On the Spokesmonster blog a while back I shared some thoughts on health care reform. These were slightly less off-topic than you might expect.
Also on the Spokesmonster blog we had some cartoon fun with the Windows 7 launch parties (left).
And over on the StepRep blog, I explained how we’re going to make a buck off this whole finding-and-sharing-trusted-local-services thing.
Back when the MyFrontSteps Facebook app was known as “Homebook”, we spent a whole week trying to convince all our friends to sign up and start using it.
In a promotional campaign we dubbed “Project Virus”, every day we’d spend some time using the app, tweeting about the app, linking to the app from our Facebook status updates, telephoning long-lost friends to encourage them to install the app, and so on. Then at the end of each day we’d look expectantly at our site statistics for signs of growth. The numbers crept steadily upward for a while, then reached a plateau. Then the week ended.
That was months ago. Since then we’ve made so many changes to the app – starting with the name – that it might as well be an entirely different product.
We’ve switched to Plan B, you see. Plan A was based on the idea that we had to use a sort of misdirection to get people to use our software. What I mean is, we thought that if we gave folks a forum to natter about their houses and upload photos of their home improvement projects, they would flock to MyFrontSteps, and later on we would add in all the stuff about finding and sharing trusted local experts.
But the nattering and photo-uploading features were only circumstantially related to what MyFrontSteps is really all about. And, well, umm, people didn’t use them. Hence, Plan B.
Plan B is to put the benefits of MyFrontSteps right up front. So what are the benefits?
We’re just getting started, so a lot of the experts haven’t set their rewards yet. So far most of the action on the site revolves around asking and answering questions. That’s cool, though. As people build up their trust networks and figure out how the rewards work, those features will start taking off.
In the meantime – have you got a question? Wondering how to fix a gasket, or how to mount a widget, or where to buy a doodad? Need to hire someone to haul away your trash or buff your bow-tie? Wouldn’t you like to put your question in front of all your friends and a bunch of local experts?
Maybe it’s time to take another look at MyFrontSteps.
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.
This weekend I found myself in a bar here in Saskatoon with an old friend of mine – I’ll call her “J” – who told me she still hadn’t signed up for MyFrontSteps.
“I don’t understand what it’s for,” she complained.
“That’s my fault,” I said. “I’ve been at this job for almost a year and I still haven’t figured out how to explain it to people.”
“So explain it again,” she said.
“Alright,” I said.* “Let’s say you’re someone who provides a service, like, say…um…”
“I install insulation,” she offered.
“Sure, you’re an insulation installer. Now, as it happens, I’m looking for someone to insulate my attic. So what do I do?”
“You call me up and you say, ‘Hey, come insulate my attic.’”
“Okay, but in this alternate reality where you’re a professional insulation installer, we don’t know each other.”
“Huh. This alternate reality is sounding better all the time.”
“So what do I do? First I probably look in the yellow pages. But I can’t tell from the ads who’s reliable and who isn’t. So then I call up a couple friends and ask if they know anyone. But no-one does. So now what do I do?”
“You give up?”
“Well, in the old days, I would have. But now, I go to MyFrontSteps. I look under home renovations in Saskatoon and right there at the top of the list it says” – I pointed across the table at our friend K, who was absorbed in a separate conversation with her husband – “it says K trusts you.”
“She trusts me?”
“Why shouldn’t she? Aren’t you a good insulation installer?”
“I’m the best insulation installer.”
“So based on K’s recommendation, I call you up and we make a deal and you come over and you insulate my attic.”
“Good for me!”
“And good for me, because you’ve set your advertising fee at 5% of the total price.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m getting to it. So after I pay you I go to MyFrontSteps again to claim my rebate. You pay back 5% of what I paid you. Let’s say that works out to twenty bucks. That twenty bucks gets split right down the middle. I get half – and K gets half for recommending you.”
“Good for you, and good for K, but what do I get out of it?”
“Well, you got a new customer – me – and you’ve given K an incentive to keep on recommending you to her friends. And instead of throwing your advertising dollars down a deep dark well where you can never be sure you’re getting any benefit, you only pay the advertising fee after you’ve made the sale.”
“So it’s good for all three of us. But what does MyFrontSteps get out of it? How do you stay in business?”
“We take a 10% cut of the advertising fee. So it’s actually a 45-45-10 split – in this case I get nine bucks, K gets nine bucks, and MyFrontSteps gets two.”
“Huh.” J leaned back and took a sip of her beer. “I think I get it now.”
“Sure…and all I had to do was sit here in a bar and explain it to you in person. If I could just do that for everybody in North America, we’d be in business!”
–
* Note: Conversation has been altered slightly for dramatic and/or promotional purposes.
As you may have noticed, we’ve got a vision for MyFrontSteps that’s pretty big. We went into it a little in this video.
Over on the StepRep Blog there’s a new post and video laying out the vision from the service provider’s point of view. In essence, we’re attempting nothing less than to change the way businesses advertise.
But you should read it for yourself.
What will this mean from a consumer’s point of view?
Starting in a month or two, MyFrontSteps users will be able to help their friends connect with local experts…and get paid to do it.
Essentially, we’ll be asking our experts – service providers in your hometown – to give their advertising dollars directly to you, the consumer.
Right now, what do you do when you’re looking for (say) a real estate agent? You ask all your friends, “Who do you recommend?”
Soon, that real estate agent will be able to set an advertising fee that gets split between you and the customer who referred you.
Everyone benefits. You find a real estate agent. You save a little money on the deal and your friend makes a few bucks for helping you out. And the real estate agent – instead of paying upfront for an ad that may or may not bring in any new customers – only pays after the transaction has been completed.
Win-win-win!
Since I’m not the guy who came up with the idea, I can say without danger of appearing immodest that it’s pretty freaking brilliant.
Anyway, that’s what we’re up to. We’ll be talking about it more in coming weeks.
Have you visited the MyFrontSteps homepage lately?
No? Well, why would you? Up until last week, there wasn’t a heck of a lot you could do there. It was just a landing page that shooed you off to some other location: StepRep if you wanted to use StepRep, Facebook if you wanted to try our Homebook application.
Now, finally, MyFrontSteps.com is starting to come into its own. Right there on the main page you can see:
Of course once you sign in – which is a breeze using your existing Facebook or Google credentials – the index will display experts from your hometown, with the experts you and your friends trust right at the top.
But there’s no point babbling about it. Much easier if I just send you over there to look for yourself.
The handy thing about signing in with your Facebook account is that if any of your Facebook friends are using MyFrontSteps or Homebook, you’ll be able to see which experts they trust, and they’ll be able to see who you trust.
If you’re already using our Facebook app Homebook, you’ll notice that MyFrontSteps.com and Homebook have been integrated – the features are the same and you can access your account from either location…if you’re so inclined.
What if you could use MyFrontSteps to find and share trusted services…and get paid to do it? Wouldn’t that be spiffy?
Stay tuned.
What is MyFrontSteps all about?
A) Connecting homeowners with local experts that their friends trust and recommend.
B) Jazz music and funny violence.
C) All of the above.
Watch for a cameo by our CEO Brendan King, and non-speaking appearances by several other MyFrontSteps personalities.
PS. If you missed the earlier Spokesmonster cartoons, you can find them all over on the Spokesmonster blog.
PPS. No, seriously, What is MyFrontSteps all about?
The MyFrontSteps community is all about connecting home owners with local home experts, and StepRep is where the experts hang out. You can read about the latest changes to our trusty reputation monitoring service over on the StepRep Blog.
Brendan, Allan, and Jeff were down at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last month, and they wandered around with Allan’s new videocamera asking people, “What have you done to make your house a home?” They brought me back the footage and said, “Here, make some promotional videos.” But, being a glutton for work, I thought instead I would make some promotional cartoons.
Here’s Vanessa Fox talking about reclaiming her home office space:
Robert Scoble talks about guys and their toy rooms:
This is Alice Myerhoff of Inman News, bein’ organic and what-not:
Jennifer Pahlka, general manager of the Web 2.0 Expo, spends all of her money and all of her time on her house:
PS. Some of our visitors might be wondering, What the heck is MyFrontSteps?
We introduced our Facebook application Homebook into the wild over a month ago now. But it’s been skulking in the trees, out of sight, and returning to the lab every night for our mad scientists to inject it with nanobots and graft microchips to its skull. Until now we weren’t sure it was strong enough to survive on its own. But we believe this latest round of surgery has done it: Homebook is finally ready to leave the nest.
Homebook lets you upload photos to create a little tour of your house. It also connects you with local home service providers and lets you pose questions and request quotes – anonymously, if you want. Down the line, when you’re looking for a carpenter or a plumber or whatever, instead of thumbing aimlessly through the yellow pages you’ll just log into Homebook and find out who your friends recommend.
The whole point is to connect homeowners with home service providers. But we want Homebook to be a fun experience on its own, even when you’re not looking for somebody to regrout your bathroom tiles. Snapping photos of your rec room may or may not be fun for you. But looking at photos of other people’s rec rooms is usually enlightening. And as the app spreads, and more photos get uploaded, we’ll make it possible to browse not just your friend’s photos, but random (anonymous) photos from your town and around the world. That’ll be fun. It’s coming.
There’s a lot more I could talk about, but it’s easier if you simply try it yourself. Homebook is just learning to fly. Why not grab a handful of fur and enjoy the ride?
