Weekend musings

kitthello

Posted on April 22nd, 2006 at 11:33 am

I’ve been watching zopa for a long time. Quite disappointed that zopa fall behind prosper as you can see
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=medium&y=r&url=www.prosper.com#top
That’s might because prosper .com give much space for users to choose for themselves while zopa is much stricted. This reminds me of microsoft and apple, or youtube vs. metacafe. Those who are more open generally laughs last and best. so zopa please be more open and user friendly.

Dave

Posted on April 22nd, 2006 at 11:36 am

Don’t worry - we’re on it.

As for Prosper’s growth - don’t forget they’re in a country 5 times larger than the UK…

Ed

Posted on April 23rd, 2006 at 1:50 pm

I love the blog.

My votes:
- More “human interest” stories. Examples of what people are doing with their loans or why they chose to lend via zopa.

- More discussion of features/changes to the model. It’s great to think that there’s a financial organization in Britian that proactively listens to its customers.

- More meta data (how many lenders/borrowers, where, break down by demographics, etc). Very fascinating stuff. I can understand you (or more likely your investors) might be hesitant to publish this information, but I appreciate that you seem to try to do your best.

warm regards,
Ed

Dave

Posted on April 24th, 2006 at 3:15 pm

Thanks Ed - good input.

So you’d like to see more about members - both at an individual level, and collectively. Do you like the newsletter, which has some of that? (I’m thinking that the newsletter could possibly become, in part, a summary of pervious blog entries.)

Do you think it works to ‘announce’ new stuff / new ideas here, and then follow up the discussion on the discussion boards? Or would it be better to keep it all in one place?

Tom

Posted on April 24th, 2006 at 3:40 pm

Firstly, I should declare my bias - I write the monthly ‘This Month at Zopa’.

With that out in the open, here are my thoughts for newsletter/blog/discussion board content:

- Newsletter - human interest stories about individ members
- Blog - musings from various staff members, as well as announcements about potential new developments. From Zopa.
- Discussion board - all threads to be started by members, with Zopa team only ever responding to conversations rather then initiating them. From members.

Not particularly in-depth thoughts, but they’re my starters for 10. And I’m sure people will disagree with me.

PS any members with good Zopa stories, please email me at tom@zopa.com

Mailan

Posted on April 24th, 2006 at 4:11 pm

I agree with Tom, although I would suggest that discussion threads could be started by Zopa team if a heated debate is envisaged. The format of the discussion board is more conducive to that type of post.
The blog should be more of a newsy platform where the Zopa team describe what’s been going on, stuff coming up, office gossip etc.
It would be useful and fun to hear about marketing campaigns, tradeshows, PR stunts, news coverage - all the kinds of things that give us the nice warm feeling that you’re growing upwards and onwards.
I’m glad you started this debate - the lines between blog and forum are getting too blurred and confusing.

Megan

Posted on April 25th, 2006 at 8:29 am

I suppose my opinion technically does not count, but I want to share anyway (thanks for the motivation Tom!). I’ll give my perspective of what I like and hate seeing on other company blog’s, as well as what I was eager to see on Zopa’s blog before I joined the team:

1. PICTURES! Pictures, pictures and more pictures. I read blog’s because I want to learn something about the team. I want to be part of the experience. Pictures help bridge the gap. One blog that does a good job with pictures (although a little heavy on site updates) is meebo.com. Corporate blogs that focus only on selling the company put me to sleep! Zzzzzz. It’s not fun!

2. LESSONS! I like company blog’s that walk me through the story of how the venture got started. One of the most interesting things is hearing lessons other entrepreneurs have learned. That’s what I focus my blog on – helping other entrepreneurs learn what not to do by sharing my mistakes and success. See kiva.org’s blog for an example.

3. CUSTOMERS: Agree with Ed on the human interest stories. I love Tom’s newsletter, so there will need to be differentiation but I think someone who is not yet a customer might just turn to the blog to learn about the company first (the news letter won’t come until a later point in time). What a better way to learn than through the experiences of Zopa’s own users!

I’m sure I could go on here, but I’ll close with one point – I think the blog should not be limited to one core focus area. Rather, it should be pieces of everything. A way for new people to become engaged, current customers to identify with the team (and be included in the company’s creation), and for users to get up dates on critical issues (but not the boring- Zzzzzz – type). It’s a way to point people in different directions – to the newsletter, to the discussion board, to the world around them and to the team. I think we’ve almost got the blog spot on – just add some more pictures, a few lessons and customers every so often and you have two thumbs up from me.

Daniel

Posted on April 26th, 2006 at 3:43 pm

For what it’s worth, here’s my tuppence worth.

News items and announcements relating to the zopa service, changes to terms and conditions and other items which affect customers should be placed on a “news” page on the main site, preferably with an RSS feed. If you can’t put an RSS feed on the news page, then put all news items as an article on the blog as well, even if it’s just a pointer back to the news page, so that people using RSS don’t miss out on anything important (can you tell I’m an RSS fan?)

The blog should be used as a place for Zopa staff to talk about whatever they want, whether it is Zopa related or not. Think of it as like a virtual coffee lounge. I think that staff should be given some freedom of expression here, and you should to make it clear that opinions expressed on the blog are those of the individual author, not necessarily those of Zopa. You can also have guest authors on the blog, and invite customers to talk about their experiences with Zopa.

The Forum should be used for asking questions and getting feedback. If you want to ask your customers an important question, such as “when should we put the fees up?”, ask it on the forum and also put an article on the news page telling people about the forum post.

You could always go the whole hog and set up a wiki as well

Dan

Megan

Posted on April 26th, 2006 at 4:34 pm

I like Daniel’s idea about the blog being a “coffee lounge”! I second that one. Also agree that the forum should be the main Q&A place.

Chris

Posted on April 27th, 2006 at 10:01 am

Two sugars please.

Dave

Posted on April 27th, 2006 at 10:12 am

I think that that discussion boards are more of a coffee lounge than the blog - it’s a more chatty place, you can see who else is online, you can private message people etc.

I love the idea of giving members blog ID’s to write on the Zopa blog…would anyone be interested?

Very happy to think about a wiki - if someone can suggest what we’d use it for?

Daniel

Posted on April 27th, 2006 at 1:56 pm

You could use a wiki as an online user’s guide - which can be written initially by zopa staff but updated and tweaked by zopa members. Perhaps best to wait until Justin’s designed all the new screens first though. It could contain, off the top of my head, an article about the best strategy for choosing interest rates.

Of course the advantage of a wiki is that anyone can edit it, so if someone thinks that an article isn’t clear enough, they can simply log on and change it. You’d have to restrict edits to registered members I think, otherwise you could have a free-for-all. The beauty of a wiki is that you could just set it up with a basic set of “how-to” articles and the members can take it from there. It’ll grow on its own.

When I mentioned the “coffee lounge” idea for the blog I was thinking more of a coffee lounge for the staff to talk about whatever is on their minds, and the forums being more for interacting with zopa members.

Megan

Posted on April 27th, 2006 at 5:10 pm

Sorry - by coffee lounge i was thinking authors are sitting in big brown chairs, shoes off, feet up and, generally, free spirited – in other words, not presenting a corporate voice. But I do think blog entries should (or sometimes should) invoke comments - some people really love reading them, and adding to the discussion. It’s a great way to engage people.

As a side note, with the exception of Zopa, I never touch discussion boards – greatly dislike them because it’s just so hard for me to find what I need and the layout always leaves me feeling frustrated. Further, if I want to track a discussion it can be such a challenge to find it if I come back later. I’d prefer a less cluttered and friendlier place to talk around something focused. And blogs are that great alternative for people like me.

Thus, I think it’s perfectly fine for blog entries to generate chat/discussions – in fact I think it’s great. I imagine a lot of people would like to engage in them but don’t have the patience for discussion boards – it’s a lot of effort to use them.

philipg27

Posted on April 27th, 2006 at 9:10 pm

So my tuppence,

I think you should drop the blog. OK I know you are not going to like me for suggesting this, but at the moment the communication paths are far too confused. The blog contains some important stuff (like website changes, website downtime info, clarification on the 2% bonus etc.). This should be EASILY available to all members, and I’m assuming not all 57,000 odd members get as far as the blog. (I think you should assume that most members will only read the website and zopa should make sure they are fully informed via that site only).

I find the Discussion Boards a really useful place to contact Zopa (and try and improve the product - honest guv..). It should be the place where zopa and their members interact - like the thread Justin has put up on improvements to the Lending website. It’s also the place for constructive criticism of zopa)

If you really can’t wean yourselves off a blog then it should be a place for zopas to put in their own personal thoughts. I don’t find the format useful for discussion. Zopa stories etc should be via the newsletter, with archives up on the main site.

HTH,
PhilG

PS. I like the idea of a wiki - I almost suggested an FAQ for the lenders since I’ve seen quite a few basic questions come up on the discussion board that could be quite simply answered by an FAQ, or even better (and far more trendy) a wiki.

PPS. Megan - if you don’t like the format of the discussion board then a newsgroup provides better threading, but that would be getting silly…

Megan

Posted on April 28th, 2006 at 6:21 am

hmm… I think one of my biggest problems with discussion boards (as a community member who has a problem and is looking for an answer) is that it’s often so hard to find it. I suppose search functionality helps a little - but even with limited results it’s still a time consuming process to find the answer you need (if it’s even there).

So, I’m not sure a newsgroup would be the solution, but I do think a Zopa Wikipedia (as in a Wikipedia.org for Zopa) would be the perfect solution. I’m assuming Wikipedia is an example of a wiki - if so, I agree with all those who are in favor of a wiki.

Having said that, I don’t think we should throw out the discussion board in favor of a Zopa Wikipedia. I think these are two completely different user experiences. If both were in place, I would go to Wikipedia because I want an answer to something NOW and not a discussion (per say), and I guess I would go to a discussion board because I have a question/concern and I want to hear others thoughts on the issue. But, there is a lot of cross over.

~ Megan

Daniel

Posted on April 28th, 2006 at 9:57 am

There is a lot of crossover between the different media (blog, discussion board, wiki) and that’s what’s causing the confusion, however you do have a valid point about (not) being able to find information on discussion boards later on. And indeed wikipedia.org is a fine example of a wiki - in fact the software that runs wikipedia is open source and freely avaliable, so Zopa’s wiki could look and work exactly the same as wikipedia!

Ideas mentioned on the discussion board and in the blog could also lead to wiki articles, think of the wiki as a “knowledge base” where information, tips, tricks, tutorials etc can be easily found. And since the pages on a wiki can be edited at any time, it can be kept up to date easily when information changes.

But yes, the internet is rapidly becoming more and more complex and just like Windows, there’s about six different ways of doing exactly the same thing, end exeryone will have their own opinions about which way is the “best”.

Daniel

Dave

Posted on April 28th, 2006 at 12:40 pm

Interesting - yes, there is a huge cross over…and I guess what I’m trying to do is pull things apart.

Although my geeky side loves the idea of a Zopa wiki, I’m slightly reluctant to offer another community space without being really clear of the benefits. One interesting option might be to take our existing FAQ’s and turn them into a Wiki - and allow Zopa members to edit them. This has the benefit of not replicating existing content, and also provide a strong intial base of information. (Incidentally, Wikipedia started from an existing online encyclopedia - I think having a kernal of pages to start with helps a lot in the early days.)

Alternatively, when there are particularly strong posts on the discussion boards (e.g. if someone wanted to write a lending guide….which we could potentially pay for) it can be made ’sticky’ and will remain at the top of the forums for people to find easily.

Megan

Posted on May 3rd, 2006 at 4:28 am

Yes yes!! Great idea! I’m excited. Throw out the FAQ and replace it with a wiki. I’m not a fan of the FAQ because it’s so gosh darn hard to read and squeezed into a little small space. More importantly, it does not address all the possible questions people could have…. And Zopa members keep coming up with better and better ones every day. Plus, what a great place to throw new hires – “go dig around on the wiki. Tell me what you learn.” (Okay – just teasing).

I do agree with Dave that another community space would be too much and, thus, if we were to introduce a wiki it would have to be in place of something else.

Plus, as Daniel pointed out, our community would help maintain it. I think someone from the Zopa team would still need to review and make modifications on occasion.

Re: the lending guide: I like the wiki better. Wikis will allow expansion into areas Zopa could not think of - they are fun, creative and an exploration with focused results. A lending guide, while useful, sounds like one of those good night stories. Then again, I’m not able to lend on Zopa yet as I’m a US citizen so it might be roller coaster ride for others with money in the game.

I would imagine a lending guide is little too heavy for those who are just starting out though. So Wiki all the way!

~ Megan

beezhouse.com

Posted on May 5th, 2006 at 2:55 am

Banks are too expensive!

How often have you wondered why banks make soooo much money? I certainly have.
Record profits every year.
“HSBC has unveiled the biggest profits ever by a UK High Street bank, making a pre-tax profit of £11.5bn($20.97bn) in 2005, aided by growth…

Zopa » Blog Archive » DIY Zopa!

Posted on July 26th, 2006 at 5:23 pm

[…] A little while ago I wrote a post that talked about what the blog and discussion board were for. In the comments to that post, we got talking about a Zopa wiki. (Wikipedia link on wiki’s) […]