When I was first asked to check out Bnter I admit, I visited the site and had no idea why anyone would want to use it. I’m already wasting time networking more hours in the day than I really have to spare so why add another? So I dug a little deeper and found out that Bnter is a place to collect and share bits of conversations from other sources.  Again I had to ask myself why anyone would want to move move them from one Social Media platform to another?

Then I did a little more research and found that it really has several purposes – for those who text, it’s a place to archive and/or share your favorite texts. Since I rarely send SMS texts, this function doesn’t appeal to me, but I know that I’m in the minority here. The other purpose is to connect people in like conversations.  While neither of these appeal to me, what does is being able to save snippets of conversations, for my private use, and that’s why Bntnr is going to be joining my Social Media plan.

Currently I use Pinterest to keep ideas grouped for future reference.  But, the “idea” has to come from an existing webpage and have a “large” picture on it.  That works for most things, but sometimes I want to save a URL, a bit of instruction, a login or password, or other random stuff that’s gleaned from an electronic or even non-electronic source.

I know Bnter (pronounced BANTER) is meant to be conversational, but for me that’s just never going to be a necessity.  I already have too many conversations going, way too many friends, fans, and followers to track and I have no plans to add any more avenues or connecting with the same people.  But as a repository for things I want to keep?  Pretty awesome.  It’d be more awesome if I could organize them in categories or notes (along the lines of Pinterest’s Boards or Outlooks Notes) for quick access and recall.

Used as it’s intended, it’s Twitter meets Reddit, only it’s a little harder to be anonymous here than on Reddit, so that’s a plus.  Here’s one of the staff’s “fav” pick conversations.

Once you’re signed up (you can connect with your Twitter or Facebook account), you can then search for your friends that have already started a Bnter account, look for and join existing public conversations, or start your own.

I marked my account to private which means people will not be able to see what I post unless I give them permission.  For me, this is the answer to “what happened to that link I posted to Facebook” or “where’d that info go I saw on Twitter last week”.  Unlike FB & Twitter, when it’s posted here, doesn’t go away.

There are several ways to add info to Bnter- a bookmarklet that’s dragged onto your browser’s tool bar, via an app on your smart phone, or through their web application.  All are pretty straightforward and instructions are available for those who need it at http://bnter.com/tools.

So, now that you know what Bnter is, will you be trying it out?  You can share fun things your kids say on the Parent’s page http://bnter.com/parents

Please note: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of the Bnter Campaign and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.