| The Good | The Bad |
|---|---|
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Scoutle.com makes me wonder if I missed something in translation. This Dutch social networking site features a widget of two people walking past each other. As they approach, the characters exchange greetings. Scoutle compares each site and tries to arrange meetings with sites that have similar demographics. This “Automated Social Networking” is the selling point of Scoutle.
The site itself I found confusing at first. After you join up, it’s difficult to figure out exactly what to do. Below is a quick guide to getting started:
- Create a scout by uploading a photo, filling out information about your site and selecting a stage. A stage is another term for a widget. Get the code and install it in your site.
- Your scout will meet people. These meetings are shown under your “My Meetings” page after you click on your scout there. Visit these sites. If you like that site, then click on “control connection” to make a connection. The other person will visit your site and decide if they want to approve your request.
- If you really like the site, you can give them a reference, which is like a recommendation. Another option is to send the person a message.
- Finally, the last option is to create your own network, I made one for Entrecard users there. Everyone with an Entrecard widget is welcome to join. It’s just another way to organize connections.
Scoutle didn’t bring me a flood of visitors, but neither was I spammed with crappy invites. The few connections I made were with quality sites. I could see people making this system their primary social networking tool if they had limited time to spare. The beta is not even a month old, so don’t judge things based upon this early review alone. I’ll definately be keeping my eye on this one.
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Rankings
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Score
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|---|---|
| Fun Factor - Not too competetive, but does raise curiosity a bit. |
2
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| Traffic Performance - Scoutle brings in a few visitors. |
1
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| Community Involvement - Small community and still in beta. |
2
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| Commitment - Putting time into the system does equal more traffic. |
5
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Total Score
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10
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8 users commented in " Review: Scoutle.com "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback **********Sounds like one I can miss on this pass anyway.
Thanks for the once again thorough review of the service.
How long did you have the widget on your site before determining if you were getting traffic from it? How long does it usually take a new network like this to really start generating traffic for it’s users?
I think those would be good things to include in your reviews.
Like — I don’t see the blogupp widget here anymore. Did it not work out for you? Did you get any visitors from it at all?
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Thank you to be my top ten droppers for May.
My appreciate for you. I give you link in my blog
Read
http://the-success.blogspot.com/2008/06/successtop-ten-droppers-for-may.html
Success For You
Margaret, If you click on the “Graveyard” up top, you will see some of the old widgets. Having too many widgets would cause my site to load very slowly. Scoutle is still on the front page of my site. I’ve been a member of it since May 28th. Because it’s in beta, having it installed for a longer period of time would not have resulted in an increase of traffic.
When I remove a widget, hopefully I’ll have the time to go back and explain why I did so. Not all Social Networks give accurate reporting. Sometimes judging results is difficult. All “link exchange” type widgets give limited results unless there is an incentive to click the widget, like Entrecard.
Blogupp! is not forgotten, don’t worry! Thanks for the great suggestions.
Edit: Additional scoutle news today: “From now on, the maximum of Open Connection Requests is set to 5. If your Request is rejected, you will not get it back for at least a month.”
This means you will not be spammed. You can have 5 open requests to connect and that’s it. Scoutle is all about quality, not quantity. Like I said, It’s different.
Dear Turnip,
I would like to thank you for your review. True, Scoutle is in beta and needs a lot of improvements. We do however listen to our users as good and much as we can. That is why we also search the internet every day to find these reviews.
You mention several things that are very interesting. Like you write you experienced ‘confusing moments’. I will see what I can do to improve this.
In the near future new features will be installed. However, it is very important now to get new users. Scoutle is like you said not after getting your time spend on scoutle.com, on the contrary. Scoutle automates a lot and in the future even more.
It’s not all about visitors, it’s also about finding intersting blogs for yourself and of course Scoutle Points that rate your blog all the time.
Thanks again. It is really important our users write about Scoutle in order to get more users which of course will help you to meet more intersting people.
For any suggestion you have, please feel free to contact me personally or through the contact page at Scoutle.com
We really like to know how we can improve Scoutle.
Thanks again,
Godfried van Loo
The Netherlands
http://www.scoutle.com
Godfried: Thank You for stopping by and commenting on your system. I believe scoutle is headed in the right direction by being more than a simple link exchange. 5 quality meetings a day can add up quickly. I look forward to testing out all your new features as they are released.
Thanks for answering my questions. I’ll keep an eye out for your followup once you’ve truly had time to evaluate the benefits of this service or once it’s out of beta.
I’m not one who joins things because they’re there to join.
Thanks for telling me about where to find your bloggup widget and I truly am in touch with site-loads!
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I believe I will be passing on the scoutie. I’m tired of all the Beta things related to social media these days. enough already.
Tony, I fully understand. Which is why I test them all, so you don’t have to.
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