This week I had the opportunity to chat with some very cool people about my favorite social networking site Amplify.com. I have done several podcasts and lots of posts about Amplify, but after kicking the idea around with my friend Shonali Burke, the panel began to take shape. The panelists were:
Shonali Burke – my main co-conspirator in this effort, past podcast guest and all around awesome Marketing and PR genius. Also blogging at Waxingunlyrical.com and shonali.amplify.com or @shonali.
Tinu Abayomi-Paul – a new media veteran regularly sharing her traffic tips at freetraffictip.com and asktinu.amplify.com or @tinu.
Alex Schleber – my biggest influencer of #curation efforts, also savvy and prolific. Definite power user of #amplify. Also find him at businessmindhacks.com or Curation FTW his amplog or @alexschleber.
Eric Goldstein – the discussion would not be complete without the CEO of Amplify. Eric joined us for the last 20 minutes or so answering questions and sharing his insights. He’s participated in several interviews. You can find Eric on egoldstein.amplify.com or @egoldstein.
The community at large – there were tons of great Amplify users present in the chat, many of them are listed here. I regret that I could not have managed more people on the panel. This could have been a panel of 30-40 people that are great trusted sources on Amplify. Many (but not nearly all of them) are listed at “Why sources are more valuable than followers“.
Highlights
What can you expect by listening to this podcast?:
- Insights from several different users with unique approaches
- That Shonali has a wonderful speaking voice and accent (Thanks @zn_moment and @flapic)
- How discussion and meeting people creates a lot of value for the site users
- Ideas about how Amplify could scale and remain “intimate”
- The power of the @mentions on Amplify (Originally suggested to Eric by Shonali)
- Lots of great suggestions for new features
- A conversation between the panel and Eric
Listen to the Ampalooza:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Quotables:
“Amplify is what Google Buzz should have been.” – Tinu Abayomi-Paul
“The structure of Amplify does create some of that intimacy, it’s not just happenstance and it’s not just that the community is still relatively small.” – Alex Schleber
“(On Amplify being a great time saver) - The clipping function which is to me is the core of it and is so beautiful about it and the way that it clips and presents the posts particularly when you post them to Facebook is remarkable.” – Shonali Burke
“(On being willing to change priorities) - The internet is incredibly fluid and one thing we try to do as a company is try to remain as fluid as possible.” – Eric Goldstein
Self quote (I know, strange quoting myself):
“(On the Amplify team) - When you deal with people that treat you right and give a crap, it makes it really easy to be an advocate.” – Joe Hackman
Listeners, how would you have responded to the questions? Are there any features that you would have suggested to the Amplify team?
Communicate, share and read: