NetworthIQ Blog

• It took 20 long months, but finally climbed back the level of traffic achieved in September 05 when NY Times story ran (May - all-time high) #
• Wrapped up code for messaging (email like) feature today. Just need some UI work and it will be released. #
• Ever have a feature that seems easy, takes longer than you thought to develop, and then when you’re done wonder, “why did that take so long” #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

By far the most frequent suggestion I get is to get rid of the stale and/or fake profiles on NetworthIQ. Today, we took a big step in that direction, and amazingly only needed a small database update to make it happen. The count of users included in the user listings and statistics went from almost 6600 down to 4500.

Now, in order for a profile to 1) be available in the users listings and 2) be included in the net worth statistics and comparison reports it has to meet one of these two criteria.

• More than one entry
• At least one entry in the last 12 months

So, if you came by the site over a year ago and entered only a single entry, your profile has been hidden. Simply make a new entry to appear in the listings again.

I mention the criteria because I’m not looking to hide anything we do in weeding these out and to see what users think of this criteria. This doesn’t eliminate all of the fakes, but it should reduce them significantly and begin to highlight more of the active members of the community. I wanted to start easy and then tweak the formula as we go along. As always, I appreciate any feedback.

• Updated aggregate net worth statistics including making state data publicly available for the first time http://tinyurl.com/3ajtz5 #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Trying out a new plan with todo list getting so backed up. Going to alternate between improving current feature and implementing new stuff. #
• Buiding private messaging this week. Private messaging will let users privately communicate with other members of the NetworthIQ community. #
• Next week will begin on (much requested) cleansing of inaccurate and/or stale profiles. Need to decide between algorithmic or user-driven. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Added comment notifications. Anytime someone leaves a comment on one of your net worth entires, tips, or blog posts, you get an email. #
• Made the “highest rated” tips page the default view when browsing to tips. The “recent tips” page has gone dead unfortunately. #
• Renaming “blogs” to “journals.” Not sure if that will encourage people to use the feature more, but it seems like a better term for it. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Yahoo fixed their geocoder, so now cleaning up the bad data from the last couple days. #
• City/State data cleaned up. Users that registered in the last couple days should be able to get state comparisons now. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Mad at Yahoo for breaking their Geocode API. Why didn’t they version this release? Good lesson about relying on free APIs. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• A week away from Twitter, need to catch up a bit I suppose. #
• Migrated reminder emails to powershell scheduled task, rather than a direct web page request that ties up the site while running. #
• Turned down our biggest revenue opportunity yet. I almost did it, product is not something I support and my gut was confirmed by partners. #
• Paid out April revenue share to monetization consultant. Big chunk this time, it’ll be nice in a couple months when we’re keeping more. #
• Going to miss BarCamp/DemoCamp this weekend. Spending the night away with my wife for anniversary/mother’s day. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• WebVisions day 2. In the social media strategies session. #
• Not much selection for the 3:00 sessions. Left content panel dicussion, now in English: Web 2.0’s universal language #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

It’s time announce the winners of the contest looking for the best financial advice using our tips feature during the month of April.

Most Tips

Winner: buildingnetworth with 15 tips. This one was won going away. Nice work! Now we just have to get you tagging.

Highest Rated Tip

Winner: Blogging_Away_Debt with her tip, Dealing With the Liability Side of the Net Worth Equation that had 12 votes in April. It helps to be our most popular user from the personal finance blogosphere :-). There was a bit of controversy with this category, because there was a tip with more votes. But, those votes were of a questionable nature and not in the spirit of the contest and so it was disqualified.

Editor’s choice

Winner: moneyunder30 with, Ignore Everybody Else.
I alluded in the announcement to looking for one that prompted the most discussion, and this was the one. But, beyond that, this is one of the core truisms when it comes to personal finance. There’s always “spend less than you earn,” but the easiest way to do that is not worry about keeping up with the Joneses. Very sound advice that is worth reinforcing. I know I need to remember this more so.

Congratulations winners! I’ll be contacting the winners soon with your prizes. (I’m on an open WIFI connection so don’t feel like pulling out the credit card at the moment).

Unfortunately the tips feature has dried up a bit this month, and the voting and tagging has not quite been fully embraced. I’m working through ideas to shore this up and expand upon the whole advice discussion. Is this area useful to users?

It’s also a good clue to get back to focusing more on the core net worth features.