Zoints - Driving Traffic to Your Forum with Social Networking Integration?

[Joe Ward]

Zoints - Social Networking for Forums

Zoints is a new social networking service aimed directly at forums - currently supporting vBulletin integration.

They assert that participating forums can gain new members and increase ad revenue through their Zoint's branded profiles.

With social networking sites like mySpace exploding in popularity, it's an interesting topic for forum administrators to explore.

Here is the Zoints overview for Forum Owners:
Tour :: Forum Owners

We also setup a vBSEO profile there:
vbseo's Zoints Profile

Notes on vBSEO

• vBSEO's Zoint profile:
  vbseo's Zoints Profile

For Discussion

• Can Zoint's deliver on its promise of getting you new members or increasing ad revenue?
• How do you feel about having Zoint's take over your member profiles?
• Have you tried Zoint's yet?
• Is the social networking phenomenon here to stay? Is there a viable business model?
• Have you found any ways of driving traffic to your forum using social networking sites such as mySpace or Zoints?
• Are there any related SEO advantages?

Source:
Tour :: Forum Owners
vbseo's Zoints Profile

[Joe Ward]

Also, check out:
YouTube, Digg, MySpace: How much is a non-paying 'user' worth?

[BamaStangGuy]

I strongly oppose Zoints.

* Can Zoint's deliver on its promise of getting you new members or increasing ad revenue? I think it depends on site.
* How do you feel about having Zoint's take over your member profiles? With the way that users murder their profiles not good at all.
* Have you tried Zoint's yet? No
* Is the social networking phenomenon here to stay? Is there a viable business model? Myspace is here to stay. Zoints I am not so sure
* Have you found any ways of driving traffic to your forum using social networking sites such as mySpace or Zoints? Myspace/Netscape
* Are there any related SEO advantages? Its backlinks to you sites. Not sure the weight they will hold.

The layout of it is horrible.

[Mike]

• Can Zoint's deliver on its promise of getting you new members or increasing ad revenue?
  I really dont see how they are going to increase my revenue. Besides, I spend quite a bit of time and money optimizing my communities to bring in traffic. Why would I want to offer my traffic to other forums that are doing nothing but joinging Zoints and looking for an easy fix? I only see this as a revenue booster for Zoints and those working for Zoints.
• How do you feel about having Zoint's take over your member profiles?
  I strongly oppose this, and at this point don't feel comfortable being a member of a forum that allows this.
• Have you tried Zoint's yet?
  No
• Is the social networking phenomenon here to stay? Is there a viable business model?
  Social Networking is probably here to stay, can't comment on the options because I dont participate in it at this point.
• Have you found any ways of driving traffic to your forum using social networking sites such as mySpace or Zoints?
  Have not pursued it, nor do I intend to at this point.
• Are there any related SEO advantages?
  I don't see how it will help SEO other than for Zoints by putting the word Zoints in the member profiles of every site participating.

[Joe Ward]

Thanks for the input guys. Anyone else see Zoints more favorably?

[rex_b]

Well I think most people get upset b/c Zoints is making a profit off of your hard earned members. Which can be a negative point, but they are also sharing some of the server costs since that member profile traffic is moving.

I tend to look at things more in the eyes of the end user.

What will it help them? And is that worth adding Zoints?

[Joe Ward]

I would really be interested in seeing if the networking that occurs between your members actually could drive traffic back to your forum with new member conversions. Maybe I can get in touch with some of the forums that are participating to see if they'll provide any information about the experience so far.

[briansol]

zoints is revenue sharing.
there's an acp option to keep your normal profile...

i dunno, i'm giving it a test run.

[BamaStangGuy]

Still a no go for me. I don't outsource my members for others to profit on regardless who gets what percentage

[Chroder]

I don't like it either, though I am a member because Danny.VBT forced me! I won't ever use it.

[briansol]

what I DONT like is i had to remove the vbseo option to re-write memebers... they need the member.php?id=x to pass... so we'll see what happens...

[Loco]

I can't stand this zoints,, and don't plan on ever using it..
even though I don't have many members, I don't want to support zoints as all..
I have felt this from the first day i seen the "gay" pink box on taz

and I got banned because I said I didn't like zoints... heh.. go figure..

and to hear you can't have the member page re-written, thats another check against them IMO


if I want to try the social networking, I'll use myspace I'll never support zoints !

[eJM]

I don't care for their promotional tactics and the intrusion on my forum experience. I noticed a difference in 2 of the forums I had been active in. I quit participating in one of them and cut back dramatically in another. I don't like the opt-out scheme of getting rid of the nag to add my profile to Zoints. And what really gets me is that they decided to use a unique extension on their webpages, which in itself is not a bad idea at all. But they didn't do their research and chose an extension that is the same as a compressed file format, ".z", which causes my download program to put their pages in the download list instead of opening them in the browser. When I complained about it, they gave me nothing but excuses and blamed my download program. That kind of arrogance and lack of foresight and planning is a red flag to me.

I am glad to see I am not the only opponent of the big Z. No points for Zoints.

[briansol]

I removed it today.

Not happy with the non-profile re-write, and all of 5 people signed up for it in 48 hours. not worth my time. X'ed.

[Mike]

Glad to see the discussion of Zoints made available here where people can give honest opinions and thoughts without the threat of insults by admin and being banned. (that is all I am going to say about that)

Not being able to rewrite member profiles is yet another reason I wouldn't install this as a vbseo user. I don't know about everyone else's forums, but I have found that I get quite a good bit of traffic via my member profile pages since installing vbseo.