Prosper Internet Explorer Extension

Silver install

2008-04-12T11:54:00.001-07:00

I will no longer be updating either the 3.0 or the 2.x lines. I am moving to the new Silverlight application that I have made available for Firefox users. It runs in Internet Explorer as well. I personally have moved to this new application. You may of course continue to use the existing installs but again I will not be updating them.

Right now the features not included in the Silver application are: Notes, quick bid, auto bid, a few of the quick popups, most of the functionality found on the search result pages, and export of account information.

Based on feedback and interest I will add these features.

To start using the new Silver extension, please uninstall your existing installation of Prosper IE Extension. Then navigate here to install the new version.

The new Silver extension is faster. It should never require a new install... maybe if I add autobid. But everything else should be immediately available. Plus it is one code base for both browsers.

Version 3.0.3

2008-04-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to the latest beta installer for Internet Explorer. I found an issue with the installation process so I removed the previous beta files.

I believe this addresses those installation issues... if you still have problems please let me know... either by leaving a comment here or by sending a message through Prosper.

Firefox users... I have created an install for you as well. It does not work in Firefox 3 beta... only 1.5 and 2.x. Not all of the features but getting there.

Version 3.0.2

2008-03-21T07:14:00.001-07:00

First and most important. You must uninstall the AutoBid Service manually. I did not like that install process as it did not allow for easy updates of the software. I do not have any checks in the new installer that you have uninstalled.

So please uninstall. If not sure, just uninstall all Prosper IE Extension items. New install link is at the bottom of this post.

This install should address the installation issues some of you reported as well as the ugly error that popped up. It is still beta after all. But this release should allow the extension to function on XP and Vista and IE 7 and IE 8. Again I have not tested IE 6 as I no longer have that setup... but it should still work.

A couple of new features included in this release. Lender History is an interesting (though not perfect) addition to the bid details link on the listing detail page.

It shows you the current lender's average ROI, weighted ROI, and average loan age. Use this to determine the past ability of bidding lenders to pick good loans. The reason it is not perfect is the data is not realtime. It is about a day behind. I'm not sure how to address this so I added an indicator so you can tell how recent the snapshot is. Ideally you want to see the number of winning lenders for the number counted.

Still on the bid details popup, the confidence items at the bottom are realtime. Numbers around 7 or higher indicate better confidence. Anything below 5 I usually run away.

I also added a link on the search result pages to provide this same information. Click the magic wand and the same bidding details window will popup.

To me this is most useful on the Similar Loans page. Remember, the similar loans are those loans that are defaulting and similar to the listing you are examining. Click the bid details magic wand and you can see an accurate representation of the lender's ROI data. Very informative.

And if you do not use the Similar Loans feature, you really should. I also added speed improvements to the similar loans page. It should load quite a bit faster than before.

Watch Lenders has been improved. It now saves the list of lenders you watch... and provides a means to edit the list.

Okay as promised here is the new link. But please remember uninstall the Scheduler service first!

Version 3.0.1: Still beta but better

2008-03-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

The beta works on IE7 and IE8beta. It should run on XP and Vista.

But first, many thanks to those that commented about my extension on this Prosper forum thread.

Someone commented on this blog that the Watch Lender feature was not working. I identifed a bug that if a lender had more than one winning bid on a single listing, the watch lender feature would silently fail. This has been addressed in this beta.

Someone raised an issue with the timeout warning and the count down timer that floats in the upper left corner of the screen. I have added 2 new options. One will disable the popup timeout warning. The other will prevent the floating countdown timer from appearing. You have always had the option of enabling or disabling the auto refresh which prevents Prosper from timing out your session (most of the time).

To make use of these options, click on Bid On Loans, FAVS, then Options.

Now on to AutoBid.

You must download the service installer which is the new piece. There is no update at this time so if you already installed it you do not need to again. If you have not installed it, click here.

There is however a new IE extension update, found here.

You must also register your login with Prosper to have access to the API bidding. Send an email to APIServices@prosper.com.

Once installed here is what the auto bid feature looks like. First you must setup the AutoBid service to make use of your login information. On the extension options page you will see Save Prosper Login Info. Click this link and you will see:

Enter the information and click save. The data is immediately encrypted then cleared. Now navigate to a listing detail page.

Click the Auto Bid link:

Which pops up this autobid dialog:

Enter the amount and the bid rate... click place auto bid. Currently the system is hard coded to bid 15 minutes prior to listing end. A note is automatically added to this listing indicating an auto bid and the listing is added to your favorites list. When you visit a listing detail page that you have auto bid on the Auto Bid link will display Stop Bid, and if an attempt to bid was made, the status will be displayed.

The other big change so far is to Similar Loans. First it displays a progress indicator of sorts. Due to some Prosper API limitations I query loans 1 month at a time. The limitation being that the loan object does not support searching by credit grade. I encourage you to go to this Prosper forum thread and bump it.

The second feature filtering of Similar Loans. Currently displayed is all loans that meet the Broad criteria, loan amount and credit grade. This has always annoyed me so I added the filter link.

Once you click it, the text will change to turn filter off, but nothing else changes. Go back and click on the 1 to 20. Very fast the display will change to show only loans that are clean. Now click 21 to 40. The bucket ranges remain the same but only the clean listings will display. Not perfect I know... it would be nice if the number buckets changed.

In the near future, this filter will be based on the Narrow criteria of the listing be examined.

There are still a couple issues with the Prosper API login. I believe Prosper logs you out of your API session, which is independent from your website login. So sometimes you will go to click on a quick link to show the extended credit info for a similar loan and nothing happens, just click it again. There are a couple other annoyances like this. I'm trying to track them down or at least display a message.

Beta 3.0: Auto bidding

2008-03-11T12:54:00.000-07:00

To send me a message through Prosper, click here. You of course must be logged into Prosper already.

I am calling this a beta version. Don't worry I will document the features nicer once I bring it out of beta. It does work fantastic now, though. And the setup will get easier. Plus now if you had been using IE in protected mode, that annoying popup is gone.

I also modified Similar Loans which now has the ability to filter the returned listings. Prior to this beta, the Similar loans was all loans that matched the broad criteria. You can now click the Turn Filter on link, then click on the range of loans and only listings that are clean will be displayed, 0 dqs, 0 prs, etc. In the future the filter will be based on the narrow criteria.

Now there is a side effect to doing this. You will be prompted for your login information. Sometimes the popup works and sometimes it doesn't. So I suggest for now when you navigate to a listing detail page, click the quick bid link, enter login information then cancel the bid. This will setup your session to be logged in. This is actually the biggest annoyance right now... to make things just work better always do this extra login step.

Download and install this file. This will install the necessary files to create a system service that will perform the auto bidding on your behalf. Click on this link to install the new extension to Internet Explorer that makes use of this service. You must have Microsoft .NET version 3.5 installed... the installer should prompt you to do this if you don't.. but if you run the extension and do not see the magic wands click here to install .NET.

You will most likely be prompted by your firewall security to allow the ProsperIEExtService to access the network.... you must of course answer in the affirmative. Technically, the extension in IE talks to the webservice through port 6789. You may need this number if you are using a more sophisticated firewall security software.

First you must configure the service to access Prosper. This is done by navigating to http://www.prosper.com/ in IE. Then clicking the Bid On Loans tab, then the Fav link on the far right. Then click on Options. You will see a new item here called Save Prosper Login Info. Click on this and you will be presented with a dialog to enter your prosper email and password info. The same values you use to log into the Prosper website. Don't worry this information is immediately encrypted.

Then navigate to a listing you would like to experiment with. You will see a new quick link at the top of the listing detail called Auto Bid. You will be prompted for 2 bits of information, the amount to bid and the interest rate. The bid will be schedule to occur 15 minutes prior to the listing end time. Two things happen when you click place bid... 1) the listing is added to your Favorites List and 2) a note is added indicating you placed an auto bid. The Auto Bid link renames itself to Stop Bid, which does just what you would expect.

My advice is to enter less than $50 to verify your setup is working. The system will attempt to place the bid but it will be rejected by Prosper. After the attempt, the Stop Bid link will display the status message from Prosper, either success or failure. Because of the 15 minutes you really cannot use auto bid on listings ending in less than 15 minutes.

Let me know if you have any issues. I will work on making it more user friendly but let me know how it works if you do use it. And as always donation are appreciated.

Version 2.1.6: First change for Portfolio Plans

2008-02-29T04:24:00.001-08:00

Of course just as soon as I release my first use of the bidding API, Prosper takes the entire API offline yesterday. Then the Performance Page is broken this morning.

The first change in this release is upon a quick bid my extension will no longer autorefresh. You must click the link as I described in the earlier post. I prefer to see that the status returned from the bid.

Second, I noticed this forum entry. It provides a workaround to be able to see the performance of a portfolio plan's performance. I hate workarounds! And this one is terrible.

So with this release, whenever you are on a saved search you will see a new link under the "Delete Saved Search" called "View Performance", look for the magic wand. For Portfolio Plans, follow the workaround, click Edit Criteria, then View Listings, then when the new window pops up (which is just a saved search), click View Performance.

Even if you do not use Portfolio Plans you can benefit from examining your saved search's performance.

Version 2.1.5: Quick bidding

2008-02-27T08:03:00.000-08:00

Important update: You must send an email to APIServices@prosper.com asking to have your account enabled for API bidding. I think you have to send it from the email account that is associated with your Prosper account.

Personally I do not like the many pages that Prosper throws at you when you want to place bid. And as I have stated before I do not think the Estimated Loss is at all a relevant metric for placing a bid on a single listing. You can have an estimated loss based on an entire portfolio of listings, but not on a single listing (in my opinion). You can have an estimated chance of default, which is what I provide in the market analysis section.

Speaking of the Market Analysis... I have never found the Narrow selection useful. So I have modified. It now displays the same information as the Specific but minus the number of inquiries criteria. If you have a credit report with 0 inquiries the specific selection will find very few loans... use the Narrow to find more. Feedback is welcome.

My first public use of the new bidding by the API is included in this release. Back to my dislike of the many pages Prosper shows when you want to bid. I have now added a link, Place a quick bid. It provides a popup that allows you to specify the amount and the minimum interest rate, of course.

In order to use this feature you will have to login to the Prosper API. This login is separate from being logged into the website. Again I don't care about your email address or password. But if you want to use this feature you have to enter the values in a popup. It looks like this:

So click the place a quick bid link and you will be presented with this just once per session. Once successful, click the place a quick bid link again. Please note you cannot hit the enter key to sign in, you must click the button. You will then see this:

Please note, I do not validate the amount and bid rate fields. If you enter less than $50 a nice error message appears, if your interest rate is too high, you receive an okay error message. Both provided by Prosper. Now if you enter letters or other nonsense you get a less nice error.

Once the bid is successful, you will be presented with a message as well as an option to refresh the page, which I recommend you do so that you can see your bid like this. Note the bid type.

Also if you find this listing again on a search result it will correctly indicate your bid.

Enjoy.

New feature: API bidding

2008-02-24T15:03:00.001-08:00

What does this mean? Well Prosper is now allowing to bid through API. I will be implementing a new application that works in conjunction with the current extension to IE. This new app will run as a Windows's service and place bids on listings you identify a few minutes prior to the listing end time. Thus ensuring that you will not be outbid, preventing your bid from causing the rate to bid down, keeping your money from being tied up for 7 days.

You will be able to specify your rate limits and amount to bid.

Now that you have read this, please go back to the Prosper forums and leave comments. I'm interested in how useful this feature would be.

Export your loan details

2008-02-18T05:34:00.000-08:00

From the Your Account page, click View Recent Loans... only you won't be viewing just recent loans but all of your loans... I modify that link. Then on the resulting page I add a button called Export. When complete click View Export Link. The easist way to make the sample viewable is a PDF file... so click here. It will take time to download all of this data if you have a lot of loans. I have 4 pages worth and it takes around 5 minutes.

You will see principal and interest paid, and if necessary the loan amount collected from defaults. Not shown in the PDF is a rollup summary that calculates your ROI. I show two numbers, best case and current based on all lates defaulting as of right now. Basically the numbers have shown that 85% of the time a late becomes a default. So I take the worse case and say if it is late at any stage it is a default. One thing to note about this ROI calculation as well as all the others out there.. none of them can take into account the actual amount of money you have placed into Prosper. It is only based on the amount you have bid including re-investments... which in my case is a few thousand dollars higher than the amount I have actually invested. I prefer to examine my ROI based on my initial investment... so I change cell C1 to that amount.

Version 2.1.4: Default rates

2008-02-08T04:04:00.000-08:00

Thanks to feedback I have modified the popup for the Broad, Narrow, and Specific Market Analysis to show two new data points... One is the average lender rate for Similar Loans. Of course if Specific is too specific the average lender rate may not be displayed. The second is to show the default rate. It looks like this.

Historically if a loan goes 1 month late it is at least 85% sure that it will default. So pessimistically if a loan is late at any stage, it counts against the default rate displayed.

The second change in this release is related to the Group performance summary. If a borrower is part of a group, in the Borrower Info section you can click the magic wand next to the group's name and a popup appears that displays the group's performance. It looks like this:

Old timers may recognize this group. The value for "Estimated ROI assuming all lates default" is the status of the group as of today. So if you had invested $50 in each of the 819 loans you would earn a -1.89%. This number is close. The Prosper API does not provide all the info for me to get the exact number. I do not have debt sales nor the exact month that a lender stopped paying. I actually think the number would be less.

Don't forget to check out my analysis of Prosper's member growth.

Overview of Features:

2008-02-06T04:02:00.000-08:00

I thought it was time to create another overview of the features my extension provides. Basically, wherever you find a magic wand hover or click to learn more about that feature. Most features popup additional info.

In this blog, click the images to see them larger.

On a listing detail page you will notice two new sections of links.

Hide: prevents the listing from showing up on search results

Watch: add this borrower to my extension's favorite list. Watching a borrower allows for relists to show up on your favorites list

Alert: if you use gmail you can easily receive email alerts as the listing approaches its ending time

Notes: you can save notes about the borrower (not the listing) again great for relists or borrowers coming back for a 2nd loan

The Market Analysis is my favorite addition. These links all make use of Prosper's Marketplace performance page. I just plug in the relevant information to limit the search to similar loans. Typically I just click the magic wand on these to see the popup. If you want to see the full page, click on the broad, narrow, specific link to open a new window to Prosper's Marketplace performance page. Here is an example after clicking the Broad magic wand.

So much useful info here. First hover of (details) and it will tell you what criteria is used for this info. Very useful when you click on the Specific magic wand. This average interest rate is more reliable than the one Prosper gives, which is based on huge buckets. Mine is more relevant to the listing you are examining. On this popup I examine the percent of loans that are current. In this example it is 78.77%, that gives a 21.23% chance of defaulting. Historically 85% of loans that go 1 month late default. So I count any loan that is late at any point as defaulted.

I examine the broad and specific market analysis the most. I strive to only bid on listings that have a specific chance of defaulting less than 10%. Not shown, but this particular listing had a specific 19% chance of defaulting.

After examining the chance of defaulting, I will then click on Similar Loans. This opens a new window that shows all the loans that are defaulting that are similar to this listing. This gives you the opportunity, if you wish, to examine every loan to try and determine why it defaulted... and determine if your listing is like those and therefore has an increased chance of defaulting. Depending on the number of loans that are similar this page can take awhile to load... so often I will click it first then go back to the original listing and perform analysis, then go check the similar page.

The loans are displayed in descending origination date... most recent first. See all those magic wands... click on them... do not click on the listing link as this will open the listing in the browser, and the similar loans will have to be reloaded. I'll try and automatically open the listing in a new window. Back to the magic wands... they will display the listing description, the credit info, the borrower description... all in nice popups. For the credit info you have to provide your login information... don't worry I do not keep it. This is required to access the data through Prosper's API.

If you do this enough you will often see the lightning bolts... as I have said before... the lightning bolt increased your chance of getting burned... stay away from them.

Now start clicking on the magic wand next to the loan's credit info. You will quickly start to see trends.... does your listing match these? If so stay away.

There is just so much information in this page hopefully you will take the time to study and learn.

At the very top of the page is a link in big capital letters... VIEW ADDITIONAL INFO. Click it and you get something like this in a new window:

Loan Origination
Year.Month : Total : Late Loans
2006.04 : 2 : 1 : 50.00%
2006.05 : 2 : 2 : 100.00%
2006.07 : 1 : 0
2006.08 : 4 : 1 : 25.00%
2006.10 : 1 : 0
2006.11 : 4 : 1 : 25.00%
2006.12 : 4 : 0
2007.01 : 15 : 3 : 20.00%
2007.02 : 7 : 4 : 57.14%
2007.03 : 8 : 2 : 25.00%
2007.04 : 20 : 9 : 45.00%
2007.05 : 8 : 2 : 25.00%
2007.06 : 16 : 1 : 6.25%
2007.07 : 6 : 0
2007.08 : 8 : 1 : 12.50%
2007.09 : 14 : 3 : 21.43%
2007.10 : 7 : 1 : 14.29%
2007.11 : 19 : 0
2007.12 : 8 : 0
2008.01 : 11 : 0
Thru 2006.6 :4 : 3 : 75.00%
Thru 2006.12:12 : 5 : 41.67%
Thru 2007.6 :86 : 26 : 30.23%
Thru 2007.12:115 : 31 : 26.96%
Total :165 : 31 : 18.79%
Number of similar loans created in the past month: 7

Dates of significant change: Aug-2006 and Feb-2007
Additional credit info was added on these dates

Again you can learn a lot about this data. In this case not a lot of similar loans are created each month. You can see that the trend for the defaulting rate is rising. As you hopefully already know, as loans age the default rate increases. This page attempts to show you how drastic this trend is.

I have also added some quick links to useful information to the borrower info section on the listing detail page.

These next few features are vital to my analysis of the listing... sorry I have not uploaded images of these.

The wand next to the group name will popup a detailed list of this group's default success or failure... number of loans, etc. Click the wand next to the Q&As and you will see all of them, rather than just the first few. Click the wand next to the recent listings and you will see all of the listings... not just recent. Right click in the popup to view the prior listings... you can learn a lot by doing this!

In the Endorsements section I add a link called Verify Bids which will determine if the endorser's bid still stands. Typically GLs bid at the highest rate, get bid off... some even practice pump and dump... bid large, large amounts to attract attention.

Version 2.1.3: New average rate

2008-01-31T06:03:00.000-08:00

First - please let me know if you have any issues with this install. I have changed an underlying component that should not impact anyone... but since there are so many window's configurations ... never say never.

I have been placing the average rate on the listing detail page and the listing search page. This of course gives you guidance on the listing's interest rate to determine if you are getting a good rate.

However, I have used Prosper's rolling 30 day average rate which I have long felt was flawed. This rate is based on huge loan buckets, $1000-$5000 and $5001-$9999 and $10,000-$25,0000. In case you don't want to do the math, that is a $15k spread on the large loans and about $5k on the other ones.

To me there is a huge difference between a $10k listing and a $25k listing.

I have added to my Market Analysis popups the average rate for loans that are similar to the listing. So click on the Broad, Specific, Narrow, etc. magic wands and you will see the average lender rate based on that criteria. This will give you a much more realistic average rate.

I utilize Prosper's marketplace performance page to get this info. So sometimes the Specific selection will not return an average rate if the marketplace performance page has none. Use the Broad in this case.

Version 2.1.2: Updated to similar loans

2008-01-26T07:29:00.000-08:00

It once again displays the loans in descending date order. This way it is easier to see the more recent loans and determine why they defaulted. Also on the additional info link on the similar loan page I have added some summary stats like this:

Thru 2006.6 :11 : 2 : 18.18%
Thru 2006.12:48 : 9 : 18.75%
Thru 2007.6 :102 : 15 : 14.71%
Thru 2007.12:102 : 15 : 14.71%
Total :334 : 15 : 4.49%

Basically it shows the number of loans and number of defaulted loans for the various periods. As in this example... even though the average for the entire loan set is 4.4%, you can see a trend as the loans age for the default rate to jump to 14%.

Just another metric I use to look for reasons not to bid on a loan. That is the essence of my advice. The more I study the similar loans prior to bidding, the better I understand what to look for in new listings that I bid... I highly recommend you spend the time as well.

Need your help

2008-01-22T13:36:00.001-08:00

Prosper's censors on the forums have decided to silence my posts. For the past week I have attempted to post about 10 replies... none have appeared. I was offering my analysis of particular listings posted in the lender forum... utilizing the features of my extension.

Yet my posts did not have links to my sites, this blog. Instead I referred people to my Prosper member page to read further about my strategies.... which I did list my blog there.

I have requested an explanation from support in an email... no response.

If you have been frustrated with Prosper's new censorship policies on the forums please send support a message complaining.

Maybe if enough lenders complain we can bring a more productive forum back to Prosper.

Version 2.1.1: new feature on similar loans

2008-01-17T08:59:00.000-08:00

Some minor fixes around Similar loans. And a new feature. Once you click on Similar Loans on the detail page a new window pops up showing all the defaulting loans similar to the listing you are reviewing. A new link appears at the top of this new page. "View Additional Info" Okay not a very creative title.

This will popup another new window that shows a month by month breakdown of the defaulting loans... showing how many originated in each month and how many of those are now defaulting. Why is this interesting you ask?

You can see the trend of defaults increasing as loans age. In this example the older loans from 2006 are defaulting at 20-30% yet the average is 9%. So I would expect the newer loans to trend up towards the 20%. So over time you have a 20% chance that this listing will default.

Loan Origination
Year.Month : Total : Late Loans
2006.02 : 4 : 1 : 25.00%
2006.03 : 4 : 0
2006.04 : 13 : 4 : 30.77%
2006.05 : 10 : 2 : 20.00%
2006.06 : 20 : 4 : 20.00%
2006.07 : 13 : 3 : 23.08%
2006.08 : 25 : 5 : 20.00%
2006.09 : 26 : 3 : 11.54%
2006.10 : 24 : 3 : 12.50%
2006.11 : 14 : 3 : 21.43%
2006.12 : 14 : 2 : 14.29%
2007.01 : 33 : 0
2007.02 : 36 : 5 : 13.89%
2007.03 : 39 : 3 : 7.69%
2007.04 : 38 : 8 : 21.05%
2007.05 : 54 : 3 : 5.56%
2007.06 : 46 : 6 : 13.04%
2007.07 : 54 : 5 : 9.26%
2007.08 : 50 : 4 : 8.00%
2007.09 : 40 : 1 : 2.50%
2007.10 : 39 : 1 : 2.56%
2007.11 : 36 : 0
2007.12 : 63 : 0
2008.01 : 2 : 0
Total :697 : 66 : 9.47%

Number of similar loans created in the past month: 65

Dates of significant change: Aug-2006 and Feb-2007
Additional credit info was added on these dates

Version 2.1.0: Fixes to site changes

2008-01-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

Well it has been awhile... a few features had stopped working when Prosper changed their site. This update restores most features. Nothing new was added but minor features had to be removed because of the Prosper changes.

The most useful features I still believe are the Market Analysis popups and Similar Loans. Don't leave home without them!

Also check out my analysis of Member Growth. Basically Prosper's growth has been static.

Version 2.0.3: Fix to the crash

2007-11-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a couple of users I was able to find two crashes caused by the recent changes to use the new API. I will look for more but these were the two obvious ones.

Version 2.0.2: More fixes

2007-11-06T05:21:00.001-08:00

First if you do see the warning mentioned in the prior post you must click the Allow button... or else IE will crash. Pressing space or tab will default to 'Don't Allow' which causes the crash.

Some changes in this release.

Similar Loans is working again... and better.
All search result listing pages have been improved. You can view extended credit info again, the average rate is displayed, view prior listings works better. Basically experiment wherever you see the magic wand check it out.

In order to view the extended credit info from either search results or similar loans you will have to provide your login information. If you wish not to you will not be able to use this feature. On similar loans this ability greatly improves my decision on whether or not to bid on a listing.

The 'Specific' market analysis popup is now even more specific ... for example, if the listing you are examining has 0 defaults then the criteria of 0 defaults is added... before 'specific' only got specific if the extended credit info was non-zero. Not sure if that makes sense... but I use all 3 market analysis popups to understand the listing... you should as well.

Version 2.0.1: Making it work again

2007-11-04T08:43:00.000-08:00

Mid October Prosper modified their APIs --- which broke much of my extension. This version fixes most of the problems. Not all.

Using IE7 you will most likely be prompted with a warning about csc.exe. Click the allow button but at this time I am not advising on clicking the 'do not show this warning again' message. I hope to make this go away.

After that most functionality should be back. I did have to change the Favorites link text in the menu bar to just Fav so that it would fit. Currently the extension options is missing... I'll add it back somewhere soon.

Let me know if you find anything missing or not working.

Version 1.8.8: a few minor fixes

2007-10-02T06:49:00.001-07:00

Well it has been over a month since my last update... I was on vacation and then of course getting back into real life after took awhile. Thanks for the feedback about the issues that cropped... sorry I was unable to address them.

The average rate will now display again.
The hot lists work again.
The export loan info to excel works again.
Verify Bids in the endorsement section is working again... a little different but you get the same data.

A few issues remain... Similar loans is broken. Market Analysis comes and goes... this is caused by a 3rd party site I use to gather the data.

Let me know if I missed anything.

Version 1.8.6: More fixes

2007-08-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

The export loan feature once again works.

Similar loans works again and will soon be even better thanks to the recent Prosper change to link the listing to the loan.

And a few other features are enabled.

Version 1.8.5: Site changes

2007-08-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Prosper did change quite a few things under the hood... things not easily noticied.

I have addressed most issues... but there remain a few and Prosper introduced a couple of bugs that I have not worked around yet.

But the core functionality seems to be back.. if you do find something missing please send me a message. I know that the Export loans has an issue.

Thanks.

Version 1.8.4: Fixed a crashing bug

2007-08-06T04:49:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the help of sy I have fixed a bug that was causing IE to crash. Hopefully not many of you were experiencing the crash!

No other significant changes.

First time users

2007-08-04T09:10:00.001-07:00

Be sure to install using the full install on the link to the left. If you are having issues please confirm that you use that installer at least once.

If you continue to have issues, please contact me through Prosper and I can help workout any issues.

Version 1.8.3: performance fix

2007-07-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

With a 3rd party site down that I rely on I have modified the code to automatically get the data elsewhere. Typically this is slower but slow is better than not at all.

Some info cannot be retrieved when this 3rd party site is down. The worst case is the popup Market Analysis. But you can always find the same data by simply clicking on Broad, Narrow, Specific to view the full Prosper Market Analysis.

The first time you attempt any of the functions I have to wait for the 3rd party site to timeout. After that I assume it is down and will not check again until you restart IE.

Version 1.8.2: Community Payments

2007-07-24T07:26:00.001-07:00

I have added to the group info popup the number of community payments made by the GL. I think the general belief is that a community payment indicates an effort by the GL to inflate their Prosper star rating. The 2Mil group and more recently Have Money - Will Bid have used community payments in this manner. Buyer beware on their listings!

I have improved the performance of the Hot List... it was just too slow for me. I constantly use the Hot List to find listings of interest.

I have improved the Favorite Borrowers list. It now has two options, Recent Listings or All Listings. Much nicer to be able to watch the pending verification status. Also your bids will be displayed correctly on all search result pages.

Version 1.8.1: A lot of changes

2007-07-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

A general theme in my work is the non-reliance on 3rd parties... which includes myself. I have written my IE extension to embed its functionality within the Prosper website as much as possible. The idea being that you really can't tell where Prosper ends and my extension begins. Since LendingStats has essentially gone offline I had already reworked that logic to rely only on Prosper for the Group performance information. I have utilized other 3rd party sites (including me) to help gather additional data and statistics. I'd rather have one point of failure, that being Prosper. As Prosper continues to improve their API I can rely on them more and more.

In this release even more functionality is getting its data solely from Prosper. This means 100% uptime availability and accuracy for the data, unless Prosper is down and then it doesn't matter anyway.

This release affects these areas:
Hot Lists
Favorite Borrowers
Watch States

There is a cost gaining 100% reliability and accuracy of information. Most notably the speed of the '3 day' and '24 hour' hot lists can take between 1 and 2 minutes to complete. In general the hot list is slower than before, but to me it is worth the time to get the latest data and not worry about if the external server is up.

For your favorite borrowers, there are now two sub-menu options, 'active listings' and 'all member listings.' Hopefully the options are self explanatory. Show only active is the default.

For watching states, the dialog that pops up to display your list of state choices used to show the number of listings for that state even before you clicked a state. This is gone. But the upside is once you click a state you will be presented with the first 25 active listings for that state.

Now some new functionality. If you are not using the 'Similar Loans' feature you really should. I use this to educate myself on patterns ... looking for common themes in the loans that eventually go late. One example is the number of bids... most of the time the loans that are late have less than 50 bids. Which is why I added to the Verify Bids link an indicator based on the quality of lender bidding. Another is the frequency in 'bad' groups. The same 6 keep coming up over and over.

But to the change... on the 'Similar Loans' page you will now find a magic wand next to the loan status. Click this magic wand and you will see that loan's status changes over time.

When reviewing an old listing that became a loan, you will find a magic wand next to the text 'Listing became a loan'... in case you haven't guessed, clicking the wand will display the loan's status changes over time.

The 'Similar Loans' page was not showing the same data as the DQ report. This data should now be accurate. Also the list of late loans was not always current. This should also be much improved... typically only 30 minutes behind (improved reliance on Prosper). And there was a bug in calculating if a group had a default loan, which is now fixed.

Version 1.8.0: Fantasy Prosper bidding

2007-07-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

Eric of Ericscc.com fame has created a new website: FantasyProsper.com. You can learn more about this Prosper forum thread.

I have added a link on the listing detail page that will allow you to navigate to the Fantasy bidding page. It appears under the 'Bid Now' button of course.

Enjoy.

Version 1.7.9: Bid with 'Confidence' (a new feature)

2007-07-07T15:14:00.000-07:00

In my ongoing effort to create the best analysis tools for Prosper loans, I bring you 2 new features in this release and fix one huge missing element.

With these new features I suggest you go to your list of late loans and run these features on those loans. Examine the results and see if you see a pattern in the new Confidence feature or the reliance on a certain group.

0) Since LendingStats.com has not updated their data in almost 20 days (the missing element) I finally decided to find an alternate solution. I really appreciate the work LendingStats has done. But I do not like relying on 3rd parties which is exactly why I preferred to write the IE extension. The majority of the functionality is embedded on the computer you are running or on Prosper's website. BTW, many thanks to Prosper for continuing to improve their API!

With this release, the group performance information will rely solely on Prosper to display the information. As a result some of the data has changed, but only very slightly. The Best case ROI (Return on investment) is based on zero defaulting loans. The Experian ROI factors in the default rates as specified by Experian. The Prosper ROI is based on data gathered so far from actual Prosper loans. Basically loans that are 1 month or more late are considered default.

Please note Have Money is not a group that I like or trust. I believe the GL is utilizing P&D. Plus in just 5 months he has 222 loans. That is 44 loans a month on average. What kind of quality work does he put into each loan?

1) On the listing detail page, the Bid Details link already shows useful information. Warning of potential pump and dump schemes, true group leader participation, and the number of lenders actively bidding on this listing. In my analysis I have determined that being on a loan with less than 50 lenders puts you at a higher risk for a defaulting loan. This was one of the reasons I originally added this feature.

I have gone a step further and added a simple scale which indicates the confidence the listing will not default based on the other lenders bidding. It is broken into two components. The lenders that won their bids and the lenders that lost. Here is the bidding details from a loan I found using my Hot List. The two sets of numbers in this example, 5.7/5.54 and 5.01/4.42, indicate the level of confidence. These numbers represent high confidence.

To help understand the meaning lets use letters, so now we have x/y for the winning bids and a/b for the losing.

Ideally x and y will be close to each other, within a point. Likewise, a and b should be within a point. Ideally x and a should be within a point or two as should y and b.

Now for the analysis. If y or b is negative, then extreme caution should be used before bidding on the loan. If b is quite a few points larger than a this may indicate a pump and dump.

Ideal numbers are greater than 5. Anything below 4 should only be bid on after careful review. The algorithm will continue to evolve. I'll keep you updated.

2) I made a few changes to the loan search result and loan detail pages. From any loan search that presents multiple loans, now when you click to see the details you will be presented with next and previous links on the loan detail page. This makes it a lot easier to review your loans. So find your 3+ month late loans and easily review all of them without having to click back, get the retry message, etc!

Next on the loan detail page I added a link thanks to wiseclerk.com. He is providing the loan status changes over time. So now when you have a loan that just popped up as late you can easily review the loan status changes to see if this is a common occurrence for this borrower or something to be of concern. Just click the 'View loan status change' link.

Market Analysis

2007-07-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Prosper market performance page seems to be broken at the moment. This affects my market analysis links. Hopefully they will address the issue soon.

Version 1.7.8: Some fixes based on Prosper July 1 update

2007-07-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

Prosper updated their API on July 1st and in the process broke some fundamental features. There is no workaround. So if you happen to be watching a member or listing or group that has a 'bad' key it will prevent the favorites list from showing. This same Prosper bug has broken the Hot List.

I fixed the change related to the Market Analysis links.

In version 1.7.8 is a fix required to properly show listings with no group.

Server outage

2007-06-29T05:53:00.001-07:00

There is an external server that is down right now. This failure is preventing the hot links for Market Analysis and the group performance summary from functioning.

In the meantime you can still view the same Market Analysis information by clicking on Broad, Narrow, Group or Specific and reviewing the information in the new browser window.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Version 1.7.6: Some Market Analysis changes .... track borrower name changes

2007-06-28T10:37:00.001-07:00

During the last Prosper upgrade they added the ability to see each name change a borrower made. And as usual it is buried three levels too deep. I have added a quick link on the listing detail page that will display the information in a popup. Click the question mark next to the borrower's name.

I have also modified the Market Analysis magic wand popups. They had been blocking Internet Explorer from performing other tasks while they were loading the information. A message now pops up indicating that it is indeed processing and then you are free to switch to other tabs, scroll, etc. The 'please wait' popup can easily be dismissed by clicking on it and the process will continue to load in the background.

Now all of the magic wands on Market Analysis will pop the delinquency data. Again to remind you, Broad will show all loans within +/- $2000 of the listing loan request. Narrow uses the same +/- $2000 and adds show only homeowners if the borrower is a homeowner and show only group members if the borrower is a group member. Specific uses the Broad plus Narrow criteria then adds in information from the extended credit info (this option is only available while logged into Prosper). The info used includes: now delinquent, ever delinquent, both public records, and inquiries. And Group will display just specific info about the credit grade for the borrower's group, no filtering based on loan amount, homeowner, or extended credit info.

To help clarify which delinquency data you are viewing, hover over the word "(details)" in the popup to see the criteria used. And as always you can click on Broad, Narrow, Group or Specific to see the full Prosper Marketplace Performance data.

Last but not least... after this weekend's Prosper upgrade all extension features have been restored.

Version 1.7.5: Fix to favorites list

2007-06-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a fix that will once again allow the use of the Favorites lists. The borrower screenname will only display for current active listings at this time. I will continue to work on providing a full fix for this issue.

Also -- currently the Watch Lender feature is not working because of a related bug in the Prosper API. There is no workaround for this issue.

This past weekend

2007-06-25T21:15:00.001-07:00

Well this past weekend broke something within the Prosper API which is affecting my extensions ability to retrieve the borrower's screen name on the Favorites lists. I will provide a workaround as soon as possible. I have notified Prosper and hopefully they will provide a real solution.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Version 1.7.4: Search by state

2007-06-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

I have created the ability to find listings by state. It is found under the Favorites link option. You will be presented with a drop down showing the states that currently have listings and the number of listings.

Only the first 25 or so listings will be displayed starting with those ending the soonest. "Or so" because some of the listings have been withdrawn or closed early.

Version 1.7.3: Yet more fixes

2007-06-08T05:09:00.001-07:00

Okay --- the group performance was failing to popup in some cases. Fixed.

Version 1.7.2: Fixes fixes fixes

2007-06-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

The ending date calculation was still off... I think it is correct now on both the listing detail and search result pages.

The delinquency pop-up now shows the 4+ month late information correctly and I added the default information to the popup.

And because the calculation on the ending date was wrong google alerts were not working.

All fixed.

Version 1.7.0: Fixes related to Prosper's changes

2007-06-06T08:26:00.000-07:00

On the listing search result page I fixed the estimated end date to be as close as possible for now. Hover over the wand next to the time left.

On the listing detail page, fixed the estimated end date.

The Export function on the loan search page is fixed to give close to the same results as before... note it does take longer now.

More changes come soon to fix a few of the other issues.

Version 1.6.9: Google alerts issue

2007-06-05T02:27:00.000-07:00

There was an issue with the default 24 hour and 2 hour reminder for google alerts that prevented them from being created. This has been addressed.

Version 1.6.8: Stability

2007-06-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Okay - sorry for the quick set of updates. I want to make the new functionality as stable and usable as possible. I fixed an issue that prevented certain group's information from displaying.

On the Similar Loans page, a popup will now automatically display the Delinquency Activity for the listing being reviewed. Click the link 'DISPLAY DELINQUENCY ACTIVITY' to view the information after closed.

I received a report that the 'Enable Forum Search' feature was not working. This has been addressed and is now faster than before.

Version 1.6.6: Delinquency Activity

2007-06-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a screenshot that has highlighted a few of the areas that are new and improved. First the magic wand next to the Broad link under Market Analysis has been changed. It will now popup the Delinquency Activity information as shown here. This is the same data from the Performance Analysis page but limited to the relevant credit grade. To see the full details click the Broad link.

Next is the Similar Loans link under Market Analysis. This finds listings that turned into loans that are similar to the listing you are reviewing that are late in anyway. This means Late less than 15 days, late, 1 month, 2 months, 3+ months, and the various default states.

The magic wand next to the group name will display the group's performance. The number of lates, defaults, estimated ROI, number of active listings. Very useful information here.

And this release fixes a bug with the group performance popup, the 'Full Group Info' link was broken.

Update 1.6.7 Fixed a problem with the Enable Forum Search feature... it was not working. It is now and should be faster than before.

Version 1.6.5: Google alert changes

2007-06-01T10:31:00.001-07:00

I forgot to mention the changes to Google Alerts. A new option has been added under Extension Options that allows you to specify the interval and type of alert you will receive. You can specify to receive an SMS 30 minutes prior to the listing end. Click the Specify GMail Alert options and a popup will be displayed. Use the drop down boxes to choose the type and time interval. The time interval must be one of these values. Then click Add. To remove an interval edit the text box. Just make sure there are no blank lines in the text box when you are done.

Enjoy!

Version 1.6.5: Similar Loans

2007-06-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

First.. if you are new... please do download and install. Then when visiting the Prosper web page, wherever you see the magic wand click it or hover over it to find what additional functionality I've added there. Feel free to ask questions.

This release brings the ability to review loans that are similar to the listing you are reviewing. I have been using this to better understand the likelihood of the borrower going late. By comparing loans that have defaulted or gone late to the current listing in question I feel I have significantly improved my selection process.

So how does it work? Well at the top of the listing detail page you will find a new link in the Market Analysis area called Similar Loans. Click on this and a new window opens that looks like this:

At the top of the page is a reminder of the listing you are reviewing. All of the magic wand quick links work. Below this is the set of loans similar to the listing. For now the similarity is limited to credit grade and the listing's loan amount +/- $2000. The loans are sorted with the more recent loans first. Displayed for each loan is the status and loan origination date. Again all of the magic wands work.

How do I use this feature? When reviewing a listing, I click on the Broad and Similar Loan links. Doing this will open 2 new windows. I use the Broad performance page to get a general idea of the overall performance of this size of loan. Then I drill down into the similar loan page. If there are a lot of loans that are late or defaulted, I will most likely pass. Otherwise I start clicking on the magic wand to review the credit info for each of the late loans.

And I've also added to the listing detail and search result pages a magic wand next to the group. This will display the key performance numbers for the group. Very enlightening!

Regarding the new group analysis feature

2007-05-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

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!

Version 1.6.3: New group analysis

2007-05-28T14:39:00.000-07:00

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.

Prior Listings -- improvement here is that you can now click on the prior listing and navigate to that page. The sorting links do not work.

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.

Version 1.6.2: View your bids

2007-05-26T11:37:00.001-07:00

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.

Basically 'View Bids' does not allow you to easily see the status of your bids. Utilizing my already existing Favorite List by Lender I've added some special logic that if you watch yourself you will see your winning, outbid, partial, cancelled loans 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.

Version 1.6.1: Google alert changes

2007-05-26T06:43:00.001-07:00

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.

Version 1.6.0.3: Favorite fixes

2007-05-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Version 1.6.0.1: Hot List sorting

2007-05-20T13:49:00.001-07:00

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.

Version 1.6.0.0: Hot List and Borrower Notes

2007-05-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

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.

Version 1.5.0.7: Favorite Borrowers improvements

2007-05-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

As promised the listing's primary image now displays in the favorites list, both for borrowers and lenders.

Version 1.5.0.5: Favorites revisited

2007-05-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Version 1.5.0.3: Fixed a few things

2007-05-06T19:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Version 1.5.0.2: Show funded amount on Favorites List

2007-05-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

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

Version 1.5: Watch borrowers for relists

2007-05-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

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.

Version 1.0.5.4: Fixes for Prosper's site changes

2007-05-02T06:16:00.000-07:00

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.

Prosper site update

2007-05-02T03:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Version 1.0.5.3: Show GL Bids w/o endorsement

2007-04-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

A lot of forum traffic has been related to Pump&Dump tactics of GLs. My addition of the Verify Bids and Bid Details links was to hopefully alert you to potential P&D activity. A flaw was pointed out that some GLs were not endorsing the listing yet still bidding heavily at the top interest rate.

I have modified the Bid Details function to automatically display the GL bids after the bid summary information. It now looks like this. I could not find a quick example of an outbid situation but instead of saying winning it would say outbid $1,000.00@ 20.00%. Hovering over the line will show the date and time the bid was placed.

Version 1.0.5.2: Google Alert fix and cosmetic change

2007-04-28T05:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of issue were discovered with the Google email alerts. If you have the ampersand (&) character in your Notes then the email alert will not be created. I still have not fixed this but will shortly. The second problem was even more specific... in order to get the fix you must use the full installer. So for this release I am not going to include an update installer.

The second change was by request. I changed the average rate to display more consistently across the detail, search result, and watch pages. Now if the listing interest rate is above the average rate, the average rate will display in bold. And if the listing interest rate is below the average rate, the average rate will display in red. The idea being red is bad.

Version 1.0.5.1: Bid history in search results

2007-04-26T07:40:00.000-07:00

For awhile I have been displaying your recent bid history on the search result and watch list pages. Prior to this release it would only show the most recent bid. By request this has been modified to show your complete bidding history for the listing.

On the Watch List my 3 bids look like the image above. If this were an active listing it would look similar on the search result page.

If you feel inclined please visit this forum page and leave any comments...

http://forums.prosper.com/index.php?showtopic=24207

Version 1.0.4.9: Minor tweaks

2007-04-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

On the listing search page when you clicked on the popup the location of the popup was almost always at the bottom of the window. This has been fixed so the location is now underneath (if there is room) the current row. Actually the location of all popups is now more predictable.

There was an issue if you started Internet Explorer on Prosper.com and then quickly changed websites an error would occur. You now should be able to start as many Prosper pages in rapid succession as you want without problems.

Version 1.0.4.8: Minor Bug fixes

2007-04-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

Auto refresh was messing with the Watch List By Lender. The Narrow ROI popup was broken. And some minor speed improvements.

On the listing detail page I made the default view for the graphs on the right, Forecast and Compare, now defaults to Compare. If you haven't noticed Compare is an excellent graph showing the relative interest rate of the listing. The Forecast in my opinion is not useful since I only bid on listings that are about to end. So the Compare graph is much more useful to me.

I'd like to create a thread on the Prosper forums for you, my users, to post feedback on my work. Let me know if you would be willing to offer an endorsement. I will create a thread in the Lenders forum.

Version 1.0.4.7: Watch Lenders

2007-04-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

I have created the ability to view listings that a lender of your choice has recently bid on. It is found under the same Watch List menu item. I am trying something new ... here is a link to a video demonstration. Leave some comments on what you think of the video, let me know if you prefer the static images, etc.

Version 1.0.4.6: Additional info on bid details

2007-04-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

Received a request to display average, median, and maximum bids for the 'Bid Details' link. Now if you hover over the "### winning / ### lenders" lines you will see Average Bid, Median Bid and Maximum Bid.

Also addressed the popups that were not always displaying correctly. The most obvious problem was the previous listings popup. It would not always show the amount funded bar correctly. That and a few other inconsistencies were addressed.

And some of you have noticed the video demos on the right. I have some more in the works.

Version 1.0.4.5: Map link was broken

2007-04-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the three quick updates. Had a lot of activity and feedback the last few days. The recent fixes are:

map link was broken
Verify Bids and Bid Detail links were displaying duplicate information
Bug in watch list when watching and E or HR listing that was a part of a group

All fixed.

And please remember the Verify Bids and Bid Detail links are in beta at this point. There will be times when the links will not return any data. I however believe that they should return the correct data when it does. If you do find any issues please let me know. And it currently only displays information for listings created within the last 30 days. Eventually it will be all.

Version 1.0.4.4: Bug in calculating average rate

2007-04-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

For 'E' and 'HR' borrowers that were part of a group, my extension would not correctly display the average rate information. Which is non-available. This problem caused the watch list to fail if you added one of these borrowers. Thanks golden for finding this.

Version 1.0.4.3: Verify Bid bug fixes

2007-04-15T06:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone that posted inconsisentcy in the data returned by the Bid Details and Verify Bid links. The Prosper API is still very new and not very widely used so this issue is not suprising. I have described the problem here on the forums. Essentially the Prosper API returns duplicate rows.

This new release for my extension removes the duplicate rows that are being returned.

Version 1.0.4.2: Improved Verify Bids and Bid Details

2007-04-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

I fixed the Verify Bids and Bid Detail functions not to freeze the browser while calculating. The link text will change to Finding Bids while it is retrieving the relevant data. Depending on how many bids a listing has the Bid Detail function can take 30-45 seconds. The Verify Bid function is usually done within a few seconds.

Also - if you hover over the Bid Detail info, it will display the average bid size for the winning bids and outbid bids.

Version 1.0.4.1: Check Bidding detail for a listing

2007-04-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

Saw a request today on the forums asking for the ability to show the # of bids / lenders. Given my new direction utilizing the Prosper API I put a solution together. This will probably change a little over the next week. But for now it works. You must click the Bid Details button on the listing detail page. It can take 30 seconds or more to complete if there are a lot of bids. Here are two screenshots to show the new feature.

Click the Bid Details button.

Then you see this.

Version 1.0.4.0: Verify GL Bids improved

2007-04-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

It now functions for listings created within the last 30 days. A few people have experienced some issues connecting... thanks to golden for helping work through these issues. The Prosper API is still very new and is experiencing some issues. So at times my Verify Bids feature may not work.

Also with version 1.0.3.8 the watch list stopped working for some people. This should be addressed in this release as well.

Version 1.0.3.8: Verify GL Bids and a couple of bug fixes

2007-04-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

I have added the ability to verify GL and endorsement bids. The current Prosper system only displays that at some point the GL placed a bid for $400. The Prosper system does not reflect whether or not the GL was outbid, or even if the GL placed additional bids. My enhancement corrects these issues by indicating the status of all bids from the GL. Actually any endorsement can be verified in this same manner. Here is what it looks like with my extension (a link to this example listing). Use the Verify Bids link to expand the bid information. It does not automatically show.

Here is another example which shows the GL has placed 4 bids. Prosper's system shows a single bid at $1,500. The actual amount in bids is $3,175. The link to this example listing.

Yet another example (the listing). This one shows the GL being outbid and at what interest rate.

This symbol indicates a current winning bid.

This symbol indicates a loosing bid and it should indicate the rate at which the bid was made.

If you hover over the bid information it will indicate the date at which the bid was placed.

This new Verify Bid functionality is dependent on the new Prosper API which is incomplete... so some of the more recent created listings will not be shown.

Now a couple of bug fixes

If you try to create a Google Alert with less than 1 day left it would not create the alert. Fixed that.

The Narrow Estimated ROI was not adding in whether or not the borrower was a homeowner or a group member. If you recall, Broad is based only on the size of the loan. Narrow adds if homeowner and if group member to the ROI search. Group is for the specific group the borrower is a member of. And Specific takes into account the Extended Credit information.

Version 1.0.3.7: Export Loan

2007-04-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

A few forum requests have asked to make the View Loan link in Your Account better. I have already modified the View Loan link to set the search criteria to the maximum dates to ensure that by default you will see all of your loans.

Now I have added an Export feature that will retrieve all of your loan information automatically and place the info into a CSV file which can easily be imported into Excel, Quicken or Money.

Navigate to Your Account, then click on the View Loans link on the left hand side of the page. Click the export button. Once complete you will see something like this:

Click the Export File link to open the file or save to a new location. Also while processing, a status message will be displayed so you know how far along it is.

Version 1.0.3.6: Part 2 - new Alerts feature

2007-04-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

Be sure to read Part 1 as well.

If you navigate to Your Account within Prosper you will see a new option, Use Google Calendar for Alerts. Previously I had been using www.zierious.com to help manage Alerts. I however was not completely happy with this solution. I do not like having to rely on 3rd party sites. Plus there were times when his site was down.

For the same reasons, I did not want to try and recreate the wheel on one of my servers. Then I noticed that Google has provided a very nice interface into their calendar service. So if you have Google, this, in my opinion, is a trivial switch. Click the link in Your Account to use Google Calendar for Alerts. If you don't have Google, well you may want to get it (click here) just for this feature. Once setup you really never have to modify your Google account again.

Okay now on to the 'how do you use it section'. First is click the Use Google Calendar for Alerts link in Your Account. Then navigate to a listing detail page. Click the same Alert button at the top. The first time you use this feature you will then be presented with a Google login page. I never have access to your Google login information. Everything is handled by Google! Very smart of them.

After you provide your Google account info you are presented with something like this. Click the Grant Access button.

Once that is done, Google will automatically send your browser back to Prosper. At this time, my extension will navigate back to the original listing you were examining and create the Alert event. After the first time, just clicking Alert will create the event. A red flag is added to listings indicating that an alert has been created.

Currently when clicking on the Alerts menu item (next to Watch List) you will see a message indicating that you can only remove events from within Google. I will be working on adding the ability to remove events in the next few days. But really you never have to remove them... just ignore the email reminder.

Now what happens? I create two events within Google's calendar. One will send you a reminder message 2 hours prior to the listing end date, and the other 24 hours prior. At this time, these are the only options. Suggestions welcome!

Here is what the email looks like. The square boxes toward the bottom show the interesting info. The text "this is note a real listings for me to watch!" is a Note entered from within my extension. Sorry about the terrible spelling. I have provided two links within the description back to the Prosper listing. There currently is a bug within the Google calendar system that if you edit the description any links are lost. By having the two links, you will always have access.
Click on the image to see it fullsize.

One last important thing. In order to receive email alerts from Google you have to modify the default settings for event notification. I believe by default emails are not sent. Follow these instructions to enable email... or even SMS.

Version 1.0.3.6: Part 1 - New features and a bug fix

2007-04-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

Be sure to read Part 2 as well to see the full benefits of this release.

First the easy stuff. On the listing detail page I added a map link to show the location of the borrower. Clicking on map will popup a new window showing the location. Kind of trivial but it might be useful. I'm going to look into adding additional functionality with this feature, such as a overlays on the map. Suggestions welcome.

If you are a group leader you have not seen the extra links under 'Your Account'. I have fixed this. In case you haven't seen it this is what it should look like.

The Watch List has been redesigned. Same functionality but I removed the search boxes from the left. I think it looks much better now.

Again be sure to read Part 2 for more information about this release.

Version 1.0.3.5: Using the new Prosper API

2007-04-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

If you have not noticed, Prosper released a first attempt at a realtime API. Once fully functional this will allow me to add even more exciting functionality. To begin the learning process I have added the one integration point that makes sense. Not a very exciting integration but still a good first step.

I have had for awhile now the ability to view the borrower's description from their member page by clicking the spyglass next to their member name. This feature now takes advantage of the new Prosper API. One benefit is the retrieval of this information is faster. So that is promising for the future changes I'm planning.

Version 1.0.3.4: Rest of the fixes for Prosper changes

2007-04-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

I believe I have fixed the remaining issues. If you notice anything missing or not working as expected, please let me know.

Version 1.0.3.3: Fix to handle Prosper UI changes

2007-04-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

Okay - they changed the look again. I have addressed most of the problems but not all. I will work on it some more tonight.

Version 1.0.3.2: Fix to Market Analysis

2007-03-31T07:03:00.000-07:00

I had a feeling that I did not correctly handle the end of the month. When using the Market Analysis links on the listing detail page, I calculate the loan origination date to be 1 month prior to today... that will allow for ROI data to display. I was not correctly determining the date 1 month prior to today. If you must know I was doing today's month minus 1, today's date minus 1, and leaving the year alone. So as an example, today I would calculate the loan origination end date to be, February 30th. It now does it correctly and handles the beginning of the new year as well.

I would appreciate any feedback on these tools especially. I have been using the Specific link myself. I have debated whether or not to add to the search Homeowner's yes and AutoFund no, depending on the listing being viewed.

Version 1.0.3.1: Fixed a bug in the auto refresh

2007-03-24T05:49:00.000-07:00

Oops --- version 1.0.2.9 does not work correctly. It would only work the first time. I have addressed the problem and it now correctly auto refreshes at about 5 minutes left in the 20 minute window.

Version 1.0.2.9: Auto refresh 20 minute timer update

2007-03-23T09:00:00.001-07:00

I have added an option that is disabled by default. Go to Your Accounts after logging into Prosper and click Enable Auto Refresh. This feature when enabled with 5 minutes left in the 20 minute timeout will refresh the browser window which resets the Prosper timer.

Now if you are sitting on a compose message page the auto refresh will not happen.

Thanks for the suggestion Stephen!

Version 1.0.2.8: More Market Analysis

2007-03-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

I've added a Specific hot link under Market Analysis. You must be logged into Prosper to see this feature as it makes use of the listing's extended credit information. I am open to suggestions on how best to utilize this information when examining the performance ROI. Here is what it currently does.

If the extended credit information shows a non-zero value for these criteria:

Number of DQs now
Number of DQs ever
Number of PRs 12 months
Number of PRs 10 years
Inquiries last 6 months

then the performance criteria will search for 0 through plus 2 of the listing's number. To see it in action click the Specific link and then edit the search criteria on the Marketplace Performance page that pops up.

I have also added a hot link on the Q&A section next to the lender asking the question. This way you can quickly determine the lender's "credibility."

Version 1.0.2.7: Email Alerts

2007-03-16T05:20:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone has been enjoying the new Market Analysis links. I personally find that they shed some light on the listings. Please do leave some feedback or contact me directly if you have other ideas. I have been out of town the last week... sorry for the lack of updates.

Thank you to everyone that has donated. It is appreciated! Going forward I have decided to enable the Watch List. If you haven't seen it in action. Do give it a try!

For this release - please shutdown Internet Explorer, uninstall your old version of the Prosper IE Extension, then download and install the new version. At least one person was having issues with an older version that was not updating properly. Just to help ensure everyone's installation is working, I will not provide the update install. If you are unsure which one to choose from the right, click the Modified installer.

Some of you may have seen this forum thread discussing email alerts. If not, the user zieri has been busy developing add-ons for Prosper as well. He has agreed to allow me to integrate his alert mechanism into my Internet Explorer extension.

On the listing detail page, you will now see a new hot link, Alert (see above). The first time you click this link you will be presented with a login page for www.zierious.com. Be sure to click the remember me button! Very important! And if Internet Explorer asks if it should remember your password, click yes. Enter your information. If you are presented with this login page again from within my extension, you will need to enter the information again. Also whatever action you performed, you will have to do it again.

If you have any questions or concerns, contact me through Prosper.

Okay - once you have entered the login information for zierious and set the email alert time frame, you can close that web page. Go back to Prosper and click the Alert link again. No indication right now of success... but if the login page does not appear again it most likely was successful.

A new menu item has been created called Alerts. Pretty clever, I know. Click it and you will see this image below. It sometimes can take a few seconds to load the information. You can use the Manage alert email preferences link to visit www.zierious.com to change your alert settings. The Remove button works as expected from the Alerts page, as does the link to the listing.

I will continue to make the integration better, such as a spy glass on the listing detail page indicating you have an alert set for this listing.

Enjoy.

Version 1.0.2.6: More market analysis changes, and a new feature

2007-03-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Added two new Market Analysis features. At the top I have added Group and a spy glass next to group. The Group link opens in a new window and displays the Marketplace Performance for that group. The spy glass pops up a window displaying the Estimated ROI for that group. Please note some groups do not have data since they are 'new' groups.

Next to the Group's star rating I have added another spy glass. This one pops up the groups historical interest rates.

On the search result pages I have changed the indicator for a listing that has notes to the spy glass. This matches what happens on the listing detail page.

And a new feature inspried from this forum entry. Actually I am making use of friedo's tools.

Each time you visit a listing detail page, the extension will search for entries in the Prosper forums and automatically display the topic titles on the page. I still like the on demand use of Ctrl-M to look for forum posts so it is still available.

I have added the option to enable or disable this feature. You must navigate to 'Your Account' tab within Prosper. Click on 'Enable Forum Search' or 'Disable Forum Search'. I have not noticed any performance issues... but if you do you can disable this feature and stick with Ctrl-M.

Version 1.0.2.5: Fix to Notes and UI change for Market Analysis

2007-03-09T04:51:00.000-08:00

A few people had reported a problem with Notes giving an error when deleting entries. Also some people had problems viewing the Notes dialog. These issues have been addressed.

For the Market Analysis links I did modify them to look like this:

This change is keeping with my theme of the spy glass popping up information. I hope to add another link called Specific soon. Still working out the details.

Version 1.0.2.4: Improved Market Analysis

2007-03-08T07:36:00.000-08:00

Thank you golden for the suggestion! This is a great improvement to the market analysis. I added an extra link, Estimated ROI, in the Market Analysis section.

Quickly view the estimated ROI based on a loan value +/- $2000 of the listing. For easy of access I show the borrower's credit grade in the popup. You may need to click on the image to fully see it.

The Broad and Narrow links open a new window with the market analysis. I have modified the link to display the estimated ROI at the bottom of the page. The Estimated ROI link currently is the information from the Broad query.

Depending on feedback ... I am thinking of putting a spy glass next to the Broad and Narrow links to display the popup Estimated ROI. Let me know your thoughts.

And Ratchetr I am looking into your enhancement request for Notes. Thanks!

And I fixed an issue with the 'View Lender Stats' link the forums.prosper.com. At times it would popup then disappear immediately.

Version 1.0.2.3: Market Analysis

2007-03-07T09:04:00.000-08:00

I have added two new hot links to the listing detail page, Broad and Narrow.

Both invoke Prosper's new Market Performance page. Choosing Broad specifies the search criteria to be the listing loan amount +/- $2000. Narrow adds group and homeowner classification. Adding the option 'Borrowers who are group members' if the borrower is a member of a group and include only Homeowners if the borrower is a homeowner.

I have some plans to expand this type of analysis, taking into consideration extended credit report information. Stay tuned.

Version 1.0.2.2: Minor UI change and Notes fix

2007-03-06T06:05:00.000-08:00

When using the Notes feature, some of you have received an error message about a missing directory. Sorry about that. Of course the directory exists on my computer. I have fixed this issue to ensure the directory is created. Thanks for the feedback.

I have also introduced a minor UI change. The size of the buttons on the search result pages has always bothered me. So I have changed them into links.

This takes up less space and at least to me looks better.

New Feature

2007-03-05T12:40:00.000-08:00

So I have been using for some months a hidden feature. The nature of this feature gives a clear advantage to you as a bidder. And therefore puts me at a disadvantage as a fellow lender. Because of that I have not shared this technology with anyone. I will utilize the same donation concept. For those that already have the Watch List enabled, $5 will be appreciated. For new donaters, $15 would unlock both the watch list and the new feature. What is the feature you ask? Hmmm... should I say... okay I will ...it is an autobid feature that waits until the last minute to bid.

If you are interested send me a message through prosper for more details.

Version 1.0.2.1: Notes change and fix to forum link to lender stats

2007-03-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

I found a problem with the recent addition to the link to lender stat information in the forums. If the forum username was not a valid lender username then an error message would be displayed. I have removed the error message. The popup will display "No information found."

Second change I made was to allow a single click in the Notes popup to view the notes for that listing id without navigating the browser. Use double click to navigate to the listing id.

Any thoughts on improving the Notes feature would be appreciated.

Version 1.0.2.0: View other lender stats in Endorsement section and forum posts

2007-03-03T05:25:00.000-08:00

Okay - two basic changes in this release. This forum post generated a lot of activity. This is the modification to the prosper.forums signature to include the stats for the lender. A big thanks to wiseclerk and epetroel for their work.

In partnership with epetroel and www.ericscc.com I have added some hot links next to lender names so you can quickly view the 'credibility' of the lender.

From within Prosper.com, in the Endorsement section I added a hot link next to the endorser's username.

And in prosper.forums.com if you find a poster that has not modified their signature I've added a link (View Lender Stats) under the poster's username that will retrieve the information for you.

Version 1.0.1.9: Option to disable timeout warning

2007-03-01T12:02:00.000-08:00

I received some feedback that the popup warning for the timeout is sometimes annoying. I have added an option on the timeout dialog to prevent it from appearing. This ensures that the functionality remains the same for those that like it. If you change your mind, you can always re-enable the option on the Your Account tab.

I also fixed a problem with your current bids not showing immediately after you placed the bid in the search result pages and the watch list. I actually haven't tested it... since I haven't found a listing to bid on since I noticed it wasn't working. But it should work.

Version 1.0.1.8: Fixed View Loans to show all your loans

2007-03-01T04:46:00.000-08:00

I read this post in the forums and thought that was a good idea.

Can Prosper do something so that we can set the default date range for "View Loans" under the "Your Account" tab?

Right now when I click on "View Loans" I only see my recently created loans and need to change the date range to see earlier loans. It's only one extra step I have to take but it would be convenient if could set my own default date range.

From the "Your Account" tab, when you click on "View Loans" it will default the Origination dates to Jan 1, 2005. This will ensure that all your loans will display.

If you already have the extension installed, click the update link on the right.

Version 1.0.1.7: Watch List enhancements

2007-02-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

Thanks DM for pointing out that the Previous Listings link on the search and detail pages was not working. I have fixed that in this version as well.

The main change though is in the Watch List. I moved things around just a little to make its format appear better. And I have begun to put in my hot links to the listing detail information. For now just the borrower's description (not the listing description). I do want to add them all, but I wanted to get the previous listing link fix out there first.

I also moved the sort drop down and added your winning bid and outbid information.

If you are coming here the first time, download from the right using version 1.0.1.5 then come back and get 1.0.1.7. You can use the Modified installer it will work everywhere.

Version 1.0.1.6: Watch List now has sorting

2007-02-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

I added a simple method to sort the watch list. Currently there are 3 options, time left, loan amount and percent funded. Time left sorts so that the listings about to expire appear at the top. Loan amount sorts highest loan requests first. And percent funded shows those closest to 100% first.

And if you have not tried it yet, be sure to check out the addition to the Your Account tab within Prosper. Easily check for new updates to this extension.

If this is your first time installing, use the link for the 1.0.1.5 on the right. Then after installing come back and install the 1.0.1.6 update.

Version 1.0.1.5: Quick links to message borrower and Q&A entries

2007-02-25T05:15:00.000-08:00

Good news ... No need to uninstall prior to updating with the latest version. This reduces the download time. However, you still need to shutdown Internet Explorer first. The installer will now verify IE is not running prior to installing.

So the navigation area on the right has changed. If you are not sure, choose the Modified Full install. If you already have the extension installed (regardless of Modified or Original), click the Update install. I will make this even easier soon.

Now - in this version only a few minor additions and one bug fix. In some instances the hide/show button would stop working on the detail page. This has been fixed. Also there was a problem showing your winning bid info in the search result pages. This has been fixed. I added a couple more quick links on the detail page. Things that I do frequently but hate having to go through multiple clicks to get there.

I added a quick link to send a message to the borrower. Normally you have to click to the borrower's profile, then click on contact member. Now it is just one click away.

Second, I added a quick view for the questions & answers. A popup will display with all of the Q&A displayed. As it is, even if you scrolldown you will only see the first of 6 or so, depending on the size. Again, one click will display all the Q&Q entries.

Version 1.0.1.3: Added a notes feature

2007-02-23T15:07:00.000-08:00

I've added a notes feature. On the search result pages you will see an additional button, called intuitively enough Notes. If it has a *, that indicates this listing has a note. By the way, I also changed the look of the buttons to match Prosper's style. I am rethinking the UI for the hide, watch, and notes buttons on the search result pages.

And on the detail page, a Notes link appears on the quick links. A magnifying glass here indicates that the listing has notes.

So, what happens when you press the Notes button or link. This pops up. It will remain on top of all windows until you press close. The notes will also auto refresh when you view a new listing detail.

The Save and Delete buttons behave like you would

expect. Upon pressing Delete, you are asked to confirm based on the listing id.

The Archive button brings up this view on the left. Those are listing id's. Click on an id and you will navigate to the detail page. I added this so it would be easy to remove notes that were no longer needed.

I do hope you enjoy the addition of notes.

Prosper Search Result Page

2007-02-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

To make it a little easier to view, I split the image into two.

On the search result page, I've added a link to the borrower's name which will popup the description of the listing. And to the right of the name is a magnifying glass which pops up the borrower's profile description.

A link is also added to the Credit Grade, which when clicked will popup the extended credit information. You of course must be logged into to view.

Below the debt to income ratio I've added the Average Rate information, which is based on Prosper's rates page.

I added the Hide button so that you can review a listing and never have to see it again. If you make a mistake use the Filter Off button to show all listings again. For those currently hidden, the Hide button will, of course, become a Show button.

The Watch button adds the listing to your Watch List. If currently on the Watch List, the button will say Remove. See the detail page on the Watch List for more information.

Under the number of bids, I added a link to Previous Listings. This link displays all of the user's prior listings in a pop up.

Also, if you hover the mouse over the time left, it will display the estimated ending date for the listing.

Potential changes, which I would appreciate feedback on, are to make the link on the borrower's name popup the borrower's profile information, and add a magnifying glass to the current listing link to display the listing description. I think that would be more intuitive.

Version 1.0.1.2: Added amount remaining to fund to listing detail page

2007-02-19T10:42:00.000-08:00

Saw another post here and here on the Prosper Forums... I agreed so I implemented it. On the listing detail page, the amount funded and amount remaining to be funded are now once gain displayed. The calculation may be off due to rounding.

I also modified the format a little for the start and end dates.

Then something that I have wanted. I added a quick view of the borrower's profile description. On the listing detail and search result pages, I added a magnifying glass that when clicked will display the profile description in a popup.

Here is the same magnifying glass on the search result page.

Version: 1.0.1.1 - Display ending date on listing detail page

2007-02-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

Use the link on the right to download the installer. There currently still are two installers. If you are unsure use the one labeled Modified. If you have never had problems installing, you can use the one labeled Original. The difference is the Modified installer includes a file missing from some PCs, so it is larger.

Details
Saw some requests to display the ending date of the listing in the listing detail page. I had been showing the date of the last bid date. After some thought I have modified the extension to display the start date and the estimated end date. Here is a snapshot of the modification.

The ending date is estimated based on the time left, in this example 38 minutes. Estimated because the borrower can sometimes end the listing early. I may drop the Estimated in a future version. The time is based on your current time zone. Mine is EST.

Also on the search result pages, if you hover the mouse over the time left, the extension will display the estimated ending date. Leave a comment if you think I should just add it as a field.

Now believe it or not, Windows does not have a nice handy function that gives you the 3 letter time zone code. And right now I'm doing the lazy method of calculation. So if you find your time zone code is incorrect, please leave a comment.