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

[Mike]

Well, I am not in it really for any possible revenue, so not too concerned if they make money off of my zoints profile views. It doesn't look like there is just a ton of sites involved in it right now. I am guessing they just launched from the beta, not sure as I was banned from the site where they had their former discussions while in beta.

[Joe Ward]

Originally Posted by sportsoutlaw

I am guessing they just launched from the beta, not sure as I was banned from the site where they had their former discussions while in beta.

In fairness, I must acknowledge that the vBSEO account I created was also disabled. I assume it was an excessively strict application of their policies regarding commercial use.

[Greg Watson]

I'm testing it on one of my forums ... inherrently, it is not the kind of thing I *personally* like ... however, here were my thoughts ...

• It provides a free profile space for members to post photo albums that do not use my bandwidth ...
• It allows them to post photo albums that are not topically related to my forum (I really don't want to host pictures of the family vacation in my photogallery) ...
• It allows them a place to post off-topic or politically incorrect or inappropriate commentary in their profile that is not part of my site ...
• It allows my members to potentially participate in a social network that is not myspace - which is especially important for demographic groups that may not want to associate themselves with or feel comfortable associating them with what they perceive some of the more "hip" mainstream social networks are like ...

I think these all could be really good positives ...

• To a certain extent, a link is a link ... I will never complain about another link to my website ...
• To a certain extent, each of these links come from a different subdomain ...
• To a certain extent, if my members create their own tags that they choose to identify with themselves, people with similar interests may find their way to their zoints profiles and may find their way to one of my forums ... I just can't imagine this being any significant number, but the type of people that might find my forum from a profile link are probably more of a social network type personality that is perhaps more likely to contribute to my community ...

So ... I think it is at least worth giving a try ...

If I simply look at it from a *personal* perspective, I would disregard it automatically ... but I am trying to take a step back and look at it objectively ...

One of the criticisms offered was about the "nag" notices for members who have not created or linked their account to a zoints profile ... these nags can be disabled in the admincp control panel ...

I'm going to try to remain objective and wait for member feedback before I draw any long term conclusions ...

Greg

[magna]

Can Zoint's deliver on its promise of getting you new members or increasing ad revenue? I do not beleive they can deliver with their promise of getting new members on increase ad revenue because the ad sharing is against google adsense policy but they are legal with it by getting permission in writing.

How do you feel about having Zoint's take over your member profiles? I do not want Zoints to take over members profile for I will do a members profile hack for that resides on the server locally and not remote like Zoints.

Have you tried Zoint's yet? Yes - Short and Sweet Do Not Like the Control

Is the social networking phenomenon here to stay? Is there a viable business model? Yes it is here to stay for the next 5 - 7 years or so thanks to mySpace but Zoints will be around for 2-3 years maybe before it falls out of the market it will be about 8 or 9 months before it bottoms out and stablizes with small growth - it is fast now because it is a new myspace wanna be.

Have you found any ways of driving traffic to your forum using social networking sites such as mySpace or Zoints? Yes mySpace is the key because it is orginal concept of style and format so that is the way to go weather it drives traffic unlikly drives enough because one with anything must advertise and I advertise my site more then mySpace.

Are there any related SEO advantages? As far as SEO advantages on my site I have found a great improvement on indexing the site for search engines to read eaiser and I see no need for vBSEO to invest into any of these social networks.

I have spoken with developers and the owner of Zoints and they did not impress me for the claim to have some hacks coming out - I may try Zoint once again if their profile system can be locally on the site without any connection to the social network. I feel strongly not to give up my members to another site but adapt my site to meet the members need and there is a mySpace Rewrite Hack for Members Profile at vB.org website. These are my thoughs on this Zoint issue and I am not for it and I do not and will not support it until I see some good hacks that benifit the small forums rather then the larger forums in which you would lose your members to.

[briansol]

Originally Posted by magna

because the ad sharing is against google adsense policy but they are legal with it by getting permission in writing.

That isn't necessarily true...

There was much discussion about this on some web master boards, and the offical answer was that so long as there is only 1 Pub-ID per page, it is perfectly legal to run a revenue sharing forum.

If there are multiple ad units per page, ALL must have the same pub-id, be it the site owner, or the poster's.

[magna]

Yeah we went around and around with this on other forums that you need to have written permission and here is the rule from the terms of service that lawyers discovered that it is not clear enough but after they contacted Google about it proved they need written permission which is not hard to get in these cases.

"(1) Ad Unit on each Site Web page, You shall not display any Ad Unit on a page that contains Ads associated with another Google AdSense customer (e.g., Your Web hosting company), unless authorized to do so by Google."

[Ace Shattock]

As per the post above yours.. as long as there is only one pub-id per page, all will be okay.

[magna]

It doesn't say that it says from another Google Adsense Customers is the loop hole for Google in the Adsense Sharing - this has been confirmed to be true by my legal team in July 2006 and recently Zoints Legal Team has confirmed it as well in which they seeked written permission which was granted. It is opened ended and legal translates it one way while most of us translate it another way - neither would be right or wrong just how Google wishes to enforce it at the time they do if they do.

The idea of Zoints doing revenue sharing has been confirmed by Google Legal Team that they would need this written permission in accordances to the term listed above - unsure of the exact model presented to the Google Legal Team by Zoints but as far as Zoints describe it nothing more then one Google Adsense per page.

[DChapman]

Hi folks,

I'm the CEO of Zoints, David Chapman.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

In fairness, I must acknowledge that the vBSEO account I created was also disabled. I assume it was an excessively strict application of their policies regarding commercial use.

We've reopened your account Joe. When it comes to commerical entities, we're taking a "shoot first, ask questions later" stance Unlike other social networks, we have no desire for Zoints to become a place where companies go to bombard our members with advertisements. When you start to see, "Selling bulletins to 30,000 friends for $5.00" then something is very wrong in my opinion. Please accept my apologies for the closure of your account. As vbSEO is working to help forum owners (which is our goal too) we have no problem with your company having a profile on Zoints. When vbSEO first released its product I wasn't overly impressed. But you have since remained diligent and improved your offerings to the point where you now have a very impressive product. Kudos to you and your company for that!

With that said, i'm not here to try and convince anyone to use Zoints (it wouldn't be right for me to come into another place of business and do that) but would be happy to answer any questions. I did want to thank those of you who have taken an objective stance and decided to try things out. I'm sure Joe can attest to the importance of early adopters who are willing to give a new company and/or foreign concept an opportunity to prove its viability. And let's be honest, Zoints is a VERY foreign concept to the forum industry. Give my members the ability to go elsewhere? Are you CRAZY?. At first glance, it DOES seem crazy. But our model is a mutually beneficial one that is designed to solve the three major problems most forum owners face:

1. Member acquisition
2. Member retention
3. Profitability

In essence, I think vbSEO is doing the same basic thing, just from a different angle.

Member acquisition - We ALL want more members. Whether you are a new forum with three members or a Big-Board with 30,000, you want more members. vbSEO helps you get ranked higher in the SERPs so that more people find you via the search engines. Zoints' methodology is in some ways simple, and some ways complex. How do we send you more traffic?

1. At present time, in excess of 40% of the people joining Zoints are NOT members of a community. Forum members who have joined Zoints are referring people they know because (in my 100% biased opinion) Zoints is a pretty cool social network with a lot to offer. We then actively work to drive those people to your forums based upon interest. For example, if your forum is about music, you would be listed here. As you can see, we match people by interest to forums they might be interested in. And of course, there is also a little bit of a SEO benefit there.

2. Any site that joins Zoints is listing in our forum directory. It's a PR5 directory (I expect PR6 next toolbar update) that we actively advertise via Google Adwords and Adbrite (and are ramping that advertising daily). MySpace has groups that act like forums. Zoints has communities we drive members to because in our (correct) opinion, a community run by someone with expertise who is so passionate about a subject that they would start a forum on the topic is going to be FAR superior to some group we try to control. People deserve the best, and your forums are just that. I could rant all day long about the importance of online communities, but i'm sure i'd be preaching to the choir so will spare you all

3. When a member join Zoints via a forum, they are linked to the forum on their profile. As you can see on my profile at the bottom left, i'm a member of quite a few forums. Each time someone views my profile, it's like the internet's equivalent of me telling that person, "I like this forum enough to be a member. You should check it out". Nothing is better than personal referrals. And of course, more incoming links

Member retention - Did you know that some social networks brag that in excess of 90% of their members login on a monthly basis? Look around forums on the internet today. I see a very troubling trend. "4,552 members. 332 active members". If your forum has more than 20% of your members logging in on a monthly basis, you should get an award because you are doing FAR better than the average community. vbSEO is working to increase retention via implementations like trackbacks. Zoints is working to do the same by providing your members with that sticky social network. If a member is actively linked to your forum via their profile on Zoints and checks into Zoints on a regular basis, the chance of them returning to your forum on occasion until they finally form that habit that keeps them coming back increases dramatically.

Profitability - vbSEO improve rankings in the SERPs so you get more traffic which obviously means more money. Zoints is a revenue sharing system. When one of your members registers on Zoints, you get a majority percentage of the Adsense impressions on their profile. Is anyone making a ton of money from Zoints yet? No, but we have forum owners who are in the 6 figure impression range. MySpace receives billions of page impressions per month. As Zoints continues to grow, there's no reason that Zoints would not turn into a significant source of Adsense impressions for forum owners, especially those of you who have members that are "social butterflys". And of course, Zoints, like vbSEO, drives more traffic to your forum which means more money via traditional methods.

This is starting to turn into a novel so i'll cut it short. Do we think Zoints is a solution all forum owners should utilize? No. Social networking integration is not right for everyone. All forum owners should take the time to think about if it would be a good solution for their forum or not. In the end, statistics are starting to show that we're sending MORE traffic to forums that use Zoints than MySpace, Wikipedia, MSN, and in some instances Yahoo. For some of the smaller forums, we're even competitive with the mighty Google. As Zoints continues to grow, these numbers will only improve until we acheive our goal of ensuring that the mom and pop forums continue to flourish despite the changing social and technological landscape of the internet.

A quick thank you to Joe for letting me come in here and make a response!

[rex_b]

Nice reply David and thanks for answering some questions and bringing some issues to light.

[Joe Ward]

Fastastic David. I appreciate you taking the time to provide such a detailed response within our Zoints discussion.

I think that the Zoints approach to bringing the social networking phenonmenon enjoyed by operations like mySpace is very intriquing indeed. I'm sure that all forum admins will universally agree that if Zoints delivers on its promise of improved member acquisition, retention, and resulting profitability, they will join your early adopters post-haste!

Best of luck with your new venture.

I encourage all members who have more questions regarding Zoints to take this opportunity to pose them to David.

[Mike]

I can attest that David has been nothing but helpful, and so far, I have had no complaints with the two forums that I am testing Zoints on.

David even took the time to PM me with a mistake in one of my welcome headers, and took my logo on one of the forums and compressed it to half the size. Neither of these were major things, but still, it is nice to see something like that.

[BamaStangGuy]

David is a stand up guy. I just don't like the concept of Zoints and see no value in me running it.

[Joe Ward]

FYI There was a reported issue with vBSEO member rewrites and Zoints "Create Profile" link: VBSEO and Zoints

RC4+ should work fine without any template modifications.

[eJM]

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

David is a stand up guy. I just don't like the concept of Zoints and see no value in me running it.

I do not agree that David Chapman is a stand-up guy. I think he will tell you exactly what he thinks you want to hear. It's my opinion that he is not completely honest.

Originally Posted by DC

...i'm not here to try and convince anyone to use Zoints (it wouldn't be right for me to come into another place of business and do that) but would be happy to answer any questions.

And then he goes on to paste his canned sales spiel that I have seen on a lot of forums.

A couple of forums I have been active on have been assimilated by *oints. One notable example is vBadvanced, where it turns out it's owner and developer of one of the most popular content management systems for vBulletin has fallen in love with *oints and has come very close to neglecting his product users and website completely. In fact, if it wasn't for promoting or justifying his affiliation with *oints, Brian would probably only manage to show up once or twice a month to answer a support issue.

Another forum that had promise has had no such personal attention as sportsoutlaw has attested to. His header sports a too large *oints link that has broken the table its contained in. But it has 3 active *oints related forums and more than a third of the forum messages are related to *oints -- and the site is about computer customizing.

Well, I can get a little carried away about this. I am a vocal opponent and campaign against *oints. I don't like the marketing of it, the intrusion into my forum experience and the quite well acted, but less than candid or sincere response of Mr. Chapman.

Now I look forward to his next patronizing remark where he says he wishes me well, when I am positive he only wishes I would go away. I won't, of course.