Press Room

Viewpoints.com Posts 161% Annual Traffic Growth

Popular Reviews Site Now Sixth Largest User Reviews Destination on the Internet and Growing Twice as Fast as the Top Five Sites

Chicago (PRWEB) November 3, 2009 – Viewpoints Network, a social technology and media company, announced today that its popular ratings and reviews web site Viewpoints.com has seen a 161% year-over-year increase in consumer traffic according to Compete.com. This dramatic increase in traffic shows Viewpoints.com as the sixth largest user reviews site on the Internet. With more than two million monthly visitors, Viewpoints.com is growing twice as fast as any of the five most visited user review sites.

 

The Viewpoints Technology Platform Adds a Social Loyalty Engine

Flexible New Capability Helps Brands to Move Beyond Transactional Loyalty and Identify and Build Relationships with Their Most Engaged Customers

Chicago (PRWEB) October 29, 2009 – Viewpoints Network, a social technology and media company, announced today that it has added a Social Loyalty Engine to the Viewpoints Technology Platform. The Social Loyalty Engine helps brands establish a reputation and rewards program that motivates their customers to contribute content and become leaders and brand advocates in the brand’s online community and across the broader social web. Unlike typical loyalty programs that reward consumers on the number or size of their purchases, the Viewpoints Social Loyalty Engine recognizes the importance of consumers who may not be the biggest purchasers, but through their reviews, discussions, comments and blog posts, are able improve a brand’s image and drive measurable sales through the positive word of mouth recommendations they generate.

1to1 Weekly Magazine - Sears Builds Social Loyalty

 
By Jeremy Nedelaka

1to1 Magazine's Jeremy Nedelka wrote a great article highlighting Sears' strategy behind the MySearsand MyKmart communiites in today's 1to1 Weekly. He talks about how their keen focus on engaging their customers and creating an opportunity for dialogue is why Sears' communiites will survive where so many others have failed.

From the article: Online communities are notoriously hit-or-miss, for a variety of reasons. The lack of engaging features or personalization, no sense of belonging, or too much promotion are just some of the reasons customers visit sites once and never return. Sears created its communities with an emphasis on engagement, recognition, and dialogue to avoid joining the list of orphaned online retail communities.

"The genesis for us was that we need to get to know our customers better, so we wanted to get people talking [to] better understand their motivations," says Rob Harles, Sears Holding Corp's vice president of community. "We didn't really do any promotion; we used our online point of sale to tell customers about the site and ask for their feedback."

The MySears.comand MyKmart.com communities contain customer reviews, discussion boards, consumer guides, and access to coupons. The sites, powered by Viewpoints Network, have 330,000 registered members and attract 1.3 million monthly visitors, more than half of whom come from organic search, according to Harles.

October 26, 2009

Read the entire article

Illinois Technology Association Interviews Matt Moog

This week the Illinois Technology Associated (ITA) featured Viewpoints in their monthly newsletter. Check out an exerpt from the Q&A interview below.     ITA Member Q&A: Viewpoints Network

Illinois Technology Association: In 10 words or less, what problem does Viewpoints solve for your clients? Matt Moog: Viewpoints companies engage with their customers using social technology. ITA: What motivated you to join (or start-up) Viewpoints? What is the origin of the name? MM: The social web and search are two macro trends that are driving how people use the Internet to make decisions.  They use search to find the exact information they are looking for and they rely on the advice of people like them to help them make informed decisions.  By providing a social platform for reviews, blogs, discussion forums, answers all organized around product catalogs and business directories Viewpoints is able to fulfill its mission of helping consumers make smarter decisions. ITA: How does Viewpoints differentiate from its competitors? MM: The Viewpoints Technology Platform powers both Viewpoints.com and other private label communities for our customers. We compete both in the consumer internet space against other review sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, CNet and Consumer Reports.   In the consumer market we have a more social platform that also covers the broadest range of categories.  In our business to business service, we are the only provider who combines reviews with a social/community platform and a very strong search engine optimization toolset.  We compete with companies such as BazaarVoice, PowerReviews, Pluck and Lithium. Read the complete interview.

Double, double toil and trouble—skip the candy and give out popcorn, crayons or bubbles!

Starting to wonder if those mounds of Halloween candy are more of a trick than a treat? Get some fun alternatives to Halloween candy from the Viewpoints community.

Chicago (PRWeb) Oct. 7, 2009 – Before cleaning out the local grocery store’s entire supply of Halloween candy, think back to last year’s Halloween. The kids came home from trick-or-treating with a couple of Hefty trash bags full of candy. Then they started eating the candy. Then you started eating the candy. Then the calorie panic attack ensued. And finally, the candy gets thrown out.

Break the cycle this year with help from the Viewpoints community, a leading consumer-generated ratings and reviews site. This year, keep your kids’ teeth and weight healthier (not to mention yours!) by giving out alternative treats for Halloween.

BizReport covers Viewpoints In-line Integration news

Viewpoints Technology Integrates Community, Ecommerce by Kristina Knight

Nice coverage by Kristina Knight from BizReport.com of our new inline integration announcement that we made this week at the 2009 shop.org Annual Conference in Vegas.

 Here's a quick snippet: If you're looking for another way to engage consumers with brand, consider integrating a community site with your existing ecommerce site. Too hard? A new platform from Viewpoints Technology helps brands integrate community with ecommerce so that consumers receive a more seamless user experience.

Read the full story here

The Viewpoints Technology Platform Adds In-line Integration between Brands’ Online Communities and E-Commerce Sites

Only Technology Platform to Seamlessly Blend Content, Community and Commerce across Both a Brand’s Online Community and E-Commerce Site

Chicago (PRWEB) September 21, 2009 – Viewpoints Network, a social technology and media company, announced today that the Viewpoints Technology Platform now offers in-line integration capabilities to help  brands provide a seamless user experience between their online community and existing e-commerce website. With in-line integration, e-commerce companies can optimize their site’s product and category pages for SEO while encouraging engagement and driving social loyalty among their most active customer advocates. The Viewpoints Technology Platform’s combination of rich consumer feedback content such as reviews and community features, blended with a brand’s e-commerce functionality, is unique in the industry today.

Viewpoints Network Lets Consumers Easily Sign-in with Their Existing AOL, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Windows Live, or Yahoo! Accounts

Chicago (PRWEB) July 1, 2009 – Viewpoints Network, a social technology and media company, announced today that it has integrated the JanRain RPX solution into its Viewpoints Technology Platform, enabling website visitors on Viewpoints or on one of their Viewpoints Technology Platform powered community sites to easily register and login with an existing account from AOL, Facebook, Google, MySpace, Twitter, Windows Live, or Yahoo! and instantly begin sharing their insights, experiences and product reviews.

TechCrunch coverage of MySears/MyKmart adopting OpenID

Can Sears Help OpenID Go Mainstream?  by Robin Wauters on July 2, 2009

In their intial coverage of the MySears & MyKmart communities launch in May, TechCrunch writer MG Siegler expressed his interest in Sears' plans to incorporate OpenID so visitors could sign into the communities using their existing social network profiles. Just over a month later, Sears did in fact announce that they had adopted OpenID and were the first traditional retailer to do so. Below is an expert from the follow up story that appeared in TechCrunch last week.

 

It’s one thing when Internet companies like Facebook adopt OpenID, it’s another when a giant retailer like Sears Holdings Corporation embraces it. Sears has just announced that it will enable over 1 million monthly MySears and MyKmart visitors to use their Google, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or other accounts to log into the community websites, enabling them to write product reviews and share information about products and services without the need to create a separate account.

Read the whole story by clicking here

Press Mentions from the Viewpoints Technology Platform Launch

 

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/business/Sears-Builds-New-Online-Community.html

http://www.suntimes.com/business/spirrison/1578774,CST-FIN-spirr18.article

 

 

 

Brand Week article 5/8/09

 

 

 

Media Post article 5/7/09

http://www.marketingvox.com/sears-and-kmart-try-the-social-media-my-044015/

 

 

 

 

http://mashable.com/2009/05/09/mysears-mykmart/