Interview with the owners of Bubblews
Speak Freely; Write Your World is the motto of Bubblews and its owners, and how true that is when Arvind and Jason even invite Bubblews members to conduct interviews with them. Having enjoyed being a member of Bubblews since late July 2013, I could not ignore the invitation to do a Bubblews Interview.

Rumors are not nice, and Arvind and Jason wish to spread the right message about their brand.

Let’s go!

Question:
Does it upset you when people refer to Bubblews as an online writing site? What is Bubblews really?

Answer:
No it does not upset us. Because at the end of the day, we are ‘online’ and we are a place where people ‘write.’ However, we are a new animal, we are a social blogging network. Not everyone is a professional writer, we want to cater to everyone. There are many people out there capable of contributing meaningful content and come to our platform to do so. This is social content, the freedom to write about whatever you like. If you like to write articles, we accept you. If you want to tell people about your life, we accept you. We want everyone to come to us as a new form of a social tool and share whatever means something to him or her that day. The whole world may not be interested in each piece of content you produce, but the people connected with you, are interested. We have nothing against the professional writing crowd; we are merely our own perspective of what socializing over the internet could be.

Question:
Is it merely a rumor that you and your advertisers are more interested in internal traffic than traffic from Search Engines? If it’s true that you and your advertisers are happy with internal traffic, why don’t you have much interest in traffic from Search Engines like Google?

Answer:
This is most certainly a rumor. I think advertisers just like traffic in general. Eyeballs directed to the right advertisements.

Also, what you are referencing is traffic source. People are people, regardless if they come to our site directly, through Facebook, through Twitter or through search engines like Google. We just like independence. It makes us happy to know that we are competing with large websites, whom most of their traffic comes from search engines, where as ours is mostly direct. Meaning that our platform is highly engaging.

We still do receive a lot of traffic from search engines and other sources, but we like that our internal traffic continues to grow. This shows many positive signs of stability and resilience.

Question:
I believe your staff is quite small. Are there any plans to have more staff in the future? How could having a bigger staff help?

Answer:
Yes, we have been doing this with quite a small staff, all operating 7 days a week, most holidays included. We are in the process of hiring many new people right now and this will allow us to greatly enhance our service in 2014. Our weaknesses and criticism in 2013 will become our strengths and praise in 2014. We know we are not perfect, but we know that our overall vision is something that no one else is thinking of right now.

Question:
Bubblews pays well, much better than some other sites people can earn from through their writing and community activity. How is this possible, and is there no risk of having to decrease the amount of money people can make on Bubblews anytime in the future?

Answer:
We work very hard and will continue to work very hard to continue to offer these levels of payment. We have no plans to lower this amount in the now, nor in the future. This is something we take a great amount of pride in because it showcases that we put our money where our mouth is when we say that PEOPLE are always on the forefront with our current products as well as our soon-to-be-released products.

Question:
Do you have plans to improve the site to better cope with preventing spammers from polluting the site?

Answer:
Yes. This is one thing that we did not foresee happening, sometimes when you create a socially responsible product you are slight naive in the sense that you think everyone will use your product responsibly. We have learned a lot in this past year and will be certain to greatly improve every aspect of our brand in this upcoming year.

Question:
Do you have plans to improve the site giving members what I read many of them would like to see? Like more categories, a way of managing notifications better, a way to edit comments, a way to change their top 5 posts for others they’d like to highlight, and search engine friendly image links?

Answer:
Yes. Right now we know the content distribution on our site is downright terrible. The search also needs a lot of work. These are all things that we are aware of and have some amazing solutions for them, which will be executed throughout the year. We are here for the long haul and if everyone can stay on our bandwagon, we will really be able to amaze. We have barely scratched the surface of what is possible.

We want to pull more relevant content for people to read as well as better home page content algorithms.

Question:
Will that lovely minimum 400 character limit ever be increased? If the minimum character limit for posts is increased, what would happen to the posts already written that don’t contain as many characters as the new amount?

Answer:
I don’t see us ever raising that character limit. If anything we will do more to automatically enforce it and offer a proper character counter. There are many small details that need to be ironed out within Bubblews to make it the best socializing platform out there.

Question:
You, Arvind and Jason, are quite young still. How do you convince members that Bubblews will always be around, and that your interests will always lie only with Bubblews?

Answer:
Arvind: I think our continued actions and perseverance speaks louder than words. We continue to push forward and try to always improve. Things cannot happen over night, but growth literally can. It will always be an uphill battle, but one that we are always willing to fight. We care so much because we know, as we execute our entire vision, people will really feel connected with one another and have a way to always be compensated for the information they give. Bubblews will be around for many years to come.

Jason: I think people have been doubting us since the day we launched the website. We’re still here though. We plan on being around for a very long time and continuing to always improve and innovate our service does this. We strive to be the best and we will get there.

Question:
What plans are there to keep the site going in the unfortunate event of your deaths?

Answer:
Everything has been blueprinted, just needs to be properly executed.

Question:
How great a pleasure is it that your get from knowing that the income members earn on Bubblews through their speaking freely and writing their world – and through their interactions on Bubblews – help people who really need that income?

Answer:
I believe it gets us up in the morning, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with a passionate focus on improving and growing Bubblews. The one thing we want people to really understand is that we honestly care. There is no bullshit with that. We care about what we are doing because we know it is helping so many people out there. Everyone can use a little extra money despite your income, but it is really not even about that. It is the fact that you are being COMPENSATED for your time and energy in building up a brand. The world has neglected people in favor of corporation dominance; we want to put a dent in changing that.

Teresa:
Thank you, Arvind and Jason, for your answers, and for a site that makes many people very happy. I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors and plans for Bubblews, and may the site just go from strength to strength!

© Copyright Teresa Schultz 2014
photo credit: Teresa’s own photo
– of bubbles caused by soap when washing some pieces of sea glass