Recent Changes to Savvy Dollar

[robertc Profile Website]

As you may have seen in the newsletter, there have been a few changes recently for Savvy Dollar. We have new software, a new look, and a new team running the day to day management of the site. Answering support emails, fending off would be hackers, and keeping up with the spam bots can be a lot of work, even before you begin to post a few things now and again.

So who is Social eMotion, and why do we care about Savvy Dollar? We are a small local startup company trying to bring innovation to the way merchants reach out to their customers. We’ve been around for about 10 months, and have established some great relationships with local merchants interested in what we are working on. What we are missing is a community of users. When we first met Dan, we were really impressed with the community that was created around Savvy Dollar. As we talked, it became obvious that there was potential for real synergy between the projects.

Our intentions are to leave Savvy Dollar as a community site, much as it has been over the years. At the same time, we will offer unique opportunities for those who are interested. We feel strongly about our product, and how it’s going to change the shopping dynamic over the next few years. As savvy shoppers living in the same community we do, we really want to hear your ideas on how to improve the shopping experience and our products. Investing a little time and bandwidth in return is the least we can do.

I’ve put together a list of question and answers that you may have about Social eMotion or Savvy Dollar. If you have any other questions, feel free to send me an email, or post it here.

Thank You,
Robert Costello,
Co-Founder of Social eMotion
rcostello@social-emotion.com

Q. Are you going to change the community driven nature or force us to sign up for your other products?
A. No. We will be running the site on the same terms it has been run since its start. Its real value is in the strength of the community that supports it, and we don’t want to change that. We hope we can bring some value to the community through our connections to local merchants.

Q. Are you going to spam us with ads or sell our emails for others to use?
A. No, absolutely not. We don’t like spam any more than you do. In fact, one of the great features of our miPlaces product is the ability to get content from your favorite merchants without giving them your email address, and have it filtered by things you care about before it is ever sent to you. We do have an agreement with Dan for him to continue to have access to sending emails to the list, but we think you’ll agree he has earned that.

Q. What exactly is Social eMotion expecting to get from the community?
A. We aren’t expecting anything other than for you to continue to enjoy this site for years to come. However, we’d love if you would help us make our products better. We will be making a forum dedicated to talking about Social eMotion. We will keep our self-promotion there where you can easily ignore it if it doesn’t interest you. If you are interested, we will be running polls to gather market research, posting topics on trends we are seeing, and conducting other discussions related to making our products better. Maybe we’ll even get lucky and a few will try our products, which are all free for use by consumers.

Q. Does Social eMotion really think the Savvy Dollar community can help?
A. Yes. We strongly believe marketers no longer control the market. Social media has turned the tides and the markets need to embrace the consumers’ point of view. Besides, you may have heard of another company that turned the shopping world on its side. Their history is very interesting, and has roots in a very similar small community. You can read a well written article about it here.

Q. Where can I find out more about Social eMotion and their products?
A. I've created a forum which will be the primary way we make information available to this community. But if you are really interested, you can check out our website at http://www.social-emotion.com, or our product website at http://www.miplaces.com. We have a blog we just started on miPlaces if you are really interested in social marketing, plus we post links to interesting related news articles to Social eMotion's Facebook and Twitter pages.

Q. What about Dan and Craybon?
A. We have encouraged both to help us moderate the community to keep it moving forward, and we hope they take us up on that. They are not contractually committed to anything specific, but we are hopeful that they will remain a valuable part of the community.

[dan Profile]

Let me be the first to say that I'm loving the changes. With a full time job, a toddler, and another on the way....I just couldn't give the site the time I needed to.

Looking forward to what Robert and team are going to do.