Review - Join2Grow.biz (Part 2)

Review - Join2Grow.biz (Fortis)
Review - Join2Grow.biz (Part 2): Registration, Profile, Contacts
Review - Join2Grow.biz (Part 3): RSS, Channels, Podcasts and Polls
Review - Join2Grow.biz (Part 4): Conclusion
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Entrepreneur survey

Entrepreneur magazine

Entrepreneur network

REGISTRATION
From my laptop at home, I had some strange problems when I tried to register. I filled in all the fields, making sure my ID was unique and my email not registered, but I couldn't go to the next stage of the process.
I stayed on the same page, with the following error messages:
* This nickname is already taken, please choose another one
* This email is already associated with another account
* You have to accept our terms of use

I decided to try again from an internet cafe, and it worked perfectly well! How Weird...

EDIT YOUR PROFILE
Please find below a slideshow of the main screens you have to go through to create a good profile.

Nb: again, that is one of my key messages when I talk about social networking and online visiblity: your goal is to be visible! People must be in a position to find you! Be as specific as possible, and use efficient key words.

SOCIAL or BUSINESS?
I have nothing else to add about the profile, except that I find the positionning of this platform quite unclear: is it a social network? a business network? a hybrid network?

Nb: Sharing a hobby or a passion is a good way to create strong relationships quicker, but in that case I think quite a lot of questions are too personal (but you can choose to make your answers available to everyone or not)

GROW YOUR NETWORK
There are three different status for your Contacts: incoming, outgoing, and yourcontacts.

There are two ways to grow your network: either invite your personal contacts, or contact existing members. When you add an existing member to your contacts, you send an outgoing contact request, pending member approval.

Leaving a private message ("Leave a message" box) or adding someone as a contact are two different things here.

Nb: I think Fortis don't urge you to develop your network. On Linkedin, the more direct contacts you have, the more members you can reach. It is a smart way to make you want to grow your network!

There is a limitation here as there is no notion of degrees of separation. It looks like now the only way for members to differentiate themselves is to be "active", which means to post a lot of comments or questions!
 
SEARCH CRITERIA: THE INTERESTS
The main "search criteria" is the interests: an interest is like a tag. So far, they have based their search methodology solely on those tags: currently, you don't have access to an advanced search page with selection criteria such as country, city or industry...

I hope it is going to be part of the next release. You select one or several interests -> you find all the members who have the same interests.

LEAVE A COMMENT OR A QUESTION?
Then, you are invited to leave a comment or a question? They are both identified as Comment.
The "Answers service" is quite popular (companies like Yahoo! or Linkedin are using it to urge their members to use the website and create more traffic)

But here, I find it messy: the comment/question is linked with an interest. How can you easily identify the questions, and take part of a discussion if you don't have a proper title, and just rely on a tag which is quite generic?

Nb: I am really surprised they used the same categorisation for a comment or a question!
Comments should be linked with a question which should be linked with a tag.

MOST ACTIVE MEMBERS
The notion of "Most active entepreneurs" is interesting: what does it mean? Are they the people who posted more comments/questions? Couldn't it be the people who sent the most invitations? People with the more contact?
I believe it is the members who posted the more comments/questions for a specific tag/interest.

Nb: then, they should display the number of comments per interest per user, it would be useful.

NEXT: Review - Join2Grow.biz (Part 3)