Expired listings data

[Guest]

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[kendallpb]

I'm not sure anyone's still reading this stale thread, but I had a thought:

Like new loans get an artificial popularity boost when first posted, expiring ones should, too, in their last day? 12 hours? 6 hours? something.

I like a lot of the other ideas, especially having short basket times during the last few hours of a loan's life on Kiva.  Maybe in the last 1? 3? 6? hours, limit basket time to 10? 15? minutes.  It doesn't take long to check out, after all.  Requiring login for adding to your basket also seems like a no-brainer.

And of course, I'm still hoping for a highlight box for transportation and another for late loans, on the main Lend page, like there are boxes for agriculture, housing, and groups.  Just rotate the various boxes.

Thanks!

[alan]

The LLL team gives expiring loans an artificial popularity boost. Mostly it works. 

[kendallpb]

LOL!  Yes, I'm in LLL.  I feel mostly we genuinely raise popularity(by making loans.    I mean, hey, if it's popular with us -- for whatever reason -- then that counts as much as someone loaning to the first loan they see, no?  Perhaps more so, IMHO....

Anyway, it just seems more fair to me to bracket the stacking going on in the mysterious popularity algorithm on both ends, not just on the front end.  It's a weird idea, perhaps.

[hjs]

The LLL team gives expiring loans an artificial popularity boost. Mostly it works. 

Yes that's true Alan, but it costs team members credits to do that, and sometimes extra money that hadn't been budgeted for.

It would be really great if Kiva gave us a bit more of a helping hand getting these loans more visibility.     

[JohnAtKiva]

It would be really great if Kiva gave us a bit more of a helping hand getting these loans more visibility.    

Hey Helen!  Just want to make it clear that we've definitely been trying to lend a helping hand. :-)

We dedicated an entire email in May 2011 to Men on Kiva...  including a prominent section featuring the LLL team!

Late Loaning Lenders

For those folks who are especially committed to funding loans approaching expiration, there's a Late Loaning Lenders team! This team does an enormous service to the Kiva community, making sure that all loans requests are matched with lenders. If you're interested in becoming one of this elite group of lenders, check out their team and join today.

We've also been working to promote the Expiring Soon pretty regularly over Twitter:
http://twitter.com/Kiva/status/106508610070249472

I really love the LLL team, and admire the amazing work the team has done...  hopefully we've been able to support the team a bit over the past year?  Let me know how we're doing...

John

[hjs]

Hey Helen!  Just want to make it clear that we've definitely been trying to lend a helping hand. :-)
We dedicated an entire email in May 2011 to Men on Kiva...  including a prominent section featuring the LLL team!

That's great John, however I'd hazard a guess that something permanent on the Lend page (as others have been suggesting), such as a rotation in the top banner spots and weighting these red lons to appear more often on the front default page, would have a much greater effect.         Is Kiva unhappy about doing this?

Hey, I wasn't even a member when that email came out in May.  Many folk don't read those sort of emails.  Many folk aren't on twitter.  There were 3631 new members this week alone, so that's a very, very large number of new members since the email three months ago.  etc etc...

Something visible on the page where people are there looking at the loans would be really wonderful.        

[JohnAtKiva]

That's great John, however I'd hazard a guess that something permanent on the Lend page (as others have been suggesting), such as a rotation in the top banner spots and weighting these red lons to appear more often on the front default page, would have a much greater effect.         Is Kiva unhappy about doing this?

A number of those top banner slots are for loans that previously did previously expire quite often!  Housing loans are one example:
http://www.kiva.org/lend

I've posted about this previously, but those slots aren't really dynamic... so changing them isn't something that's currently easy to do.  So we can't just plug in a quick promotion for Expiring Loans when there are red loans coming up...  I'd love to be able to do just that though.  Hopefully we can get to that point some day...  in the meantime, just wanted to point out that we've tried to do a whole lot to promote expiring loans as of late!

[alan]

Just to give credit where credit is due, I think Kiva has been a whole lot more aware of and responsive to the situation of loans at risk of expiry over the last year. And your e-mail and twitter work yesterday has helped a huge amount, John. 

[carien]

 


  and this one is for charlie

[JohnAtKiva]

Just to give credit where credit is due, I think Kiva has been a whole lot more aware of and responsive to the situation of loans at risk of expiry over the last year.

Thanks, Alan!  That means a lot...

And your e-mail and twitter work yesterday has helped a huge amount, John. 

Hat tip there to the rest of the Marketing team for both of those... they do all the heavy lifting around here.  I just hang out on KivaFriends haha.