Have you ever recommended someone to friends and then wondered if anything ever came of it?
Last week, I bumped into a friend who thanked me for recommending John, my landscaper, to him. It was nice to hear but I only found out because we happened to bump into each other. A few days later, John told me he’s had a handful of people call him as a result of that recommendation. Again, I was pleased but I had had no idea.
So, as of today, GigPark has made it easy for you to thank your friends for a recommendation and tell them if you contacted and/or hired them. On the flip side, you should be thanked more often (and rightfully so!) for your helpful recommendations.
Try it out – you can do it with one click on the right hand side of any recommendation page. And let us know what you think (we like hearing feedback too).
P.S. It’s never too late to thank people for previous recommendations. Make sure to go back to the recommendations you liked or used in the past and tell the recommender how much you appreciate it.
We’ve been lucky enough to receive lots of great suggestions from our members over the last couple of months… requests for new GigPark features, design ideas and lots of little improvements that we hadn’t thought of - thanks so much!
With these suggestions ringing in our ears we decided to redesign GigPark and I’m happy to say that our shiny new site is now live!
Here’s what’s new…
1. One page to rule them all
We’ve put everything you need on one simple page, called My GigPark. Now discovering the reliable mechanic your friends use or recommending your helpful mortgage broker should be easier than ever. Your GigPark includes content from you, your friends and friends of friends - for lots of members, this means access to hundreds of recommendations by people you know and trust!
2. Friends can use your GigPark too (without joining)
Many of you told us you’d like an easy way to help friends not on GigPark yet. So, now you can share your entire GigPark. Friends don’t need to be members - they can just show up and start searching for that trusted family doctor they’re looking for.
3. Finding and inviting friends is a snap
GigPark gets really useful when you have friends using it, so we’ve made finding and inviting friends super fast and easy. You can automatically find contacts from your email service (like Gmail or Outlook) or add our Facebook app to find all of your Facebook friends on GigPark.
The new design also includes more of those lovely illustrations you’ve told us you like so much (we do too!) and literally hundreds of other little improvements. We’d love to hear what you think! Please leave a comment or drop us a line.
There was lots of excitement at GigPark HQ last week when we found out we had been selected to demo at Toronto’s Mesh Conference.
Mesh is an event all about digital culture and its impact on business, media and society. We’re lucky enough to be part of the 15 Minutes of Fame session where 6 promising startups get to show their wares to the crowd. If you are planning on coming to Mesh, please stop by to check out our demo. We’ll be in the main room between 11:40am and noon on Wednesday, May 21st.
Please also take the chance to grab Noah or I and tell us what you think of GigPark. We’re always excited to hear ideas about how we can improve the service for you!
One last thing: I’m also lucky enough to be on a panel at Mesh. I’ll be discussing “The New Front Page” with Candice Faktor of OurFaves and Daniel Burka of Digg. The panel is hosted by Mathew Ingram of the Globe and Mail.
Sometimes, when a friend is asking for a recommendation, you don’t have the answer but you know someone who does. Now, you can easily pass along this friend’s request for help to other people you know. Just click “Send to friends” on a request and you’ll hook up your friends like a good friend should.
Since officially opening to the public in late February, we’ve had a lot of new people join GigPark (yippee!). There’s a good chance that you know some of these people and that they know you but you haven’t found each other on GigPark yet. With this in mind, our crackerjack team has built a little algorithm to suggest some of these people to you. GigPark members can see their list of suggested friends here.
P.S. Your list of suggested friends gets even better if you check your address book regularly.
When a friend asks for a landscaper, it’s easy to reply with a name and some contact info …
“Contact John at Proland: 905.799.6100 or proland.ca”
Now, as you type contact info when replying, we’ll automatically start to fill in a GigPark recommendation for you. This little bit of magic makes it easier for you to recommend your landscaper to all of your friends so they too can have a nice yard at an affordable price.
We snuck in another cool little feature this week … you can now use your profile picture from Facebook as your profile picture on GigPark. You can do it in a matter of seconds from your profile settings page.
Of course, make sure that you’ve added the GigPark Facebook application and that you’ve linked it with your GigPark account.
Say cheese!
Ooooh … that’s a good recommendation. I’m going to try this!
Several GigPark members have told us that they have this reaction but then forget to come back to that recommendation or don’t want to find it again. Enter our new feature: Favorites.
Making a recommendation a Favorite is easy - click “Add to favorites” on the right side of a recommendation and voila! All your Favorites will be listed on your page. And if your recommendations get added as Favorites, we’ll let you know.
My first Favorite? Dre’s recommendation for a sensory deprivation tank.
Thanks for the great idea, Jay!
In the last few weeks, GigPark has been written about, blogged about and interviewed by media all over the continent (yay!). Mixed in with all of this great coverage were a couple of television appearances. People say mainstream TV is less popular now because of bittorrent, TiVo, etc. From the numbers of people joining GigPark though, it seems plenty of people are still tuning in. Welcome everyone!
Here are the 2 TV segments for your viewing pleasure :) - Canada AM on March 10th and Breakfast Television on March 3rd.
Thank you to all of the bloggers, producers and journalists who have been kind enough to feature GigPark so far. Please take our word for it, there will be much more to write about soon!
On Monday morning Noah will be talking about GigPark live on Canada AM, CTV’s national morning show. If you have time, tune in!
GigPark is growing incredibly fast, thanks in part to all of this great media coverage. What does this mean for you? Well, you probably have friends on GigPark that you haven’t connected with yet.
Make sure you check your address book often. Adding friends on GigPark means you can see all of their recommendations and ask them for a recommendation.
On GigPark, more friends is more fun, right? :)
