How to be your own CSI team...

I'm obsessed with CSI. No seriously. It's a bad addiction. Something about the scenery chewing Wolfgang Peterson on the original CSI to the ham-handed technique effused by David Caruso on CSI: Miami just gets my motor running. No one on those shows looks like highly trained sophisticated scientists charged with the care of collection evidence on criminals. Maybe that's why people love the show, because it simplifies and dumbs down the process of criminal investigation. Which is the perfect segue into this cool website Nell found called Criminal Searches (http://criminalsearches.com/default.aspx)

Before you scratch your heads in wonder as to why anyone on myJambi would ever need such a site, hear me out. So the whole point of myJambi is to work within a network of trusted friends. And that should give you peace enough to commission custom-made jewelery or stationary. But what about people that would have access to the things you hold most valuable: family members & pets. Well here is where Criminal searches comes in.

You just type in the first and last name of the person you are investigating and a list of people with that name will show up. Next to their name you will see a date of birth and next to that the number of offenses they have on their record. The criminal offenses are color coded by violation: Behavioral, Business, Drug & Alcohol, Sex Related, Theft/Robbery, Violent, Traffic/Other. When you click on the details button you can see the details of each offense. You can see how they pled and wether or not they were convicted. Don't be alarmed if you put your own name in and that speeding ticket you got shows up.

Now I'm not saying that you should go all CSI on everyone on myJambi, but if you are trusting someone to walk Fido or giving them the keys to your house to clean it, you may want to know just a little bit more about them. You can never be too safe.

My Reputation

Your reputation-a hard earned public perception cultivated from years of hard work easily thrown into limbo by one or two negative comments. It's important to protect your reputation. Just like in middle school, you can't go around having people trash your credibility by saying you've done something you didn't do (like for example: saying you made out with Josh when you so did not!) In the world of myJambi, its easy to keep track of your reputation using the brand new feature-the reputation module.

The reputation module can be found at the bottom page of any of your offers, under your nifty new calender, making it very convenient to buyers in your network. The module itself is split into three parts. Under the orange title bar (Reputation as a Provider) there is a line that says "Who's Talking About Me" and to the right of it, there are two buttons: Find Friends & Get Endorsed. My favorite is the Find Friends button. You click on that guy and you can find out which of your buddies is on myJambi using your email. If a buddy isn't on myJambi, you can also invite them. Its a fast and easy way to grow your network and get more buyers and providers. The Get Endorsed function works similarly, but you can send your whole Gmail address book an invite to come endorse you on myJambi. Under the "Who's Talking About me" title bar, you'll find a line with the number of friends you have on myJambi, the number of endorsements you have and the number of reviews you have. For example, I have 34 friends 5 endorsers 1 review. Under that tally, the lovely smiling photos of some of my friends can be found.

In the second part of the reputation module, titled: "What They Are Saying" all the reviews for my services can be found. Viewers can choose to see all reviews for all services or just the reviews for the service they are currently viewing. In the last part of the module, there is a section for endorsements-personalized testimonials from your friends on your abilities.

Ok, so here's a big question I've grappled with myself. What the heck is the difference between a review and an endorsement? I had to ask David out for help with this and once he told me, it seems so simple. A review can only be posted by someone who has purchased your services. Every time a buyer buys your service, they are asked to review you. These reviews affect your overall rating, reflected by the stars found at the top of your offer page. Endorsements are notes that any of your friends can post about the services you offer. These are designed to help buyers get an understanding of your abilities as it relates to your network of friends.

The reputation module isn't just for providers, its also for buyers. In the orange title bar next to where it says "Reputation As Provider" you can click on "see reputation as buyer" where all the features are exactly the same but pertain to your buying history. Keeping up you rep is hard thing to do, but with this new myJambi feature, it just got a little bit easier.

--Lili Jambi

Monday myJambi Morning

I work from home for two days, and look what I miss! This awesome myJambi office-wall-pseudo-quilt-party-decoration made me smile this morning. I hope it makes you smile too. 

Happy Monday,

Nell

Fab party last night!

We had a wonderful get-together for myJambi users and friends last night. Just want to say thanks to everyone who came. The food, prepared by chef Amanda Cardinale was absolutely delicious and looked stunning, and the music played by guitarist Michael Wolfsohn was delightful. Our little office was bursting at the seams -- it was a great crowd and many, many interesting conversations were struck. A fantastic evening.

-Kristina

We can all use some new features...

We hope you enjoy some of the new changes we just made to our offers and wants. Lili Jambi will soon be writing about them in more detail (particularly the new reputation module) but in the meantime we thought we'd send along a little overview from the product team. As always, we love to hear what you think--so let us know what you like, what you don't like, or what you'd like to see more of by e-mailing us at feedback@myjambi.com

• A new reputation module: Give people a good reason to work with you by growing your community and your reputation on myJambi. Add Friends! Get Endorsed! Work more jobs and get reviewed!

• A beautifully (and slightly smaller) redesigned calendar: Add the times you generally prefer to work and edit your weekly availability. These selected times will show up in yellow and green respectively on a nice white background to give other users a clear idea when you want to work.
  

• A new right-hand rail: Any additional info you want to share about the services you offer and want will show up in the right-hand rail along with your profile content. Now other users will have an even better idea as to who you are before deciding to work with you.

Enjoy!

The Product Team

A Tuesday in New York

Simon, Nell and I were peacefully working this morning when all of sudden we heard some music--so we looked outside only to find that a band had set up shop outside our window. It seems like it's that time of year.

This is after three weeks of drilling so things are getting better; as one would say, "just as the sounds of the drill subsided, sounds of drums sounded."

UPDATE!: Turns out this is quite the news story. This isn't just some August street fair; it's the WGA American Idol Truth Tour.

In other office news, Kristina and I hung up our newest piece of art. Exciting times over here at 28th and Park :)
-David

New Feature Friday!

So I know it's not Friday, but it's nonetheless a day ending in "y", and heck the services were launched last Friday, so I'm sticking with my title.

The big feature change this week is visible on your profile below your personal/professional information under an orange title box named PROVIDERS IN MY COMMUNITY. Under that orange box you'll see Providers I've Reviewed Positively , Providers I've Endorsed and Providers In My Community. Here's an example of what I'm talking about from my friend David's profile:



The first two sections, as you can see, are pretty self explanatory. Every time you review someone you've worked with positively, that section is updated. Same goes for providers/friends you endorse. The last section is for services that your friends offer. This section is updated as your friends add new services. The point of the PROVIDERS IN MY COMMUNITY section is to keep you up to date on what your friends are doing, so you can help them get new gigs and visa versa. And you, of course, have the option to hide the reviews that you've written, on the off chance that you want to keep that glowing praise to yourself.

The other big feature rolled out last Friday, is a time-saving device you may have noticed if you made a proposal this week. When you click on the Book Now option on a Want that you don't have a tab created for, we automatically create one for you, saving you the step of having to do it yourself before going to the next step. So say you want to send a proposal for a Spanish Tutor, but you haven't gotten around to adding that service to your profile. No problem. Click on Book Now and send your proposal immediately. myJambi will create the Spanish Tutor tab for you and it will show up instantly on your profile.

Stay tuned for more exciting new features in the coming weeks and the debut of a series of myJambi commercials that will make you chuckle whilst perusing the Wants on myJambi.com

--Lili Jambi

Picnic by myJambi

Things have been pretty exciting in myJambi-land. So much going on with the site and getting the word out about it. In addition to the bevy of new features released last Friday, we have a series of commercials debuting this week on youtube and last Thursday we had the very first myJambi-sponsored party on the Great Lawn in Central Park. All of the party planning and execution was carried out through the website by the myJambi team. No less than six actual myJambi users were employed to make this picnic happen, proving once again that you can tailor the site to your specific needs.

The unique, custom-designed invitation was designed by Joseph Chico:

You can find the link to his cartoonist profile on myJambi here:
http://www.myjambi.com/users/1780/cartoonists/2687-cartoonist


As the sun set over the park, we chatted with our fellow Jambi enthusiasts while listening to two very different mixes of music created masterfully by Robin: http://www.myjambi.com/users/3633/music-gurus/2704-music-guru-here
and Jennifer: http://www.myjambi.com/users/1444/music-gurus/898-music-guru


As the music got the party started we sipped a little Sangria and sampled the extensive and varied cheese selection provided by Anita:
http://www.myjambi.com/users/3464/food-gurus/3063-food-lover

The cheeses were easy to spot thanks to the custom, hand-lettered cheese labels and menu designed by Marisol: http://www.myjambi.com/users/23/designers/3115-card-maker


Delivery Pro Jackie O provided a delicious assortment of mini-cupcakes from Red Hen Bakery that were gone in no time.

And while the main reason I was at the party was to score some delicious cheese, the most important thing I took away from the whole experience was that you really could plan and throw a party using your network of friends and have it come off without a hitch or having to hire a professional party planner that you need to sell your plasma to afford. I encourage all of you to check out the website, there are many food, beverage, music and design gurus that can help make your next party a truly classy affair.

--Lili Jambi