Citizenship

We don't mean flying the flag, either. We mean taking an interest in, and a sense of responsibility for, your community (however you define it). We're trying to do that, in a very small way, through social finance. We love to hear from members who are doing something like this--either using Zopa or not. If you are, drop us a line. We'd love to blog about it.

Mar 24 2008

Changes Comin’ to Profiles

Posted by wade at 9:34 am

We’re a little obsessed here with making things better, and we have some ideas about how to tune up profiles. The mock below (click to blow it up) highlights with a blue arrow a set of changes we’d like to make on profiles.

A new text section that’s limited to something like 15 words. This section would take text only and it’s what we’d show in list view for your profile all around the site–i.e., search results pages, featured borrowers section on home page, etc. (Right now, it’s hard to edit that). We’ve been calling this section “The Blurb”. If you can think of a better name, let us know! We’re stumped.
A Help Me Now badge that shows help received and how far along you are toward getting your entire monthly payment supported by Help from other people.
Expanded financial info about your loan (if you have one) in the About Me section. This info can be hidden if you like by editing your account settings. This info also includes a new idea we call Net Rate, which is the effective interest rate of a loan that reflects any Help you’re receiving. It’s closer to the true cost of borrowing than the just the stated rate on your loan. Note, we’re not making corresponding changes for investors.
More info about your connections. We show who’s helping you, who you’re helping, and how much.
New urls for your profiles. We’ll be giving everybody easier urls to use for their profiles, urls that are based on your screenname.

What do you think?

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 9:34 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 comments

Sommer C.

Posted on March 25th, 2008 at 9:20 pm

Looks great to me! In addition to the new profiles, it would be really nice to be able to search profiles — unless there is an I have missed it somewhere.

WhizKidz

Posted on March 27th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

I think the new ideas are great. I especially like the new URL’s. Can the Help Me Now badge and the info about your connections be hidden? I guess I think that is great info for people to have, but I don’t necessarily want to share it with others. I don’t think it is anyone else’s business what I give to people or what people give to me.

Luke

Posted on April 24th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

Hi guys, sorry for the delay in this response — we’ve been pretty busy updating the site!

Sommer C — you can search profiles now, right from the home page. Currently the search only works for borrowers (not investors or members who haven’t transacted), but we hope to expand the search to include them too.

WhizKidz — great suggestions. You can hide the amounts you are receiving from other people (or giving to them) by changing your “Viewing Options” so that you do not show the $ Amounts of your transactions in your profile. To do that, sign in and click the “My Account” link. You’ll find the setting on that page, in the “Viewing Options” section.

You can also remove the “Help Me Now” badge from your profile by choosing not to show your profile in Search Results. This setting can also be changed in the “Viewing Options” section of the My Account page. (word to the wise: if you turn this setting off, your profile won’t be displayed in search results or featured borrower pages).

Thanks for the great suggestions, and let us know what you think of the new site!

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