SEO BLOG

When I discovered Browzmi via my referrer stats I was instantly hooked. I love social browsing, especially using StumbleUpon but Browzmi offers more than that, it can be used like Twitter or Mixx as well, it even surpasses the best of my 3 favorite social media combined. Browzmi is all three:

• social browsing with friends and strangers
• microblogging-like almost real time URL sharing and IM/chatting
• a personal frontpage social news collection

After realizing that Browzmi has huge potential to be the platform of 2nd wave social media I was eager to support the project. While participating I kept nagging (sending feature requests) and annoying (offering SEO 2.0 help) founder Travis Parsons to let me.

So finally he decided to fend me off for a while by sponsoring this blog post about Browzmi. This way it won’t just become a short 1h write up but a real half of the day work blog post. I don’t do conventional paid reviews for people who request them, but here I get compensated for something I love anyways.

So don’t believe me, I’m totally biased due to love and money reasons, try Browzmi yourself instead!

So here are the 12 reasons why Browzmi even surpasses my favorite social sites I spend my day at. Btw. don’t get we wrong I still love StumbleUpon, Twitter and Mixx but it’s similar to Slashdot vs Digg, the idea gets improved and the next service is even better than the one you love.

The best thing with Browzmi is: You don’t have to choose, you can use all of these services on top or rather inside Browzmi!

1. Discovery+Link Sharing+Social News: Instead of just discovering, reviewing or voting for stuff (StumbleUpon), sharing a link (Twitter), submitting a story/image (Mixx) and waiting until other people will find it later you visit a page, people see you’re there, then they can join you and you can chat about the contents of it at the same time. You can favorite, comment/review, thumb up/down etc. it anyways.
2. Real Time Interaction: On Mixx you act and wait for reactions. On StumbleUpon the browsing process is not social enough, you always feel lonely after a while, you mostly see people after they’re already gone. On Twitter you assume they are there due to the time they posted but you’re never quite sure. On Browzmi you really are aware of other people’s presence. As a webworker tied to my computer most of the day I don’t feel alone anymore. I browse the web together with like minded people.
3. Frontpage news & Friend News: Browzmi has a real frontpage like Mixx and unlike StumbleUpon. You can also read the news of your friends like with Mixx and Twitter.
4. Bookmarks & “Stumbles”: Favorites, reviews and thumbs up are not the same: On StumbleUpon you won’t find your stumbles easily, also Twitter history and Mixx submissions are gone and forgotten after a few days. Browzmi comes with a built in bookmark manager for the sites you want to revisit frequently:
5. No Browser Toolbar Required: Really works without toolbar (unlike StumbleUpon) or add-on. Just login and join your friends. It does offer a Firefox add-on to enhance the functionality though - see Browzmi Homebase.
6. Chat While Browsing: I’m not an IM and chat fan, this is probably due to my age and business objectives on the web but most younger people are. Browzmi allows you to chat and browse at the same time so that you don’t have to leave the IM or browser. This has really reconciled me with the concept of IM: Now it can be used productively.
7. Social Media Inside of Social Media: You aren’t really allowed to post Digg pages on Mixx or StumbleUpon. You are meant to go the real source. You can share your social media submission on Twitter but on Browzmi you can really use other social media sites without leaving Browzmi. So I can browse Mixx and show others a story I mixxed.
8. Social Voyeurism: When at Mixx or any other site I can stay logged in while using the Browzmi Homebase add-on. This way I can comment etc. without leaving Browzmi. Other people can watch me do it.
9. Fun & Business Use: Browzmi can be used not only for fun, but for work and business too: Work on Google Docs/Zoho documents with team remotely. I will use this for guest blogging and work with clients abroad:
10. Meet Your Readers: When people visit your site now you can guide them via Browzmi. It’s not like adding to other social media, now you can show your visitors around if they want it. It’s like in a old school shop. People enter, those who want assistance can get some via Browzmi.
11. No Crap: As there is no incentive yet to spam Browzmi, it’s too small for that only genuine users contribute and add content for sharing reasons not for self promotion, even evil SEOs like myself! There is no low quality content, no stolen images and no “blog spam” (people just submitting their link to another story).
    
12. Freshness of Community: Browzmi is a nascent community so you can literally chat up the founder and hang out with him or browse together with the Browzmi team. You can voice feature request etc. You have real impact here. it reminds me of Mixx where the team is also very enthusiastic and responsive. The people at Browzmi really encourage input and appreciate that they can improve the service based on the feedback they are receiving.
    

What about privacy you might ask: “I do not want everybody to watch my browsing history.” This is a real issue with social browsing, that’s why I don’t use some services or haven’t tried some of them yet. Good news here too though:

1) You can make your history visible only to your Browzmi friends.

2) You browse/submit only the sites you want to. It’s not like like “a real browser” in this sense. Browzmi only shares what you do inside the Browzmi.com application. So you share inside Browzmi and surf in private outside Browzmi. It’s like instant messaging - you use it when you want to be “online.”

Are there no drawbacks? Well, those I’ll add in the next Browzmi post, an unpaid one ;-) No, just joking:

The traffic is comparable to Twitter: You get a few people visiting you if you submit your site, Browzmi has hundreds not millions of users so you won’t have much more than a dozen at once visiting. This hasn’t stopped most of the marketers on Twitter and Mixx also has plenty of business people using it. This is an issue of being an early adopter as with Mixx I think. You build up a power profile and once it gets popular you’re already an authority in the community.

There are some problems right now when you want to “pop out” (leave Browzmi) to view a site outside the Browzmi environment when using their Homebase extension. This will be fixed with the next version of the add on.

So what do you think? Did I promise you too much due to being emotionally and financially biased?