1.Give us a little history of the start up and who is involved, name names..and what you think as far as each persons BEST personal gift or Talent to CRE8buzz? Ex. The Antman (to me)..The Voice : "Wow, a heavy question right out of the gate, dang girl, you don’t mess around. The buzz got started on an idea that social networks were cool, but hollow. We felt that there were millions of people with great ideas, talents, and experiences that needed a place to connect AND be seen for the talent. If you think about it, the first generation of social networks are not designed around the content,. Getting to the content wasn’t easy. cre8Buzz was designed around the content. We wanted to make it easy to find content, especially good content."

"It started with Jim Keenan our CEO in July of 06, the idea came to him in the car one day. Jim ain’t a programmer. He’s more of a Sales, Marketing guy. The story is he had the idea and no way to do it, when out of no where he bumped into Mike Ratliff an old buddy and, can you believe, techie guy. Jim hadn’t seen Mike in 4 years and just happened to bump into him randomly while visiting an open house. Completely frickin’ random. Those two cats spent every Sat. sittin’ in a room putting sticky notes on the wall trying to figure out this whole thing was gonna fly and BAM ya got cre8Buzz.com Once they carved out the idea, they added Gabe as our finance guy. He manages the money, easy job right now. Then they brought Keith on, he is our grounded one and is in charge of Marketing. After that, they connected with a development firm out of Chicago called Bridgepoint Technologies, they supplied PM and UI support. They are good, professional. They know process, kept us from steppin’ in it. Finally we brought John Svoboda on. John was our “research” and team intellect. He got the team to look at the other side of every issue. John just moved on, but was helpful in getting’ us here."
"As far as me the Antman is concerned, the boys gave me life from Chris Anderson’s book the long tail; where he references “the ants have megaphones” in his description of how the everyday person now has a louder voice because of the Internet. Yes, I am “The Proverbial Loud Mouth” but someone has to do it!"

2.What has been the biggest challenge for CRE8buzz and what can community members do to help? "Our biggest challenge, gaining credibility, street cred from non users and pundits. We are too often seen as “just another social network”. The funny part is we are actually an aggregator of user generated content not a social network. We serve up the content all ya’ll buzzers put up for the world to see. Another way to look at it, cre8Buzz has over 200 communities. Each community page has a top 8 video, profile, picture, audio, blog and blog post. That is 40 pieces of content per page times two hundred pages, or 8000 pieces of content only a click away from the home page! We think that is pretty powerful."
"The best thing members can do for us is invite their friends, blog, and spread the word. Success in this space is measured by two things; users and site visits. The more active users we have, spending time on the site, putting up cool content, the more cred we’ll get."

3.The Antman is awesome, he or she or they are so mysterious...did you do that intentionally and if so why? "I am blushing! Awesome? That is a little strong, but I’ll take it. I don’t think I am all that mysterious. I’m all over the site, and the web, ya’ll follow me on Twitter, on Facebook etc. Keenan, he is the one that could be interpreted as mysterious. He feels his job is to help run the company, not be in the spot light. So he decided just to be in the background. Why have few people seen him? It started kinda simple and we decided to keep runnin’ with it."

4.The pods cast was really incredible, it's like after I heard it now I really understand Social Networking and many of the past experiences I've had this past 2 years of blogging would have never happened if I did not reach out to one another on the web? What is a good piece of advice for that newbie Social Networker...what kind of reception would they get at CRE8buzz and why? "My advice, GET OUT THERE, Social Networking allows people a level of exposure we are NOT able to achieve in the real world. I tell people all the time, get ya big bad self out there, cruise peoples pages, comment on blogs, engage in forums, express ya self in blog posts and be BIGGER than life. Despite all this, the one rule folks MUST follow is be AUTHENTIC! You do these things and social networks can be very rewarding!"
"The buzz has got to be the most open, accepting, inviting network on the planet! We take no credit for this. New buzzers, (new users to cre8buzz) get an avg of 5 – 10 “welcomes”. Folks are quick to offer help, friend, provide support and guide newbies around. It is frickin’ “spooky” in a good way how engaging folks are on the buzz."

5.What makes CRE8buzz so special besides the obvious...the community members? "Ya can’t talk about cre8Buzz without talkin’ about the community. It’s what makes us who we are. So that is what makes us different. It’s all about the buzzers! Beyond the members, it is the buzzranking and how cre8Buzz pushes the best content out so it can be easily found and checked out. Like I said before, cre8Buzz is all about the content."

6.Antman, how do you find time to comment, post and visit our profiles so frequently? Do you have a blogging schedule? "No, I ain’t got no bloggin schedule. That is probably why it only gets updated once or twice a week. Keith is better at than me anyway. He puts up some mad cool posts."
"I try to welcome everyone personally, and roll through ya’lls profiles as often as I can. It is important to me and to the boys to stay connected. As I said ya’ll are tight. Ya commitment to the buzz is unparalleled. Beyond ya commitment, there is some mad cool content on the buzz. I love checkin all ya’lls stuff out and saying sup. It is just fun!"

7.It seems that CRE8buzz has only been open to people who were invited, by invitation only, why is that? When do you think you will open it up to the general public? "The site started “invite only” cause we didn’t want to grow too fast. We are small and have limited resources and didn’t want a gang of folks comin’ on to a site with lots of bugs and turnin’ away. Not that people have been bangin’ down the door, BUT we still think it was a good idea. This way we can grow slowly with the communities."

8.I use cre8buzz for professional reasons, can you tell me the benefits of SEO? "Girl, I wish I could tell ya about the benefits of SEO, I know that the better the SEO the more people find ya. But, unfortunately I ain’t no SEO. What I can tell ya is when I google ya name and cre8buzz ya come up on the home page."

9.I know that Cre8buzz has been in the limelight recently, can you guide us to a few online sources with all this fantastic news and kudos? "Dang, we should probably be better at this. But, we get lots of cool blog posts everyday, but the bigger stories, have come from Mashable here: Cre8buzz-podcast The ones we think are the best are from our users blogs, run a google search on cre8Buzz and ya’ll find some tight posts. We are unbelievable flattered by what people have written. Very humbling!"

10.How did the idea of cre8buzz and the antman happen? "Chris Anderson’s book the LongTail, “The Ants have megaphones!” We owe it all to that quote in his book."

11.What do you think is the most important part of participating on cre8buzz and why? "Getting engaged. It is all about being an authentic participant. Just as in the real world; being real and participating is what it is about. The people who venture out and comment, interact, and meet people get the greatest return. Their readers increase, and their buzzrating grows, the rewards are tremendous."

12.OK, I admit, I kinda have a thing for the antman, so mysterious and so kind and gentle...like a friend...now it's not the person behind antman it's the presence on the web, its that little avatar that shows up in my comments when I least expect it...I know I am not the only one who feels that way.... so is there anything special maybe a wee pit personal and outside of cre8buzz that you are willing to share...maybe a morsel? "Sorry girl, it is all secret, not much to share anyway. Just a simple ole ant, chillin’ on the hill!"

13.Last but not least can you get the guys to each give a small tip to the community members to help make cre8buzz bigger and better and why they think the current members are so great...would like to hear from all of them. Keith- "My simple suggestion is to be consistent and be genuine. People on the buzz value authenticity and if you bring it, you will attract others and you will be welcomed. I don't post much but I find that the more I put myself out there the more people respond!"
Gabe-"Tell your friends about the buzz, and tell them to tell their friends. As the CFO, I am responsible for the money. I don't have much to do right now, so I would like it if you wonderful people would think of me with my sharpened pencil, visor, and suspenders, sitting at my desk anxiously waiting for something to do. Gosh, I need to get a life. Until then, I'll just see you on the buzz. Oh yeah, Keith is right, have fun and be real. Thanks to all you buzzers, especially those who are trying to get me busy. We appreciate YOU!"