Task #2 - Zappido.com

Zappido is a new kind of home page.  It can be customized to showcase your favorite sites on myzappido.com. What do you think?  As a marketer, how could the site offer opportunities to connect with target audiences?

Comments

[jljarman]

I think that this is a great website for a variety of target audiences. Younger markets tend to like visually obvious options, and older people do as well. Younger audiences also tend to have more and more typical sites they visit on a daily basis so having the links conveniently located and easy to find is a plus. This makes this site much more user friendly than many existing homepages. Everything is right in front of you and I think most advertisers would appreciate that, however the advertisers who seem to benefit most are online based media. You can click on the icon, browse, read, learn more. You are much more likely to remember to go to their website when you see their icon on your webpage.

[Cindy McColley]

Great insights!

[bmpnacek]

wwwhhhoooaaaa, what my very first thought when I loaded up this website. It seems cluttered and while organized still threw my mind into a disarray trying to figure out what everything was about. Once I calmed down and saw what each square was it was pretty interesting and very user-friendly to say the least. For people that like direction or even suggestions I think that this would be a great site to utilize. Predominate and popular sites are already available and just a click away from zipping you away to each place. If an individual were to set this as a homepage, bingo! All the links you could want are available and sitting right in front of you.

[njrowe]

I think this site was good because it has a lot of major websites. I think users would like this site because of its access to other places quickly and not searching or going site to site individually. Advertisers could have main page exposure to many people and not just popping up after they search for something specific. This site just seems great and a great site for marketers to advertise to the users, the only thing it seems that it could be hard for marketers to focus on one specific group.

[Gregory Franz]

This is a great site for new internet user with its simplicity to everyday websites a just a click of a button. For a marketer in established companies I believe this is a great site but you would definitely have to worry about the number of popular sites that are on this site because it could create more havoc for a small business entrepreneur trying to market and get overshadowed.

[aksaari]

Advertising works on this site by using a smooth visual display. Instead of promoting ads by clicking on obvious hyperlinks, it actually gives each site its own block and includes that site’s own customized logo inside each block. On top of that, it is customizable by adding your favorite sites to the columns-rows design. Because of this important personalization addition and the way that Zappido displays the links to your favorite sites as more than just ordinary ‘copy-and-paste’ links, it is more appealing. As a huge technology user, I like the visual style of ‘my’ homepage. Another thing I like about this site is that when I click on any of the top links like ‘disclaimer‘, contact us’ and ‘tip a friend’, the target information actually appears right on the homepage rather than on a new tab or new browser window. Because of this, I felt zappido.com extremely user-friendly and liked that I could actually find out more about the site while still staying on my homepage. One last thing I found great about the advertising on this site was that each favorite site I included on my homepage depicted the actual logos of the target companies running the site.

Advertisers that would find this site interesting would be those who have a highly visual logo (like Google who constantly changes their logo every day). I find that I remember company names and designs better if they have a unique design to their advertising logos. YouTube does this by including the television representation over the ‘Tube’ while Wikipedia showcases the globe right above its name (showing that the world is accessible through it).

[Travis King]

Zappido is a very interesting and useful homepage. It is very convenient and well organized. I like it how you can customize it and put high traffic sites in the homepage. Due to the ability to customize the site advertisers will be able to target consumers more easily. One bad thing about this site is the temptation for a user to click on the website and instantly be able to buy things. This is very smart for advertisers. I think this site targets users of all ages and that it is very well put together and will catch on in the future.

[Nicole Stemen]

Zappido is visually pleasing and easy to use. The advertising is clean and uniform, which is an interesting and effective method (as long as the companies agree to the confinement). I would personally never use a homepage like this unless there was a way to have the pages I choose open in a new tab instead of an entirely new window, I'm addicted to tabs. It just seems like adding one unnecessary step to getting to my regular pages, but I can see how it could be a great homepage for new internet users or those who always begin from a general homepage.

[Dgcousen]

When I signed on to Zappido, my initial thought was that it was a good site. The reason is because when I go onto the internet i like to have my favorite sites available so i do not have to type everyone in and remember. This is similar to having your sites under favorites but i think it is much nice to be able to view your sites under a button format. This site can connect to target audiences because it can help create brand recognition along with increased traffic to the company/brands website. It can also lead to potential brand to brand marketing where you lend your services to another company. This site is able to use visual tendencies to bring certain audiences back to view it.

[Nick Laurila]

When I first entered the site I thought to myself wow way to much going on here. I still don’t understand the point of the national radar in the middle of the page, and I don’t understand the groupings and reasoning’s for having everything grouped together the way they are. I think the target market is people who don’t mind having to search for the information they are looking for? I’m not quite sure who would use this, way to much information for what you get out of the page.

[Shawn Doll]

I've never seen this site before and I think it's pretty nifty. Most of the main web pages the average person looks for on the internet is grouped together in one page. I like how the site uses the logos for the individual website link buttons, it seems easier to distinguish each button. It's a very simple sight, advertising simply consists of the company's logo linked to their website. It could use a little modernizing though, kinda bring the whole web page up to date a little. I believe, the target market are for the people who just want all their stuff on one easy to reach homepage.

[Hat]

The site as it is, for me is too cluttered. It has stuffed too many links into the main site, and it feels more like a hub rather than anything else. It's only really necessary if you don't want to deal with too many bookmarks, and even then it's debatable.

[Kerry Hanrahan]

Advertising works on this page by a company’s listing name. You click on the site you want to go to or one you add to MyZappido and it pays Zappido. By having all the big names on there and sites normally visited it allows for a medium that you can just click the place you want to go. I don’t necessarily like the site as it seems a little out dated to me. If you look around the web, there are certain sites that don’t draw you in and I personally think this is one of them. I had never heard of Zappido, so the advertising to people my age might be helpful because we are not always on the internet. It is helpful, but needs updating.

[Bsjones]

This site is far too cluttered with ad buttons. I would dismiss this site quickly because it has negative appeal. I can see though why big name internet business may want to use it because it is a big bookmark site for people to click and go if they don't want to, or like to, search. They could grow visitors probably by adding some sort of context/substance instead of cold buttons and a rotating Doppler map.

[Robert Zychowski]

Advertising on Zappido is very simple, I believe. This website allows companies to promote their website directly from a potential customer’s homepage. This allows for maximum exposure for users of Zappido. Zappido provides an advertiser segmented spot on the main page that is a portal to the advertising company’s website. I like the concept of this website. It provides easy access to favorite websites without having type addresses and open new windows or tabs. This can be a very popular way to advertise to potential customers, however, it can only be used a helpful tool if customers are using the website. Until today, I never heard of this website. I do like the organization of the website, but it is something I would most likely not use. I don’t like the amount of clutter on the page. I personally like something very simple and easy to navigate through.

[Bawherea]

At first glance, I thought this was a very simple, basic website put together by someone new to web programming. Upon disabling my adblockers, I was surprised to find another row of icons for websites that make Zappido possible. I like how high-traffic websites are right on the main page, making access to those very quick and easy. When customizing your Zappido page, it would be useful to have recommendations of websites similar to how facebook recommends likable items for people. It is nice how the website opens links you click on in new tabs or windows, rather than using the current one and losing the Zappido webpage in the jumble often experienced while browsing. I think that via recommendations for new websites a person can add to their homepage, is how advertising should be done on this website. Another option might be to add an ad banner at the bottom of the page, but that would only serve to clutter a simple and somewhat clean website. If I happen to remember the name of this site, I'm likely to use it in the future.

[Lindsay Hamel]

I first opened the website and thought it was way too cluttered and it took me awhile to focus on what the point of Zappido was. I saw that it uses each box as a different popular website. This is great for them. Any site from Facebook, to YouTube, to PayPal to Amazon was there. I think this is a great marketing strategy because I could put Zappido.com as my homepage linked to about two thirds of my bookmarks right in front of me.

[Carl Asiala]

Zappido.com is a site that shows big-name advertisers on their main page. There are links to Gmail, Wal-Mart.com, and Facebook. There are also links to different genres of advertisers such as Sports, Money, Radio, and Fashion. Under each one of these icons are lists of links to advertisers in these fields.
I like the setup of Zappido.com because it is plain and simple. It is not difficult to find anything you are looking for. What I do not like about the page is that it is gray and not too visually appealing.
The target market for this site is the mainstream public. All of the big-name sites are listed here. Advertisers who cater to many different people would find this site of interest.
The site could grow by adding more advertisers to it. If there are more advertisers, more different people will visit the site.
The site would probably measure its success by counting how many people click on each of the links provided. If people are clicking on them, they are interested in the site.

[Nick Vezzetti]

I like the layout of the site because I am able to choose from all of the major companies in their own type of market. For example, best buy is the best in electronics and it is easily located right out in the open on the site. I also like the fact that there isn’t really any bias throughout the site as there is yahoo, google, amazon and even ask.com. This was the first time ever going to the site and I can see my self-coming back to it.