I should have mentioned that parts of this functionality are in beta. Which basically means it may not work. I will have an update out shortly that helps with some issues.
Let me know how my extension helps you... or better yet post on the forums.
Thanks!
I am constantly checking the merits of a group. There, of course, are some groups that are scamming the system and some that truly benefit the lender through their selection process. I have added an extra button on the listing detail page that shows some interesting stats for the group.
When clicked, this will display info from LendingStats.com... which is updated about once a day. You will get a snapshot of the group's past and current activity. How you use the data is up to you. The link Full Group Info will popup a new window on the LendingStats site... extremely useful site!
Also included in this release is a change to a few of the popups on the listing detail page. I changed the pop-up links for Q&A, prior listings, borrower description, and bid details to look similar to the new group info popup (see below). You can click the close link or anywhere in the body of the popup to have it disappear and then simply click the magic wand to again review the information. Let me know what you think. 
Bidding Details:
Q&A and borrower's description are similar. I will be moving to this form of popup throughout.
Also included are some more speed improvements. The initial load time has been reduced so it should be unnoticable. The Borrower, Hot List and Lender favorites information is now cached until you view a different favorite's list or about 30 minutes expires. If you ever want to force a refresh, simply click on Borrower or Hot List or perform a new Lender search from the Favorites page. This change allows you to be on the favorites list, click on a listing to review, then click on the 'Back to search results' and be instantly presented with the favorites list.
And don't forget about the Next and Previous buttons on the listing detail page. Very handy!
For interesting reading regarding the number of borrowers and lenders on prosper... check this out.
I saw this forum post which stated in part regarding the View Bids screen:
I find that to be a furstrating screen because I don't have an easy way to see
how many "winning" bids I have sorted by the order the bidding closes. It's
mixed in with loans I've won that are bidding verification and loans I've been
outbid on, etc.
If you have not used the Favorites by Lender, you can see a video here. The UI has changed a little but the basics are the same. The main difference is that instead of clicking Watch List you click Favorites.
Currently you cannot sort this list by the bid status... I will add that in a few days. But this is an easy way to see the status of listings that you have bid on. You also control the number of days to search for bids.
This release addresses some issues with Google alerts. If you haven't been using this feature, you really should. It emails reminders 2 hours and 24 hours prior to a listing's end. You do have to have a google email account, but you don't have to use gmail as your primary email. You can forward the email messages to your real email address, which is actually what I do. And if I receive requests to enable the SMS option I will do that. This would send an alert to your cell phone.
For now the default notification method is email. If you click on the Alerts menu item, you will see all of the listings that you have created alerts for. You can click the remove link to remove the alerts. The listing and borrower will stay on your favorites list.
I did not like the 'Please wait' popup... at least on my system, IE would sometimes block the popup. Plus the browswer would become very sluggish when on the favorites list. Both have been addressed. Now you are free to use other tabs at normal speed. And the please wait/complete message now appears to the left of the Lender/Borrower/Hot List menu items.
A few other minor fixes are in here as well. And a couple minor speed improvements.
I first should mention the old watch list by listing has been completely removed... be sure to save your listings to the borrower list by clicking the Add to Favorite List on the listing detail page. There is not an automated conversion for this.
I have improved the sorting functionality on the favorites list for lenders, borrowers and hot list. Now when you change the sorting options on any of the favorite lists it will immediately resort with out re-querying the information. The value in the Sort drop down indicates the current sorting option chosen. If you want to force a re-query simply click on the appropriate link again.
When retrieving the information, a yellow popup is shown indicating that the information is being retrieved. It is suppose to say "Please Wait" but sometimes it is just blank... but when finished it always says "Complete." Simply click anywhere outside of the popup to have it go away. This provides visual feedback when it is actually working.
I also modified the links to show in red which type of favorite list you are looking at. It is very intuitive. And the default is to display the favorite list of borrowers
For the Favorite Hot List I added some extra buckets.... you have 30minutes, 3hours, 12hours, 24hours, and 3days. Also you can display the listings with the most number of bids or the highest amount of bids within those time frames. Also listings that have expired should no longer be displayed. And the sort button fully works on this view.
I also included a few speed improvements and fixes to the borrower note functionality.
And you hopefully noticed the indicator that a new version is available... this check is performed once per day.
Small bug fixes - now on 1.6.0.0
Well the conversion to Borrower centric notes has been completed. Click on the Extension Options menu item. Then click the link 'Convert listings notes to borrower notes'. This will run for a minute depending on the number of notes you have and resave the files to be borrower centric. If you have notes for multiple listings of the same borrower, these notes will be collapsed into a single file.
When you click the 'Archive' button within the Note pop-up it takes a few seconds to populate since it now displays the borrower's screenname. Also double clicking on a borrower name will still navigate to the most recent listing for that borrower.
Just in case, the old notes by listing will be saved to c:\program files\prosper ie ext\notes\bylisting (if running on Windows XP).
The next big change in this release is a Hot List. I have created the ability to watch listings that have received the most bids in the last 30 minutes, 3 hours, and 12 hours. This is by number of bids only. I think in the future I will have by bid amount as well. Click on 'Favorites' then click Hot List. The default is the last 30 minutes.
This information is updated about every 30 minutes. There may be a time window when no data will show for the 30 minute list. And sometimes listings that have just finished are still displayed... I will work to remove them from the list.
Lastly - I improved the auto refresh feature. If you have this feature enabled, you should never timeout, regardless of what page you are viewing. Let me know if you find a case where it does timeout.
Let me know how you like these changes.
As promised the listing's primary image now displays in the favorites list, both for borrowers and lenders.
I have been using Prosper's Watch List over the past week... and it is nice... but it has a few flaws. You cannot watch expired listings, and withdrawn listings just disappear. I assume cancelled listings will disappear as well.
Thanks to DebInVenice's post on the forums... this got me thinking. Having a watch list for listings is useful but it is really not what I desire. I feel it is more important to watch a borrower. The main advantage is when a borrower withdraws and relists, by watching the borrower, the new listing will automatically appear on the favorites list. Also, if a borrower comes back for a second loan you will automatically find this borrower added to your favorite list.
I also will be moving the Notes feature to be borrower centric in the next few days. Again this just makes more sense. My old Favorite Listings will be phased out completely in favor of the borrower favorites list. Soon I will allow you to Hide listings on your Borrower's page. This way you don't have to keep looking at a listing that was withdrawn while you wait for the relist.
Currently listings created within the past 30 days that are associated with a borrower on your favorites list will appear in the list. These listings can be expired, cancelled, withdrawn, completed, active, any state. If your bidding history is still available that will be displayed as well.
So how does it work? From the listing detail page you currently click the 'Save to Favorite List'. No indication occurs at this time and you can click as many times as you want it will not affect anything. Soon I will have an indicator showing the borrower has been added. But once added the borrower's current or most recent listing will appear on the favorite list for borrowers.
Prior to this release the information such as the percent funded was only updated once a day. This has been greatly improved and is only a few hours old at this time... and will get even better soon.
I also moved the Favorites menu item. See this screenshot. Also the options for my extension have been moved to this new 'Extension Options' menu item. (They exist in both places for now but will soon no longer be available from Your Account.) I post more about the options later.
On the borrower's favorite list... if you decide you no longer want to watch the borrower click the Remove button. Remember very soon I will add the Hide functionality to the favorites list as well. And the picture will be added as well.
In general I will be moving features to a borrower centric model over the next few releases, completely phasing out my watch list for listings. Even as I was typing of this blog entry I had a borrower relist... it automatically appeared.
Prosper changed how the marketplace performance page works when you specify a specific group. This affected my Market Analysis link on the listing detail page. I have fixed that so the correct information is once again being displayed.
If you are not taking advantage of the Market Analysis links you really are missing out. They provide an insight into how similar loans have performed. In my opinion invaluable. Now the more useful information is actually found by clicking on Broad, Narrow, Group, or Specific. The magic wand next to these will show the popup info for the ROI... but often that does not contain data. To recap Broad shows similar loans based on loan amount, Narrow adds in if the borrower is a homeowner and if a member of a group. Group shows only the specific group's performance. And Specific shows performance based on loans matching the borrower's credit profile.
I added some more information on my Favorites. I now show the associated group on your favorite lenders listings as well as your favorite borrowers listings. The percent funded is now more accurate.
I am accepting input on whether or not it would be useful to have a favorites by state and favorites by group. Almost trivial to add.. just not sure it would be useful to anyone.
On the Favorite Lenders and Favorite Borrowers I was not showing the funded amount. This is due to the Prosper API not providing this information. I have made a small workaround that for now displays the funded amount as of the morning. So it is more accurate. I will continue to improve the accuracy of this information.
I also recently chanted the Export function. On 'Your Account' click the 'View Loans' link then click the Export button. If you have not tried this function you certainly should... very informative.
The result is an excel spreadsheet that contains all of your loans as well as summary information. I show :
Amount Invested
Average Interest Rate
Best Case Monthly cash flow
Current Monthly cash flow assuming lates default as of this month
Principal Received to date
Interest Received to date
Future Value with no defaults
Future Value assuming all lates default as of this month
Best case ROI
Current ROI assuming all lates default as of this month
If this is your first time visiting, check out the video demonstrations on the right.
I've renamed my Watch List to Favorites. Three menu choices now exist, Listings, Lenders, and Borrowers. I have long had the ability to watch listings. For now I have decided to keep this functionality.
Recently I added the ability to watch lenders. This feature allows you to examine recent bids by specific lenders. Read this post for more details.
Today I am introducing the ability to watch borrowers. You add a borrower to your favorites list. Then when that borrower has an active listing it will automatically appear on your favorites list. On the listing detail page click the link 'Save to Favorite List'. Then navigate to Favorites Borrowers to find out if this borrower has an active listing.
In a future release I will add an icon for the save to favorite list. This watch will follow name changes. Also I will be adding the ability to save lenders in a similar manner.
Please note that for both the lender and borrower favorite list the percent funded for the loan is not accurate. I will be finding a solution for this soon.
Also in this release I am trying an experiment... feedback welcome. I've added a special icon next to most of the features my extension adds. It is a little magic wand for now. You can see it in the above screenshots. I have also tried to add some short help text when you hover over the icon for each feature. The idea was to highlight the features that I've created as well as provide an explanation for what the enhancement is.
So Prosper added a watch list... see my previous blog entry. I have removed my Watch link from the listing detail and search result pages. My Watch List still remains in the menu. I do suggest that you migrate over to Prosper's watch list.
I have added most of my functionality to Prosper's watch list. Such as quick pop-ups for the listing and borrower description, the borrower credit profile, etc. The one missing bit of functionality is the Notes link. I will add that later today... it was harder to add due to the slightly different format of the page.
Also the Prosper site update broke my quick pop-up for Q&A ... that has been addressed.
One note... Prosper's watch list does not allow you to add listings that have ended. I'm not sure how that will affect me... I do keep old listings on my watch list... especially those that did not fund so that I can watch for a relist by the borrower. Comments from you are welcome as well.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Prosper has added a watch list.
http://forums.prosper.com/index.php?showtopic=24656
I will be removing my menu item from future releases. Be sure to transfer your watched listings to Prosper's watch list.
At the same time I will begin to enhance Prosper's watch list to display the useful information I currently display on the search result pages.
