Paul May's Profile

Just before I took the stage at PubCon South to talk about managing your personal reputation, Jeremy Bencken, of BuzzStream passed me his business card and asked if I’d take a look at their new tool. I was a nervous wreck, so I said sure and then tossed the thought towards the back of my mind. Fortunately, Jeremy rocks and followed up as soon as the conference had ended. I then signed up for an account and instantly added the Buzzmark It shortcut to my bookmarks. It’s a simple way to keep track of link acquisitions and was exactly what I needed. I remember buzzmarking a couple of sites, but contact information wasn’t found, so I shelved my test until I could figure out what I was clearly doing wrong.

Several weeks passed and Jeremy followed up again. This time I took the Buzzmark It feature for another spin and it worked perfectly. I gave them a HUGE list of feedback and in a couple of days Jeremy had asked about dropping some of my comments in the BuzzStream Get Satisfaction queue, answered questions that just needed clarification and asked for details on some of my more obscure recommendations.

I’m still eagerly awaiting certain changes like an XML or CSV export of the link acquisitions and better agency support, but this is 100x better than what I had previously — my hands and an Excel spreadsheet. Fortunately, because of those Firefox Quick Searches, I’m pretty fast with the spreadsheet, but now I’ll have something professionally managed that cuts out precious follow-up time. What impresses me most about the tool is the people behind it, Jeremy and BuzzStream Co-founder Paul May, have been incredibly responsive and thankful for suggestions.