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To be 100% honest, I was a bit confused by tweetFind.com. Its name suggests search engine for twitter, but it’s actually a twitter directory. However it does not just do directory, there are bunch of other things going on at the same time… So I thought: there are tons of alternative solutions every direction I look, why spending time to “figure out”?

While keeping TweetFind.com on the back of my mind, I also noticed it’s picking up some momentum lately, especially after they added “live stream” feature to directory selected. Interesting! So I thought maybe there are great hidden value that I just did not get? It’s about the time to approach tweetFind.com founder Ruben Orozco, let him tell the real story behind this up and coming venture. As always, I asked him about his business model and if tweetfind is profitable. Be sure to read to the end.

1. What is the goals of TweetFind?
One of the main goals of Tweetfind is to contribute to the growth of Twitter and to be one of the main Online Twitter Directories.

2. Is it a directory of people, or search engines of some sort?
Its actually both, its both a Online Directory with a built in Search engine. Its for all Twitter Businesses and Twitter users to search and view. They can also Add their Twitter Profile.

3. At a very high level, how do you differentiate from other popular directories?
TweetFind tries to differentiate from other Twitter Directories in that I strive to give visitors unique features on the site. For instance, this week we added a new “Live Streaming Feature” to our Directories and Categories. If you visit a Category in TweetFind like Santa Barbara, you can click on the Stream button and a Live Twitter Stream will appear showing all of the Live Twitter Conversations that are currently happening about Santa Barbara. You can also use this Live feature on all of the Listings.

4. How did you come up with the idea?
My cousins Merrick and Mario own Prleap.com, and they invited me to a convention in Las Vegas called PubCon last November. It was there that I was introduced to Twitter. I also started to add new Twitters that I talked to at Pubcon like @Chiropractic, @blafrance, @kid_disco, and @ItsDUHnise. Finding new interesting people to follow is fun. I also attended a fun Poker Tournament hosted by DK(@purposeinc). Once I started to add people that I talked to I started to follow famous bloggers to give me more insight like @Shoemoney,@neilpatel and @JohnChow. It was around that time that I asked myself it would be great to have a directory of Twitter users, so that anyone can easily find cool new Twitters to Follow and Add their Twitter Profiles to a Twitter Directory.

5. How’s your past background serve up this venture?
Its helped in that I’m very familiar with technology. I have owned my own computer repair company in the past, created numerous websites and past 5 years have also been doing affiliate marketing.

6. How long did it take to bring each sub-idea to launch?
It took me a few days to come up with the name, logo, web template and colors. It took me a few weeks to create the website and the last few months I have been adding features to TweetFind.

7. Are you a full blown start up with funding or bootstrapping?
I operate TweetFind by myself.

8. How’s user adoption so far?
User adoption so far has been great. Thousands of Twitter Profiles have been submitted into our directory. I have also added more features that users have suggested.

9. What is the business models for tweetfind, are you profitable.
I’m currently working on future Premium Paid features for Tweetfind. I plan to be profitable in the coming months.

10. If there is one thing What is it that is critical to tweetfind’s modest success?
TweetFind will always strive to be a interesting, fun and easy to navigate Twitter Directory.

I had an interview with Tweetbrain.com‘s founder @DeXin, a very pleasant lady who currently lives/works in Silicon Valley, originally came from China (same as me). TweetBrain is much like Yahoo Answers in the twitter world, where people can ask questions, answer questions, search for answers etc. While there are many similar services in and out of twitter world, I wanted to know how tweetbrain.com uses twitter massive content intelligently to its own advantage.

1. How did you come up with the idea?
My first tweet on Twitter was Dec 5, 08, right away I realized that lots of users are using Twitter to do journalism and crowd-sourcing. However, I also noticed the limitations of doing both on Twitter.

I have been tweeting about crowd-sourcing and cloud computing since day one, and often getting questions about these two topics from my followers, some of the questions are really repetitive. Because the live stream nature of Twitter, my answer cannot be found by other users easily. Sometimes, I see interesting questions asked by other users, and am interested in the answers that they have received too. Unless I do an active search, and filter out the irrelevant tweets, there is no way for me to glance through the answers right away.

In addition, there are times I want to go back to a question a user asked sometime ago, it is practically impossible to dig out the info anymore.

Furthermore, I noticed that unless a user has a large following, the responses the user gets usually are iffy. Since I have been in IT business for more than a decade, I thought, “hmmm… I can address all these issues, plus make something cool too”.

2. “I have already found so much knowledge, so many experts otherwise I would never have discovered after joining twitter, what additional value tweetbrain can bring on top of twitter?”
To all Twitter users, TweetBrain helps you to build more connections to power Twitter users; it helps you to strengthen existing connections. A connection is far more valuable than a simple follow/following chain. It’s a deeper relation and lasts.

Next, I will elaborate its value to the majority of Twitter users; such a group usually have limited number of followers on Twitter. Thus, their “reach” in the Twitter world is quite limited. Sure, you can message anyone on Twitter, but that depends on what and who you know significantly.

TweetBrain helps you to build up more connections through the interchanges of Q&As, with fellow Twitter users both within your existing Twitter circle and beyond.

TweetBrain also enables you to spot experts active on Twitter who has established themselves via fruitful mutually beneficial Q&A exchanges on TweetBrain. By being active on TweetBrain, they are likely to be receptive to your approaches.

Indirectly, TweetBrain thus also solves a big problems with Twitter for a lot people: what if you wish to have a high signal/noise ratio from Twitter’s live tweet stream? Note that TweetBrain makes the results of Q&A exchanges persistent, manageable, and searchable, making future references so much easier. As such, it
also enhances an expert’s reputation over time.

The persistent nature of these Q&A exchanges is an excellent basis for various useful statistics, e.g. for customer sentiment gauging, and improved customer care. In cases you are looking for high value advices, doing so on Twitter obviously is inconvenient. With TweetBrain, with its integrated micro-payment system, you can add a financial incentive to boost the chance of getting an answer. The reward certainly is a welcomed bonus to the answerer, regardless s/he is an established expert or not.

3. How long did it take to develop the project to current level? Is it a full time startup with funding, or do you bootstrap?
I started conceptualize the project in middle December last year. The implementation began around Feb. About two months after that, TweetBrain went live. It’s a more than a full time job. I am funding it via my current business and will be doing so for sometime. Nevertheless, I am open to Angel investments so as to speed up the progress.

4. Recent state of adoption rate and Future plan?
I think the adoption rate is healthy, considering it’s new and still evolving. The traffic is quite steady so far. Near term future plans include establishing a core user group, implementing user feedbacks collected so far to make TweetBrain great rather than just good. In the long run, there is a possibility of making it a knowledge base for the Twitter community. We are also considering some other ways to make TweetBrain profitable as soon as possible.