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? 

[SweetPotato]

I do. but i can't get predictive to work. :-(

but i'd like the native Ning search to be predictive, like FB and LinkedIn etc

[Speed Racer]

ah, i gotcha SweetPotato.

[soaringeagle]

alexa toolbar and the google custom (monitized) search work great

i hate the ning search i wont use iot its ugly clunky  very poor  gives u whole (irelevant) posts instead of excerpts so way too much scrolling

the google search works great  tho it doesnt index everything only what google indexes there is a non monitized google custom search that has its own spider that indexes everything that u can use instead

the toolbar lets u use whatever search u want to use

unfortunately only 1 you cant use multiple search engines  (that i know of)

 

[JFarrow]

i use skysa for one simple reason.  you can build a custom app containing HTML for the toolbar.  plus they just released a new "whos online" app which has a real-time map of members online

[Patrick Chappelle]

Skysa has a toolbar now too?

[Ryan Mclaughlin]

sounds good - regarding Conduit my dads been working with conduit to see if we could use the games via the toolbar to embed the games i.e mindzapp that are all available -

He is still playing around with it but a word of warning if you link it to your facebook account you can get ads displaying all over your profiles and unwanted messages like dating etc 

Ryan

[Ryan Mclaughlin]

perhaps you should try wibyia toolbar i use it with wordpress 

 

[Speed Racer]

is that a browser toolbar? a browser toolbar is what Eric is referring to, not a site bar.

[Patrick Chappelle]

I think Eric needs to delete this discussion and start over. There seems to be some confusion. Eric is talking about a toolbar add-on for browsers, but most here are talking about a site-bar you install on your site. 

 

[Speed Racer]

i'm noticing that as well, Thunder!

[Eric Suesz]

Well, to be honest, I kind of expected that people would offer all kinds of suggestions about things other than what I posted about. 

[Patrick Chappelle]

Naturally, going off-topic is par for the course here on Creators. However, there is confusion as to what it is you're speaking about, resulting in feedback that is unrelated to your discussion.