Thank you Empire Avenue Community!

If you are on Empire Avenue you may have noticed some rather major changes on the platform. And yes I’m being pretty understated. Let me see if I can summarize…

Empire Avenue is a platform of social media influencers, marketers, enthusiasts and creatives. Using Empire Avenue’s Missions and Social Stocks game, you can truly grow both your social audience and your social engagement. The core of the product lies in a couple of virtual currencies: one an in-game currency and one a rewards points system that you can convert to Amazon gift cards (as an example) for helping spread content to your social networks.

I’ve been proud to serve this amazing product, company, team and Community over the past 4 years and more but we all knew a change was needed. While I remain on the Board of Directors, I have resigned as CEO. However, while we will continue looking for that amazing management team to take Empire Avenue to new heights, we decided to do something radical. We’ve empowered our Community to take the helm of our platform and service. Our Community has been incredibly outspoken and passionate about the product and we couldn’t think of a better group of people to harness the power of social.

Our initial foray was to launch the Empire Avenue Leaders Community, which we hope will become a 2000 strong Community that helps funnel and fuel the changes going forward. This we announced the day that I stepped down with an open letter many would have received. The outpouring of support should not have surprised us, but certainly it took my breath away.

When we approached a few people in the Community to help us, the process took a life of its own and today, I am proud to watch the Empire Avenue Community launch the next phase of Empire Avenue.

The Empire Avenue Community through the Empire Avenue Leaders will lead the way as brand managers, driving marketing and outreach. The Empire Avenue development and technical team will back the Community with support and technical changes and product updates as requested. Already this group has organized themselves, helped figure out rewards for the first 500 in the Leaders Community and been a vocal supporter of the changes on behalf of the Community! And that’s just over the weekend.

I cannot wait to see where you, the Community Leaders, will take what we have built!

To get a bit maudlin’, my time at Empire Avenue has been amazing. We have attempted and launched ideas that no one had ever tried in Social Media, we went global, we attracted a great many people, lots of press, fantastic investors and we all learned the startup game! Along the way I got to work with some of the most amazing people in the world and built a truly unique company with my co-founders Niall Brown and Michael Mannion as well as a host of talented people over the years. We’re very proud of the baby that we’ve birthed and amazed to watch it grow up and be stewarded by, well, you.

I’ve met many of you and believe me when I say, I will be on Empire Avenue every day. I will be one of you, talking with you, supporting you, and heck, being a Community Leader myself!

After all on Empire Avenue and Social Media, it’s all about the Community!