Moog's Viewpoints

Top Ten Most Commented on Reviews on Viewpoints

I have to admit I love going to YouTube and browsing through the most popular videos. It really gives you a window into the service and tends to be very topical when you look at the most popular by different time frames. In that spirit, I had our tech team pull this list today. We are considering making this a full blown feature. What do you think?

 

1. 88 comments - Read the fine print- product never arrived! Avoid $90 charge!
   
2. 62 comments - Bye Bye Epinions--Hello Viewpoints!
   
3. 61 comments 1000 Reviews and counting. The top 10 reasons I'm at Viewpoints
   
4. 60 comments - Best Romantic Comedies: My Top Ten List
   
5. 55 comments - Epinions: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.....
   
6. 54 comments - That song means WHAT? 10 songs I misinterpreted big time!
   
7. 53 comments - We're official. Viewpoints kicks off with a great party.
   
8. 43 comments - We must, we must, we must, we must firm our bust!
   
9. 43 comments - I love my beautiful Irish Claddagh engagement ring & its story.
   
10. 43 comments Humane for mice, heart attack inducing for me. *shudder*
    

Recent presentation from Charlene Li

Social Media Marketing Summit Keynote, Oct. 1 2008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: li charlene)

Viewpoints Update - October 2008

(This was originally sent out as an e-mail and I later realized it should also be a blog post)

Two years ago the team here at Viewpoints set out to build a new platform for consumer reviews. We wanted to bring reviewers to life and give them an opportunity to write great reviews.   At the end of the day our goal is to help consumers make smarter decisions in their everyday lives.  

I am pleased to report that we have made fantastic progress toward our goals in this respect.  In just one short year since our official launch, we have attracted more than 900,000 monthly users and have registered more than 125,000 members to join our growing community of reviewers.

Just this week we launched a major upgrade to our profile pages that give our members more ways to feature their great reviews and interact with fellow community members. Over the last year we have incorporated a long list of features such as message boards, blogs, photo galleries, private messaging, stats and advanced member profiling.  Take a look at my profile page to see many of these features in action or read our recent blog post that provides a more detailed overview of the many great features in this release.

I am also pleased to report that it is not only our users but also advertisers who have seen the value in the Viewpoints solution.  Leading advertisers such as Proctor & Gamble, Kenmore, Tivo, Panasonic, HP and partners such as Google and eBay  have seen the benefit of running campaigns targeted at active "in-market buyers" and social influencers. Additionally we have also created co-brand versions of our site for several large clients who are interested in building an online community for their customers.

So that is the quick update, but we promise to be back more often than every two years to fill you in on all the exciting news here at Viewpoints!

Be sure to check out Viewpoints for all your holiday gift giving needs.

Warm Regards,

Matt Moog

Founder & CEO

312-447-6111

matt@viewpoints.com

http://www.viewpoints.com/aboutme/Matt

Big news! New profile page on Viewpoints.com

When we launched Viewpoints.com last September we set out to create the most social platform for consumer reviews on the web. Our basic premise was that a social reviews platform would help create more context around the reviewer and in turn help our users, the people reading the reviews, make smarter decisions about everything from choosing the right digital camera to picking a hotel that met their specific needs.

I am happy to announce that we have taken that focus to another level. Last night we launched our completely remodeled profile page to give members new and exciting ways to engage with others and feature their reviews. Since this is my personal blog I will give you the run down using my own profile page as an example.

1. First, you can check out my public profile page here: http://www.viewpoints.com/aboutme/Matt. You will immediately notice the addition of my own mini blog, a place for "my motto" and the ability to leave me a private comment. All of those features are new.
2. Second, if you explore the "I Am" tag cloud in the left hand column you will see how you can filter and browse my reviews by the tags I have used to describe myself with those reviews. So for example, click on the "5 star diner" to see my 27 reviews of restaurants that include that tag.
3. Below my blog posts on my profile page you will also see my "Fun Facts & Interests" and then a list of my most recent reviews and message board conversations.
4. Next to my reviews and just below my "I Am" tag cloud you will also see some of the friends and fans I have recently made on Viewpoints and links to my photo collage and a beta project that helps you explore the connections among my friends.
5. You can find one of my favorite features by clicking on the "Reviews" link just to the right of my profile picture at the top of the page. Now we give our members and readers a whole new way to explore any reviewer's reviews. You can filter these reviews by my I Am tags or by category, by rating or by date. So for example, if you want to see the 11 hotel reviews or the 15 movie reviews or you can filter my reviews by "I Am" tag to see my 6 sushi lover reviews or my 5 wine lover reviews
6. The Friends & Fans section of the profile page gives you boatload of new ways to see the friends you have and make some more. If you are logged in you will also see what friends you have in common with anyone else on the site. I found it really helpful to view people who were my fans that I knew and needed to make them friends.
7. The Photos page proves the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. We have expanded the number of photos that you can upload as part of your profile to 27 photos and we have built a "Review Photo Album" to show off all the photos you have uploaded as part of your reviews. Check out the picture of me and the family in front of the Supreme Court sporting my Viewpoints T-Shirt!
8. As if all this wasn't enough, we also have some great new features that you have to be a member for. Be sure to register and log in and look at the "Edit Profile", "About Me" and "Settings" links just to the right of your picture. A personal favorite of mine is our new "Member Interests Survey" that helps connect you with other members who share your interests.
9. Also, don't miss the "view more stats" link just under your Stats Snapshot on your profile page. I have had more than 36,000 views of my reviews since we started tracking back in April. That is a pretty cool stat to track but the coolest thing of all is to see how you can write a review that starts getting readers almost immediately. My recent review of Hub 51, a new restaurant just down the street from us has already received 331 views in just a few weeks. It is also nice to know that more than 10,000 people have read my review of the Westin Heavenly Mattress!!

And after all that, here are two hidden gems that we clearly need to highlight more.

• After you have made some friends be sure to check out "latest friends' activity" which you will find a link to in the left column of your friends & fans page. It is pretty cool to be able to see what all of your friends are up to including the ability to filter by reviews, discussion posts, friends, photos, comments and blog entries.
• After you have completed your Member Interest Survey be sure to follow this link: http://www.viewpoints.com/quick_review to then write 10 quick reviews on product, services or businesses that you have personal experience with. We created this format to make it easy and fun for you to jump right in! We use your interests to suggest things to review.

Phew!!! How our development team managed to pack all of that into this project I will never know but my hat goes off to them. Congratulations to our incredible technology team.

Are you are starter or a joiner?

As someone obsessed with social media I got to thinking about crowd dynamics at the Cubs game a few days ago.  Next time you are at a big sporting event, watch how crowd action is first started and then how it spreads.  This might seem strange but I think those of us who think long and hard about how to create vibrant online communities have something to learn from how the wave gets started .