We’re launching our blog and our Smub beta simultaneously (get used to that concept from us) today, and I thought I’d give a little overview as to how easily Smub works, to tickle the imagination.
In the upcoming the days, weeks and months, we’ll share stories of Smub, gather feedback from Smub users and generally be the fast track to the development and product teams here in Redwood City. But for now, we’re working on some introductory stuff to get everyone grounded in Smub.
Who’s Writing This Blog?
I’m Janet Johnson, and I’m extremely fortunate to work for Smub in managing our social media interactions. I’ve been in technology marketing for 24 years, and Smub is one of those tools that’s come along that has really changed the way I think about sharing information. (I wrote about that today on my personal blog, over here.) I’ll be Twittering about Smub, so please join us there. It’s so much more fun to tweet when there are people listening, right?
What is Smub?
Smub is a tool that helps people communicate information from the web to other people, in the easiest possible ways. Most people, when I’ve explained it to them, think “Oh, a link shrinking tool,” and immediately put it in that box in their brains, nicely filed away.
But Smub is much more than that. It allows you to capture any link (from any browser window - even on a smartphone, which is very, very cool) and simultaneously personalize it, bookmark it and easily share it with folks; you can easily say a smub, write it on a napkin, email, text, IM, and post it to Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. We like to think of Smub as a universal URL sharing and saving tool.
How Smub Works:
Once you register for your free Smub account, you can simply type Smub.it/ to the left of the http:// on any browser window – even on your iPhone, Blackberry or smartphone – and make a Smub.
A note about registering - choose a short, memorable Smub name, especially if you use Twitter. It’s what makes your Smubs personal. My Smubs are “Janet” and “jlj” so my Smubs come out short and sweet when I Tweet.
Smubs are contextual in Twitter
Name your Smub, tag it if you want to, (you can search all your bookmarked Smubs by tag, date, or alphabetically) and choose whether you want it shared or private. For example, I share lots of Smubs, but I set up my own “Janet/bank” Smub to get to my online bank page, and made that private.
Making a Smub is simple, tag and bookmark at the same time.
Share your Smub. We’ve set it up so it’s easy to share via email, or on your Facebook, MySpace or Twitter accounts directly from your Smub bookmark page or the sharing window that will open each time you create a shareable Smub.
Sharing Smubs is automatic in email, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
But one of the coolest thing about Smubs is how you can say them to share them. I can be on the phone with Todd, for example, and can say, “Check out Meryl’s blog post on Smub at “Janet/merylpost” and he has all the information he needs to get there.
The more you use Smub, the more you find uses for it. We’ll talk more about those soon. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to the optional, but very handy Smub address bar.
Meanwhile, thanks for dropping by. We look forward to hearing your thoughts. We especially welcome your feedback. We’re in beta, so fire away!
