In late 2001, BzzAgent founder and CEO Dave Balter realized that marketers weren't harnessing the power of word of mouth (WOM). His vision was to create a platform that would allow people to experience new products and services, share their honest opinions about them with people they knew and report those activities and opinions so marketers could directly see the results. This community would be something entirely new, bringing consumers and marketers together to organize and track honest word of mouth.

With this idea in mind, BzzAgent was born. Together with Rick Pascocello, a publisher at the Penguin Group, they developed the first ever BzzCampaign program for a book called The Frog King.