Social Network Marketing Tycoon

**BamaStangGuy** · 11-10-2006, 03:41 PM

Post em up. Who uses the Zoints Social Networking profile system and how many referrals do you get a day with it?

Do you think it is worth it?

**NBF** · 11-10-2006, 10:21 PM

It's about time we revisit that, huh? I am curious as well. I haven't heard mention of it since we first started talking about it at BBA.

Listening here, too.

**victory** · 11-11-2006, 12:42 PM

I was going to post this on BBA. With the new Zoints Local, I've been thinking of putting it up. I installed it on a test forum but I'm not so sure how customizable it is at the moment. Also, it is still tied to the central Zoints system in certain ways.

I'd also like to know how Zoints has been doing for people though I'm more concerned about adding to the user experience rather than getting referrals.

**DChapman** · 11-13-2006, 09:28 PM

For those who haven't heard, Zoints recently came out with Zoints Local, a version of our social networking/blog/personalized homepage software that is installed in its entirety on your forum. You can see my sig for details.

Quote:

Originally Posted by victory

I'd also like to know how Zoints has been doing for people though I'm more concerned about adding to the user experience rather than getting referrals.

Zoints Local takes your member's forum experience to a whole new level

**NBF** · 12-11-2006, 10:56 PM

Digging up this thread again...

I just read up on Zoints Local. Good idea, but I don't think we'll use it.

Unfortunately, you have to leave the global nav buttons at the top of every profile page. While I understand why Zoints would want to do this, it's a major reason why we won't add it. I realize that it's all in the spirit of collaboration and connecting communities and all that, but if they wanted sites that take themselves seriously, they would offer a truly local version.

I can't help but wonder what the goal is: Get on the best, most developed communities? Or get on any board that will take them? (hint: big board owners are far less likely to use something with navigation to other sites installed in it that they aren't interested in!) And it's not about losing people to other sites - we all have access to Google, members leave if they want to...

The thing that rubbed me wrong from day one with the Zoints stuff was the requirement that you let Zoints infiltrate your site. It's just icky. It seems like the local version was born of the protest of admin who refused to expose their members to an entire network of sites over which they had no control of content or community management. (just assuming based on the statements of the developers)

I will say that I think they've done a nice job on the features. It's pretty cool. I wish they wanted to work with admin who are interested in a less branded, more local version. (Note that I say "less" branded - we could have removed the vB link name from our site ages ago, but credit goes where credit is due. Same goes for our designer.) That would be nice.

(Sorry, I sound like Ms. Complainer McComplainerPants. I don't intend to - it's just that I hate seeing a good thing mucked up by something so dumb as the nav buttons and the stupid Z in the URLs.)

You are read up on Zoints Local here.

**DChapman** · 12-11-2006, 11:41 PM

Hi Laura,

Zoints does have an "Autonomous License" available for $120.00 which lets you remove the navbar, change /z/ to whatever you want, make search local to just your forum, and remove everything else related to Zoints except the copyright in the footer. Sites such as StudentDoctor.net and Travel.com have taken us up on this license and instantly became the world's largest student doctor and travel social networks respectively. Niche social networks are great because it's no longer x times revenue, it is x per member

And as more and more custom blocks are made at dev.zoints.com (we already have computer system spec block for example

) then Zoints Local will become a value add for more types of communities.

Our vision is to interconnect forums. But we understand that isn't what everyone wants to do, so we provide the choice of an Autonomous License as an alternative.

**NBF** · 12-11-2006, 11:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DChapman

Hi Laura,

Zoints does have an "Autonomous License" available for $120.00 which lets you remove the navbar, change /z/ to whatever you want, make search local to just your forum, and remove everything else related to Zoints except the copyright in the footer.

Our vision is to interconnect forums. But we understand that isn't what everyone wants to do, so we provide the choice of an Autonomous License as an alternative.

Hmmmm, really? I didn't see this anywhere when I was poking around tonight - my apologies.!

Okay, so now I have to eat what I said - I think it's great that you've allowed for that.

We have a full-time programmer on staff who would probably love developing custom blocks for our members. (Our site is entirely run on vB - you can see he has fun with it!)

Off to check into it further... Thanks for the head up!

**BamaStangGuy** · 12-12-2006, 12:49 AM

I am going to sit down Wednesday and really dig through Zoints Locals again and see if the "Autonomous License" is something that will make me decide to start using it. Thanks for bringing this up Laura

**NBF** · 12-12-2006, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

Thanks for bringing this up Laura

Hey now - we're in this together! I am going to look through it more too, and I will share if I find anything! So far it looks pretty cool - provided it's totally local...

I just posted it to our Trusted Member private forum to get some opinions. I think people would really enjoy it.

**petertdavis** · 12-12-2006, 02:01 AM

I've read a bit about Zoints at TAZ, and still don't see what the hype is about. I agree 100% with Laura about not wanting to give up control of anything to Zoints. It seems to me that Zoints Local is just a souped up user profile page. I don't see how it's a social networking system.

**DChapman** · 12-12-2006, 04:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBF

Hmmmm, really? I didn't see this anywhere when I was poking around tonight - my apologies.!

Nothing to apologize for. It is we at Zoints who should apologize as we haven't really done much to communicate the existence of these licenses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBF

Okay, so now I have to eat what I said - I think it's great that you've allowed for that.

We have a full-time programmer on staff who would probably love developing custom blocks for our members. (Our site is entirely run on vB - you can see he has fun with it!)

People are having all kinds of fun creating new blocks that fit their community. We've designed Zoints Local so that the possibilities are limitless. As a forum owner, you can turn off any page and any block as well as add pages and blocks. That way you can create pages and blocks that would fit your niche and demographic because we all know nobody knows your community better than you. Zoints Local is in its infancy (version 1.0.1) but as we add more functionality and the community creating blocks churns out more and more, it should get fun

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBF

Off to check into it further... Thanks for the head up!

My pleasure! I'm of course happy to answer any questions you have and our engineers can consult on the creation of custom pages and blocks that fit your needs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by petertdavis

I've read a bit about Zoints at TAZ, and still don't see what the hype is about. I agree 100% with Laura about not wanting to give up control of anything to Zoints. It seems to me that Zoints Local is just a souped up user profile page. I don't see how it's a social networking system.

We've had our disagreements and debates and I respect your opinion on Zoints and wish you success with your communities. If I didn't make some people nervous, I would be a bit concerned. Do you know who Guy Kawasaki is? He's brilliant (and a very fun read) and I have the utmost respect for him. Here's a worthwhile read anyone involved in a startup should take to heart: blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_art_of_inno.html

**BamaStangGuy** · 12-12-2006, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBF

Hey now - we're in this together! I am going to look through it more too, and I will share if I find anything! So far it looks pretty cool - provided it's totally local...

I just posted it to our Trusted Member private forum to get some opinions. I think people would really enjoy it.

Let me know how your members react to it. I may start using this on my Politics and Music related forums to test it out. I believe it will be received fairly well by them. Just whether or not I want to invest that money into those forums at this time is the question.

**nwingate** · 12-12-2006, 10:23 AM

I don't know about Zoints but I did buy a domain name off of him and he was real nice to deal with. Although I did pay WAY too much

**petertdavis** · 12-12-2006, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nathan

I don't know about Zoints but I did buy a domain name off of him and he was real nice to deal with. Although I did pay WAY too much

I didn't mean to imply that he was either dishonest or not nice. Maybe glib would be a better way to descirbe it. All the talk about how Zoints is going to benefit forum owners seems to me to be lacking in depth. I never really bought into the Wal-Martification theory.

His response to my post above is a prime example. Instead of addressing my point about Zoints Local being just a souped up user profile page, he's talking about Guy Kawasaki. Sure, I know of Mr. Kawasaki, I've read his books and am a subscriber of his blog, but I don't see any connection between him and Zoints. Maybe Garage is funding Zoints?

**GeorgeB** · 12-12-2006, 11:08 AM

I still haven't seen an answer to the original question for those that use regular zoints (closed to new registrations) and Zoints Local. And that question is does it actually bring you any new members?

I am considering the autonomous license... again... I'm very slow on the uptake when it comes to new forum widgets/fads. It took me a year to get a copy of VBSEO. Now I can't imagine life without it

I'll likely never buy into the sharing members idea. I think the consensus after all the debate on TAZ was that Zoints will likely only benefit big boards. Even targetted zoints visitors won't likely sign up at your forum if it's new and they have a whole zoints network to search and find a better one. They'll remember how they found your forum and use that method to find a better one.

It's not about greedily hording your users. I've found as the admin (former co-owner) of one of the largest car forums on the web that one key to a truly sucessful forum is user loyalty. Thinning out your users posts between your forum and some other forum they found on the web is not likely a good idea. You want them loyal to your board. Telling people how great your board is. ESPECIALLY your best most knowledgeable members. You want them makign their best posts and greatest content and community contributions on your board.

You can lose your top most valuable members on your forum for any number of trivial reasons. All I'm saying is why hold the door for them?

**NBF** · 12-12-2006, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

You can lose your top most valuable members on your forum for any number of trivial reasons. All I'm saying is why hold the door for them?

Honestly, if people want to go to other forums, all the need to do is Google. (Though I do agree - why help them?)

I have read a few comments about Zoints over the last day, and the most I have read for daily referrals is 4-5 - and those who got that number were really happy with that.

For me, that's such a small number that it could never be worth it.

What I have found odd is that the Zoints founders have evangelized time and again the benefits of interconnecting members among different forums, yadda, yadda despite the obvious issues with the system for forum owners. The problem is that this does NADA for me, as a forum admin. It's freakin' fantastic for Zoints, of course, but I am not really interested in growing Zoints as much as I am my forum.

Ever since Zoints came about, it just didn't make sense for the people who would be using it. That was my beef. I *do* know that there are sites using it, but I also know of many, many big board owners who are uncomfortable with it. I couldn't understand the motivation of the developers to push something that people didn't want. (Hence, the icky feeling.)

I have to acknowledge alllll the work that has gone into it. We can all at least appreciate that.

And I am SURE that DChapman and the other developers are really good people with no ill intent. In fact, they are obviously quite crafty!

Still checking it out over here...

**petertdavis** · 12-12-2006, 02:56 PM

Gotta say, I agree again with Laura. Nobody's been able to explain to me what the benefit of having Zoints is, other than another piece of software on my server that I have to support, and that thing about how it's going to protect me from Wal-Mart. And, yea, 4-5 referrals a day is hardly worth the effort.

**pantyholic** · 12-13-2006, 04:07 PM

I tried this out on a test forum, and removed it. Not because I found it useless, I just thought why add extra confusion on the board when most new registrations cant find there way to their control panel.
Also I think it detracts from what your offering, ok its a community builder apparently, but why have new members who join from elsewhere have to fill in a load of questions for this, when all they want to do is browse the board they have arrived at, and as quickly as possible. Then there is the privacy issue. Maybe I got the wrong impression and came to the wrong conclusions, but then I do operate an adult site

**briansol** · 12-13-2006, 04:18 PM

i'd buy it....

but its not 120.

its 120 + a penny or something per user.

That's an expensive cost to almost anyone with an active forum with a lot of members....

**DChapman** · 12-13-2006, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by briansol

i'd buy it....

but its not 120.

its 120 + a penny or something per user.

That's an expensive cost to almost anyone with an active forum with a lot of members....

The autonomous license everyone is speaking of is a flat $120.00. This lets you remove all the connections with Zoints.

The branding free (removal of the copyright at the bottom) is $100.00 + $0.01 per current member.