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?
No-one’s reading this blog yet, because it isn’t linked to from anywhere in the outside world. But when we do start promoting it, and people do start dropping by, it’ll be nice if there’s something here for them to read…or at least some links for them to follow.
With that in mind, I invite you to hop over to the StepRep Blog, where I describe how our new application Homebook fits into the MyFrontSteps community.
So this is the MyFrontSteps Blog. Not a lot to see around here just yet. We’ve been a little busy putting the site together. Once all the pieces are in place, we should have plenty to blog about.
Let me tell you what the MyFrontSteps community is about. First off, it’s a social network for homeowners (and renters are welcome too) – a place for you and your friends to talk about, brag about, and kvetch about your homes. As we get launched, MyFrontSteps will mostly be a new way to organize and share photos of your home. In the near future we’ll be adding tools to allow you to search other people’s photos by category and location. Want to see all the saunas in Sacramento, all the toolsheds in Toronto? It’s a handy way to get ideas for your next renovation. And we’ve got other features that we’ll be bringing to the site in the following months, to help get people talking about their homes.
MyFrontSteps is also a place to shop for home services. Unlike other service directories, the StepRep Directory (which is built right into MyFrontSteps) organizes businesses according to who you and your friends trust. Anonymous ratings and comments are handy, but wouldn’t it be handier if you could find out which lawyer your boss recommends, or which housepainters your friends have used in the past?
If you’re a small business owner or independent contractor, you should shoot right over to StepRep and sign up for the free online reputation monitoring tool (which will also add you to the directory). If you’re a homeowner, I’m afraid there’s not much for you to do around here right now. But just hold on. Give us a few more weeks and we’ll knock your socks off.
