This one even took us by surprise.

BzzAgent Karen Fink checks out the Frogpond, signs up for JackPot Rewards, and wins $1 million.

Go figure.

[yes, you should check out the pond...what are you waiting for?]

BzzAgent has always had some rules when it comes to the products that we’d run campaigns for. While early on, it might have cost us a few juicy contracts, it is my understanding that we’ve chosen to not represent cigarette companies and a few other categories.

A year ago or so we were struggling with what we called ‘C’ campaigns, programs which didn’t offer much of a product experience, if any, and just didn’t fit our model. Often the client wasn’t willing to go the extra mile to provide the great product evangelist with an experience she/he could really buzz about, even when the product was good. We started focusing our energies on ensuring we didn’t launch a program without an effective experience, but that still let a real issue. The fact is the majority of ‘C’ campaigns were web sites which just didn’t lend themselves to be featured as a BzzCampaign or were too much about acquisition and not enough about honest, good ‘ol WOM.

A year ago then, a few of us started to think of a way to bring Word of Mouth to web sites, in a manner that would be fun and rewarding for our agents and would get customers what they want: exposure, site visits and opinions about their web site, good or bad. A few weeks back, we launched the FrogPond.

A few days ago, I was checking the new frogs, looking at stats, reviews, something I do every day and stumbled upon this frog. I thought the business was wrong or at least the way they went about it (turns out they’re a former client of a good friend of mine too). Obviously I couldn’t just remove it so I walked around the office trying to figure out who the sales person was on that deal and trying to see what other people thought of it. I couldn’t understand how this frog went through our stringent, thorough and mostly seamless quality and ethics verification process. But the program was live, so there was nothing I could really do.

It seems that, in my opinion at least, we have our first “C” frog. I talked to a few people inside BzzAgent and we decided to see how the community would respond, if the frog would organically be rejected by our agents, like a two headed tadpole on Darwin’s service road to extinction.

It did get the worst ratings of any frog, past or present, so there’s a sign that the community will embrace was it loves – and absolutely reject what it doesn’t. What do you guys think ? Wicked bad frog ? Worst Frog evah’ ? Two headed Tadpole ?

If you were to read between the lines of my job description, you might conclude – rightly, by the way – that a major part of my role is to be an alarm clock for our Agents. Somehow, I need to visit each of our 310,000 Agents every day to ask, “Have you logged into BzzAgent.com today?” Because if Agents are not busy Bzzing between campaigns, they may start to doze off, and we may not see them again for a period of time.

Singing telegrams in the form of a life-size bee were nixed (finance thought it would be too expensive), but e-mails (already our main source of communication), got the “okay.” But the problem remains: How do we respect our Agents’ time while keeping them active and engaged?

Increasing our e-mail contact has to be done right, in genuine BzzAgent style. Which is to say, it has to be quirky, irreverent – but still sincere. That’s where I need your input. What types of messages would you read rather than zap?

Let’s say you last logged into BzzAgent 20 days ago. If you received an e-mail from us today, what information would encourage you to check back at our site? What would remind you how important you are in making our work a success?

Here are a few of our ideas:

• Upcoming BzzCampaign Notifications (prepare you in advance for a new campaign)
• Happy Birthday e-mails
• Client Report Cards (Insights into how your Bzzing is affecting our clients)
• Short bios on Agents / BzzAgent staff
• Significant events at the Central Hive (recording breaking news)
• Excerpts from top reviewed BzzReports
• Funniest Bzz or unique ways Agents are Bzzing
• A quick and simple “log in” reminder

So what do you think? Do you like any of those ideas? Do you have better ones? Propose away! (Please, though, don’t suggest a bee-shaped alarm clock…finance will never go for it.)

If you’ve been paying attention, late last night we officially launched Frog. As they cheered in Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome, “Embargo Lifted!”

The big decision was made last night at just before 11 PM. The site had been down for many hours, engineering had completed the development [along with a new launch of our email platform and client-facing reporting module] and we came to a critical fork in the road. We had to choose:

• We go live, even without feeling it was absolutely perfect. Given the length of time the overall site had been down, it seemed we HAD to flip the switch. But…
• We could wait to go live, until we feel we have everything just right. As CEO, I have to stand by every bit of work we produce, and the decision about whether this was a BzzAgent-worthy product rested on my shoulders. Much of the team had been working for days and weeks on end. Nerve endings were frayed. So if we didn’t go live, what work could actually be done, and done well, without some attempt at catching up on sleep?

The reality is, even with the kinks we see, it was the right time. You’re never going to be 100% ready. And after much discussion, it was clear the team, as a whole, felt this was up to our standards. This is a group I’ve learned to trust inherently, and it shouldn’t be overlooked that I continue to be amazingly proud of our staff, their energy, enthusiasm and focus. Few groups could pull off what this team did in a short period of time.

As with any launch, you’re going to see many, many changes over the next few hours, days and weeks. So, what’s working for you and what isn’t?

You know the rules, there are no rules…

Dave

One thing we track – for growth purposes, platform usage and Agent health – is campaign joins by day. A few days ago, we managed to accomplish the 3rd biggest campaign join day ever. Here’s our top 10 campaign joins in a day…

Did you get to join?