professionals who are developers, executives, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporate decision makers and media and financial analysts in the Web and Media industry. Buzzup users must be at least 13 years old according to their terms and conditions. Buzzup’s Twitter page has 20,577 followers and is following 23,097 tweeters.

Responsiveness of Audience
In order for the audience to respond to stories listed on Buzzup, they must find them first. The easiest stories for them to find are stories posted on the front page, which have already reached many votes.

Successful Advertising on Buzzup
Companies who choose to place a banner on Buzzup may place a tracking code to monitor the performance of their ad. Currently, the advertisers on the right column of Buzzup are OIO Publisher, World of Warcraft Gold Guide, Reverse Phone Detective, TheTweetTank and Media Temple. As Buzzup is not widely know, it is highly unlikely that users have much success advertising products through the site. Successful Buzzup users who have submitted storied are those who have received enough votes to be placed on the front page of Buzzup for all other users to see when they enter the site.

Conclusions
I was not able to find much information for the business Buzzup.com when searching various names that contain the string “buzz”. With the lack of such information, it appears Buzzup.com may not be very profitable and could probably use a lot of help with their own advertising needs. In addition to the lack of information available, I also noticed that the web site only has four advertisers. Also, navigating the web site is extremely slow. The combination of lack of advertisers and poor web performance are indicators that the company may be suffering from loss of income. The extremely slow performance is a deterrent to visitors and most will probably leave the web site quickly. In today’s market, a web site cannot afford to provide slow performance when rendering content. The web has matured to where visitors will become impatient when the web pages are not displayed almost instantly.