Comments on: An exclusive Q&A with Zinch.com’s Mick Hagen

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 08:35:25 +0000

I think it’s funny that zinch posts such ridiculous comments on its own blogs. Are they serious?

blogs.zinch.com

By: Jorge

Jorge — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:53:34 +0000

All I’ve got to say is Zich sucks!!! They promise a million things and don’t give you anything back. I’ve been signed up with Zinch for a while now and have not heard anything back from any schools. I have pretty good SATs and good grades. I was really counting on Zinch to help me out the way they said they would. Screw them!!

By: Anon Admissions Person

Anon Admissions Person — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:30:02 +0000

As someone with extensive past experience selling products into admissions offices (mainly application platforms/software/data management tools), I find it hard to believe they will use this. Colleges have systems designed to handle applications and follow leads themselves.

The only way Zinch will be able to monetize is to sell studets’ personal information to colleges and most selective colleges still believe that the SAT/ACT score is an important factor along with high school grades, etc. in admissions.

The entire site is a little heavy on slang terms that will preclude it from being used by any serious admissions officer.

By: Arjay

Arjay — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 20:06:17 +0000

I think Zinch has an interesting concept but I don’t see why any admissions officer will use it. Also, monetizing this is going to be really hard. They have a very difficult chicken-and-egg problem to figure out:

1. Students
2. College admissions officers

There is no value to either unless there are a lot of the other. The student part might be something they can solve by the scholarships they offer, but at the end of the day, it’s not a social network because you don’t really have a reason to use Zinch for any period longer than a few months per year. Therefore, the student growth will be limited.

Furthermore, the college admissions officers are already deluged and already do enough marketing. The decisions are already “arbitrary” to some – why would they make it more arbitrary by using things like Zinch?

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:25:38 +0000

I have to agree with Jeff’s comment on the likelihood of admissions officers having the time to go through and examine the profiles of “shout outs”, particularly the multimedia collections. While it’s a nice thought that admissions officers would want to really “get to know” the student interested in their school, it’s just not practical. It seems far more likely that any “shout outs” to a college/university will simply be added to a prospective student list to receive the same mailings anyone else inquiring about the school would get. The exception might be a very high-achieving student who shouts out to a school with a lower academic profile – in that case, the school might actually make an active attempt to personally recruit the “prize student” to their institution.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:25:22 +0000

I agree with Andres – seems to me like Zinch is recruiting bloggers to write for them. These questions are so loaded it seems like the dude could have (probably did) written them himself. Give me a break.

I was just at the site, and it’s lame. Looks like they copied facebook with different colors, and then translated the whole thing on urban dictionary.

Just reading this interview, Mick seems like another greedy, dishonest, arrogant Ivy-league moron. “Inspired?” Yeah, by dollar signs.

One problem this genius seems to have overlooked – if colleges are hard pressed as it is to read through tens of thousands of applications, why on earth would they want to listen/watch every student’s multimedia collection?

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:15:13 +0000

it’s funny that “James” knows so much about the whole Zinch-Zandigo thing… intimate knowledge, in fact. Couldn’t be Mick or one of his associates, could it?

I guess not everyone can be as “sweet diggity-dogg” as Mick. Thankfully.

By: Shashwat

Shashwat — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:59:28 +0000

Mick’s cool.

By: James

James — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:34:28 +0000

What happened was that Mick (Zinch) and Jeremy (Zandigo) were originally working together….then decided to go different directions with the idea.

Doesn’t matter anyway. Zinch is dominating. According to their blog, they already have over 30,000 students. That’s pretty tight for only being live a little over a month. Zandigo hasn’t even launched yet. By the time Zandigo goes live, Zinch will already have smoked them.

By: Andres

Andres — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 02:21:47 +0000

Zandigo and Zinch are the same thing – same slogan, both claim to have won the Princeton Business Plan competition. Did the team members just have a huge fight and split up. Seriously, isn’t this like the 10th site trying to do the same thing?

To poster #3 – learn how to spell. It’s “rumor”.

To Zinch founders – stop being sketchy and paying bloggers to write about you

http://agklocke.typepad.com/angela_giles_klocke/2007/04/buzz_zinchcom.html