VendAsta

Seems like these days I barely have time to absorb, blog about, and Twitter my excitement over the latest StepRep update before it's shouldered aside by yet another StepRep update. Every two weeks or so they push out a new version. The changes are usually pretty small, but they make a big difference to usability.

Take this week's improvements to the Customers tab. You may have been ignoring this tab because, if you live in an area without many MyFrontSteps users, the tab probably contained nothing but an empty page.

But now, there's a handy filter that allows you to filter by location (city, state/province, or country) or by service category. It looks kinda like this:

So if, like me, you're located in MyFrontSteps world headquarters – Saskatoon, Canada – and every day you're inundated with Asks of questionable relevance, you can use the filter to focus only on the ones that interest you. Or, if you happen to be one of the five lonely StepRep users in West Virginia, and there's no action in Charleston or Wheeling or wherever, you can flick the filter to Pennsylvania or Ohio or Kentucky and see what's going on over there.

Other changes

We also spent some time styling the Homepage. Now when you respond to an Ask your identity will be visible to everyone. If you've uploaded a photo to your profile, your photo will appear right there next to your answer, with the word "Expert" underneath. What an ego boost!

Sometime very soon we'll give you the option to make your replies anonymous to other service providers.

PS. If you have no idea what I'm rattling on about with this whole "Asks" business, you might want to read this post from a couple weeks back.

PPS. Or just log in to your account and check out the improvements.

The last time we saw the Spokesmonster he was knuckle-walking off into the sunset, his life having been perfected by StepRep. Now it's MyFrontSteps that needs a promotional push, so our beloved mascot has been forced to cancel his retirement plans.

(Watch for a cameo by MyFrontSteps CEO Brendan King!)

If you've recently logged into your account, you may have had a "What the heck's going on?" moment. Instead of being popped right into the Reputation Monitor, as usual, you found yourself on a screen that looked sort of like this:

Mwuh? Wazzat? Where am I?

Don't worry, you can get back to your comfort zone by clicking the orange Reputation Monitor button at the top of the screen. But while we're here, let's explore this new homepage you've landed on.

What you're looking at is a feed of your most recent activity in StepRep. Right now that means you're probably seeing all the latest stories that the Reputation Monitor has dug up. But as StepRep and the MyFrontSteps community continue to grow, those search results are going to be crowded out by other new stuff:

Trusts and Endorsements

As we keep on telling people, StepRep isn't only about monitoring your reputation and managing your presence on Google and other search engines. It's also about building your referral network by connecting with your customers, their friends, and your fellow service providers.

Whenever your network grows – when somebody adds you to their Trusted List or endorses your services – it'll show up on your feed here on the homepage. You can see who you're connected to by clicking the orange StepConnect button.

Asks

We could've called ’em "Questions", but we didn't want to pre-suppose how customers chose to use the feature. An Ask might be a question, a call for help, or a request for an estimate on a project. An Ask is an open discussion thread where anyone in the MyFrontSteps community can throw in their two cents.

Pictures can also be posted inline, so that customers can be more explicit about what they're talking about: "Here's my window – how much to have blinds installed?" That kind of thing.

If you click on the orange Customers button, you'll see where these Asks are coming from. There might not be that many in your hometown right now – heck, there might not be any. But when you do start seeing Asks that pertain to your area of expertise, we hope you'll take the time to respond to them. It's a great way to connect with new customers and pick up business.

Pop over to StepRep and check it out.

Sometime over the last few days, while my back was turned, the developer guys pushed out a new version of StepRep. It's hard to keep up with ‘em.

As usual, a lot of the changes will be invisible to slobs like you and me. But there are two big changes that I should draw your attention to:

Promoting stories to Faceboook

A couple weeks ago I alerted you to a workaround for getting your StepRep widget to appear on your Facebook profile. Now there's a way to publish stories right into your Facebook stream.

Each story now has three options under "Promote":

• Add story to your widget and profile page.
• Send the story to Twitter.
• Publish the story to your Facebook stream.

When you click on "Publish to Facebook" you'll get a little pop-up asking for your Facebook credentials (unless you happen to be logged into Facebook already). Then you'll have the option of adding a personal message to the story before it appears on your profile, where it will look something like this:

Interacting with members of the MyFrontSteps community

Most of our users probably don't pay too much attention to the little orange buttons across the top of the screen, the ones that say "StepConnect" and "Referrals & Quotes". That's okay; so far there hasn't been much to do on those screens except watch some Spokesmonster videos.

But if you click on "Referrals & Quotes" now you'll see...well, depending on which city you live in, you might not see anything at all. But I'll show you what it looks like for my hometown, Saskatoon:

Y'see, the table displays questions from folks in the MyFrontSteps community – specifically, from our new Facebook application Homebook. Click on the entries and you can interact with whoever posted the question. You can offer an answer, request more info, or post photos. Your replies will be visible but anonymous to other service providers, but the customer will be able to see who you are.

Right now when you visit this screen, the questions may or may not be relevant to your business; but as the action picks up in your town, we'll narrow down the table so you only see questions related to your line of work.

This probably isn't something you need to worry about right away. We'll soon be adding a way to notify users when a potentially interesting question comes in. Just letting you know that, as always, there's cool stuff coming your way in StepRep.

Brendan, Allan, and Jeff were down at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last month, and they wandered around with Allan's new videocamera asking people, "What have you done to make your house a home?" They brought me back the footage and said, "Here, make some promotional videos." But, being a glutton for work, I thought instead I would make some promotional cartoons.

Here's Vanessa Fox talking about reclaiming her home office space:

Robert Scoble talks about guys and their toy rooms:

This is Alice Myerhoff of Inman News, bein' organic and what-not:

Jennifer Pahlka, general manager of the Web 2.0 Expo, spends all of her money and all of her time on her house:

PS. Some of our visitors might be wondering, What the heck is MyFrontSteps?