Zopa has run a member competition, asking members to explain how Zopa works for a borrower or a lender.
I watched several of the created videos. My favourite is the video below by Glenmation.
Marketing
Selected Kiva API apps
The Kiva API allows anyone to develop applications that use the data from Kiva loans. Below are screenshots from two Kiva loan apps.
Kiva loans by country of borrower – source Kivadata.org Continue reading
Viral Kiva video
A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball.
The video was made by Kiva fellow (volunteer) Kieran Ball, who worked for Kiva in Cambodia. It explains the transfer of the money for a Kiva loan from a lender in London to a borrower in Cambodia.
This is a great example how many people can be reached over the internet with a well made video in a short time. Online since only 8 days the video has been watched over 32,000 times and was embedded in many websites (at least 50).
Marketing – Smava asks users to videotape their experiences
German p2p lending service Smava has sent its lenders an email asking them to produce short videos telling their personal experiences using Smava. Smava offers 50 Euro (approx. 75 US$) for each user generated video that is sent to Smava and published.
Three (older) videos by Smava lenders can be viewed here.
Kiva billboard advertising
Kiva did billboard advertising on highway 101. Apparently the ad was sponsored by Paypal.
Matt Flannery of Kiva speculates whether the board brings 125 additional visits per day to the website (0.04% conversion rate) or if user growth on the sampled weeks had other causes.
Does ABN Amro Bank offer p2p lending?
Yesterday the headline of Dutch De Financiele Telegraph read "ABN AMRO brings together borrowers and lenders". ABN Amro is a large bank in the Netherlands. The article mentioned Boober and that ABN Amro is offering a different service.
So what is ABN Amro offering? P2P lending?
Actually the service in question can be found on this page and it is a free download document that lenders and borrowers can use to agree on a loan contract between them. Other the supplying the download ABN Amro is not involved in any resulting loans. In fact the site states (in Dutch):
… The general information on this page has not been meant as a recommendation. ABN Amro will not take liability …
I guess that can be filed under marketing using the 'peer-to-peer loan' buzz or at best under customer service.