Would love your feedback about a third-party toolbar

[Eric Suesz]

Some Network Creators use third-party apps and widgets on their sites. Maybe you use a few or have tried a few over time. Some are undoubtedly better than others. These toolbars and  can help you offer members an alternative to functionality that Ning provides, provide something Ning doesn’t provide, or maybe offer unique ways for your members to connect around your community. 

I was doing some research into a few of these, and I am curious what you think about Conduit. It’s a toolbar that you can customize and offer to your community as a way to extend the reach of your site or just keep your core members more connected. I want to get some feedback from people here on Creators about what this toolbar is, what it does, and whether or not you think it would be something that would interest you and your members. If you’ve used Conduit before, I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. If you haven’t, I’d still love to hear your thoughts. 

What is it, exactly? It’s a toolbar that you can customize for your community. You can add links, RSS feeds, games, gadgets and apps to the toolbar. These can point back to your community, or you might even put affiliate links in them if you think that is something your members would use. The idea is to create an extension of your community that perhaps your most fervent users would want to use. They talk about their toolbar here.

What do you think?

• Have you ever used something like this with your network? 
• If you have, did you see increased activity or engagement? 
• Did you ever make any money? 
• Do you see it as something for money-making potential or something that’s more geared toward boosting activity?
• Do you think your members would be interested in using something like this? 
• Are there any similar toolbars you would recommend like this one?  

We created a very basic, rudimentary toolbar just to show you a stripped down example you can check out here.

So, what do you think? Is Conduit something that sounds interesting to you and your members? 

[Kris]

I don't think it's off topic because I use wibiya for the same reason I originally check out the conduit toolbar for.

Personally I prefer it to run on the site than in members browser toolbar but at the end of day they both do the same thing for me.

And from the couple of pages in this thread that seems to be the overall consensus is most prefer the onsite toolbar (wibiya or skysa) over the browser add-on.

[Patrick Chappelle]

Not saying it was off-topic, it seemed to me that everyone was confusing one with the other. Maybe I'm the one who is confused? Hahaha

[Elena Salvator]

I have tried out a few tool bars in the past my concern is that my members already seem to have computer issues with the site all the time and a tool bar just slows down your computer the more you have now if you could create one that dont slow down the computer im all for it but i havent seen one yet that dont.

[Kai]

lol to elaborate on that a bit most of the time it is because people download a lot of toolbars and don't really uninstall them they just remove them from the view on there browsers. no just think if there was one toolbar that could do everything you would only need one. Conduit makes it easy to do just that. You can add pretty much anything to it. I assure you that if you uninstall your unwanted toolbars instead of just removing them and use your own custom toolbar that you created with everything you and your members need. It will clear up the slow moving browser issue. Hope I have helped you. 

[Kris]

I know the tool bar was HOT a few years ago, but is anyone really using them now. I bet the people that still have them only do because they don't know how to remove them. LOL

Case in point I looked at a hand full of Conduit Case Studies and of the ones I checked I didn't see where they where still making the toolbar available and if they are I sure couldn't find it.

That's like someone new to Ning checking out Ning case study sites and all the sites they check out are running on something other than Ning LOL

Makes ya say hmmm...

 

[Patrick Chappelle]

I agree, Kris. Personally, I get tired of visiting sites asking me to download their toolbar. There are lots of good sites out here, but if I installed all of them, I'd have no space in my browser. My friends wife has five in hers, I told her to get rid of all of them. LOL

[Eric Suesz]

I actually did the same thing: checked the case studies to find one and I didn't find the example on their site for the case study video I watched. In fairness to them, they may need to update their marketing pages. 

[M]

At the end of the day for me, if its not going to be integrated within the chat then don't do it. Another reason why I got rid of it is a bar on top of a bar just well.. = fail.

[Kai]

there is surely a way to add ning chat to a conduit toolbar. I have done it if you need any assistance I can help you with it. It is actually really simple to do. Depending on the demand I might even post a tutorial on creators explaining how to do it. Have a great day hope I can help.

[Kim]

Conduit bought wibiya a while back and that's what I use on both the sites I own, I like it and so does my members :)

[Kenneth Paulsen]

its wonderfull!

[Kai]

I have been using conduit toolbars for over a year now I have a few different site in which I use the toolbars for including my network. I have a bunch of great apps and features on my toolbar including chat. I am also working on a way to add video chat from a third party but if you want to add your ning networks chat to your toolbar it is very possible because I have mine setup that way. I can run you through the steps if  anyone would like. You can download my toolbar here if you would like, there is even a way to have it automatically download to your active members browser without them having to visit the download page. I feel it integrate well with most browsers. and if there was a way for ning to get api access for us to be able to automatically add them to our networks by choice it would be even better. 

 

I use it to do both earn a few extra dollars as well as boost member activity. I have found that posting fresh content or even an rss feed for the recent activity as one of the options helps too. Thanks ning I think adding them would be a great idea good job. I highly recommend conduit it for anyone wanting their own toolbar or for anyone who wants to increase their member activity as well as earn some extra cash in the process.