Sphinn, pronounce it “spin”, is a social media network focused in the topic of Internet Marketing News. It’s designed to search and meet marketers, to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others. It works very similar to digg, if you see a new story or discussion you like, you can vote for it using the blue Sphinn icon. Just click on the words “Sphinn It,” and you’ve cast your vote — the words will change to “Sphunn” to indicate that your Sphinn was registered. Voting — called Sphinning here — is also an easy way to keep track of stories for future reference, since everything you Sphinn for is automatically recorded within your profile. Want to know more about a story? Click on the number in the icon, and you can see a full description about it plus any comments.

The topics are either news stories that have been submitted or discussions that have been started by Sphinn members. To view topics, select the “Topics” tab at the top of Sphinn pages. By default, you’ll see Hot Topics, but you can switch to What’s New view. More about these views:

• Hot Topics : These are the most popular topics as voted by Sphinn members over the past three days. If you want, just the “Sort items by” links on the right-hand side of a Hot Topics page to narrow Hot Topics to today, yesterday, the current week or for the entire month.
• What’s New: These are topics recently submitted by Sphinn members. Like one of them? Click on the Sphinn button to vote for it. Topics that get enough Sphinns can move to Hot Topics.
• Greatest Hits: These are all topics submitted to Sphinn over time, listed in order of how popular they are.

You can also find those and more topics by categories, you’ll see categories listed in the top of Sphinn’s pages, such as “Yahoo” or “Searching.” Select a category to narrow topics to just those areas. Each category also has subcategories, allowing you to focus even further.

And as every social media network, in Sphinn you will find a Network section. The Network page is where you can search for people in addition to finding them through news stories and discussions. When you find someone, you can establish a relationship with them, you can have one of three relationships with other members. These are:

• People You’re Stalking (Stalkees): See someone doing something interesting and want to keep track of them? Stalk them! Why bother? For one, it lets you send private messages to them, handy if they don’t publish their regular email. For another, they’ll see you’re stalking them — which is a first step to them possibly making you a friend.
• Stalkers: These are people who find you interesting. It’s a one-way relationship, at this point. But you have the option to make it two-way. Use the “add as friend” option listed for any stalker to transform them into a friend.
• Friends: These are people who you’ve either stalked and he/she decided to make you a friend, or who were stalking you and you decided to make a friend. In the future, we plan special ways for you to share things with your friends. For now, just feel good that you can have some. Go make some!

Tools & Toys

This is a community specially focused on bloggers, and thats why they have a series of tools for all us!. In the tools page you will find some tools very useful to you, no matter what platform you use. Those are the tools provided by Sphinn to your blog:

• Sphinn Live!
• Sphinn: Submit Via Bookmark.
• Sphinn Button For Your Site.
• Sphinn Custom Buttons For Any Blog.
• Sphinn Buttons Especially For Wordpress.
• Sphinn Buttons Especially For FeedBurner.
• Sphinn For Facebook.
• Sphinn For Macs.

Sphinn is a good social media network, and its better if you blog about the Internet Marketing niche. In addition, this community is very young, that means you don’t need to have thousands of sphinns to get listed in the Hot Topics list, just with ~50 sphinns is enough to be the first in this list, something impossible in digg.

If you are not in Sphinn you can join here!