When we started building our application for Facebook it seemed like “Homebook” was the perfect name. The math was simple:
Facebook + your home = Homebook.
But all along, it was our plan to have a parallel portal at MyFrontSteps.com. And after a couple months we realized that, rather than having a Facebook app called Homebook and a standalone app called MyFrontSteps that did pretty much (but not exactly) the same thing, it would be much easier if we had a single application called MyFrontSteps that you could access from either location.
(That’s why, for example, if you go to MyFrontSteps.com and log in, you’ll see that the pages are very narrow, with a lot of seemingly wasted white space on either side of the screen. Why don’t we make better use of screen real estate? …Because by keeping the pages narrow we only have to design them once; the pages we build for MyFrontSteps will also fit into the Facebook frame. This allows us to concentrate on improving functionality, rather than waste time designing the same page twice.)
Anyway, we were getting exhausted explaining to people that Homebook was exactly the same thing as MyFrontSteps, only you accessed it through your Facebook account. Finally we gave up.
As of today, Homebook is no more.
You can sign up for MyFrontSteps at MyFrontSteps.com, or you can go to Facebook and install the MyFrontSteps app.
God, that’s like a million times easier.
Oh yeah, I should mention that there’s a little tour now, courtesy of our graphic designer Marie-Louise, that explains how MyFrontSteps lets you find and share trusted services and get paid to do it. If you still don’t understand what we’re up to, the tour will make it clear.
PS. We still own the rights to the name “Homebook”, so maybe we’ll use it for some other Facebook application down the line. Let us know if you have any ideas.
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