Blog Software: Zoundry – Blog Writing and Publishing for Profits – Part 2

April 3, 2006

by Stuart

Blog Software: Zoundry – Blog Writing and Publishing for Profits – Part 2
In Part 1 of this review I reviewed Zoundry Blog Writer as a blog software editing tool and I went into some of the specifics of its features. I’ll conclude this review with a look at the Zoundry service component and sum up my experience with using this tool.

Master Affiliate: Zoundry As A Service

Zoundry as a service serves as a one-stop product search engine and master affiliate. You can search through the Zoundry catalog of major affiliate programs and create links easily as you blog with Zoundry Blog Writer.

Currently Zoundry supports the following merchants:

Amazon.com
Buy.com
eBags.com
Ritz Camera
Brookstone
Apple iTunes

The Zoundry Product Chooser and Link Converting makes searching for products easy. Zoundry charges 30% to 20% of qualifying revenues as a transaction fee. Referral rates from the list merchants range from 3 to 7.5%. As a master affiliate Zoundry is managing and centralizing your affiliation with these merchants for you. If you count the time and cost to manage multiple affiliate programs and then insert affiliate links (finding and inserting them), their percentage may just be worth it to you. You decide on this one.

I know for me that managing affiliate links can be time consuming when you consider searching for and getting affiliate resources that are compatible with your blog and articles. Having and quick and easy way to search for matching content that is time efficient is a plus in my book.

Easy Updating

The left hand pane makes checking for and updating the software a cinch. I downloaded version 0.9.123 if I recall and checked for an update. A new version of 0.9.126 was available. I downloaded and simpled installed it on top of the current version. The installation automatically located the current installation directory. Careful though as after I updated and ran the Check Update wizard, the software detected the previous version 0.9.123 (older) as a newer version to be downloaded. I had just upgraded form the 0.9.123 version. Zoundry is in a beta phase right now so this should not be a long term issue.

Other Cool Stuff

Tagging

The Tagging feature in Zoundry is a nice touch. You can select from a number of Tagging services to use when you post. Zoundry remembers tag words that you’ve previously used and stores them. You can then easily access previous tag word from a pop dialog list and just check the ones you want to use with the tagging service you’ve selected. Even cooler is that when I configured Zoundry to for my BlogHarbor blog, it imported tags that I had previously used on my blog. Nice touch. Zoundry also support configuration of a custom tag space if you desire to do so.

Template-Based Previewing

Zoundry allows you to preview content based on your blog template. This is kind of cool I think. For each blog you have an account configured for within Zoundry you have the option of having Zoundry download or import the template that each blog account is using. You can then preview your content exactly as it should look on your blog. Unfortunately this blog and my Success Motivation blog didn’t display well graphically although the text styles did. A little more tweaking here I guess but cool nonetheless.

Dragging and Dropping

Zoundry allows you to drag and drop images and mp3 files and while automatically upload these files to your media repository that you’ve configured. A nice touch. I like it even though I couldn’t figure out how to get Zoundry to stop auto thumbnailing my images when I dragged them into the Editor window.

The Bad

Content Inflexibility

All is not gold however and there are some shortcomings that a bit glaring. The ability to not be able to save content as .txt, .doc or .rft is one big drawback in my world. Asking for an option to export to adobe format is probably up there with miracles but I understand since most of use are probably using some sort of adobe software for document conversion anyhow. However, I like to have flexibility with content so that one can easily repurpose their blog content easily.

As we write lots of content over time we should want the ability to export that content to common file formats for both repurposing and backup/retrieval. Having content and articles locked in a proprietary format that only Zoundry can read is a no-no. A straight export and save to a common file format is a must have for this software.

No Spell Check!

What?! No spell check or grammar tools? C’mon folks…let not skimp here. No writing tool should be creating without editing features like spell checking and/or grammar checking. The brilliant design of this tool is severly undermined by this and one wonders if this is just a means to their end of getting people to use their affiliate master services.

This is quite perplexing to me since on the other hand it seems that Zoundry was truly designed with the blog publisher in mind. How could they have missed this??? This has to be more than just an interface to a cooperative revenue service for Zoundry. In order for Zoundry Blog Writer to be truly effective it needs to go a few steps further. It is a very strong entry into the realm of blog writer software but my desire is to see this tool go the distance as a full featured blog writing and editing tool. No spell check means it is not a fully featured editor.

Summary

Zoundry Blog Writer is a software tool as a service offering. It services as a standard blog writing software tool with support for some of the most important features to blog publishers such as mutli-blog management, trackback support and discovery, remote post management, and WYSIWYG editing and publishing.

As a service Zoundry offers integrated product search and affiliate link creation, that allows you or your favorite charity to profit from your blog publishing efforts. You can very easily leverage this blog software and affiliate service to your advantage if product reviews and marketing are a influential part of your blogging profile.

Overall this this tool is very cool. If you can deal with having to be perfect as you type this tool works well. Very well. If you have a habit of composing content in a different editor like MS Word and them pasting into a blog software publishing tool, then this tool will well for you as well. However, if you are like me and you want to commit to a tool that will fulfill is purpose all-around then this tool may not be for you. The affiliate master service isn’t required but can be a plus if you are okay with their cut of revenue stream you will generate. I rate this tool (*** / *****) 3 out of 5 stars.

BlogHarbor users can go here for easy setup and configuration options: http://forums.blogharbor.com/viewtopic.php?p=3566#3566. BlogHarbor users should also email BlogHarbo
r support for the details on the Zoundry offer for BlogHarbor users

I’ve also taken a read of the Zoundry Blog for some feel of the roadmap for this software from the publishers themselves. They seem to have a clear vision of Zoundry as a enabler of affiliate marketing for bloggers. A very effective one at that. I hope they don’t lose sight of features and functionality for publishing the blog post and not just the blog profits. If they keep the tool effective as a writing and publishing platform then profits will follow soon enough.

Technorati : Amazon, BlogHarbor, Zoundry, affiliate marketing, blog software