Great news! We have just been nominated as one of Yahoo!’s finds of the year for 2007. We have been nominated within the innovative category and are also up for the People’s Choice Award which is where you can really help us. We need your votes.

If you need a little more convincing on why you should vote then think about all the extra traffic and awareness ParkatmyHouse.com will receive if we win and all those extra people who will be looking to rent or rent out a parking space in your area.

Yahoo! are due to announce the results of the competition on 8th January.

Click here to vote.

Thanks again for supporting us.

Anthony Eskinazi

In general, reliability is the ability of a person or system to perform and maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well as hostile or unexpected circumstances.

As you hopefully know from reading our previous post we have recently added a new feature called `reliability ratings`.

We really recommend you check a user’s rating before contacting them as the rating we give them is usually a good indication on how likely they are to read and then action your inquiry.

Instead of showing a user’s feedback rating next to their username, we will now be showing each user’s reliability rating. The scale is from 0% to 100% with 100% indicating that this user is extremely reliable at responding to his/her messages.

You can still view a user’s feedback by clicking on their username to view their ParkatmyHouse.com feedback profile.

Is there anyone out there who hasn’t heard of Facebook?

Well the clever billionaires over in Silicon Valley have launched a number of new features over the past few months and best of all… they are all free! All types of businesses can now create a dedicated `fan page`, an application to create a Facebook version of their own website or some new clever advertising methods to drive targeted traffic back to their site.

So we didn’t miss the boat, we have created a small ParkatmyHouse.com application (http://apps.facebook.com/parking/) which allows you to search through all of our parking spaces direct from Facebook.

If you do have a play with it, we’d really like to know what features you would like to see added to the application.

Do you like our cute logo? Do you want to show your public support for what we are trying to do? I’m sure the answer was at least yes to the logo question and therefore we have set up a special Facebook page where you can become a ‘Fan of ParkatmyHouse.com‘.

Please write us messages, send us love and generally let us know how we are doing!

Before I actually tell you about this new feature I did some research in to where the phrase `one fell swoop` originated from. For years I thought the correct pronunciation was `In one foul swoop` and to this day always pronounce it in this way.

According to the `Phrase Finder`
Shakespeare either coined the phrase, or gave it circulation, in Macbeth, 1605:

MACDUFF: [on hearing that his family and servants have all been killed]

All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

I guess the way most of us are using it is a clear example of a malapropism – `a ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound`, which again is something I am regularly guilty of doing.

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Now that the English lesson is over I thought I’d write a small post on how we will automatically suggest other parking spaces that may be of interest to you after you make that initial enquiry. It is quite self explanatory and an example is shown below. However, if you do need any help with this feature or want to suggest ways we can improve it or any other feature on our site please let us know.

After months of blood, sweat and tears, the new version of ParkatmyHouse.com is finally here! We have tweaked almost every page and have also added a number of new features, which we hope will make your parking life a little bit easier:

Reliability Ratings – Have you ever tried getting in touch with a parking space owner but never heard back from them? If so, then this new feature is for you. The reliability rating indicates the likelihood of you getting a quick response from an owner. Ratings are calculated automatically and take into account the number of unread messages in an owner’s ParkatmyHouse.com inbox, the date of an owner’s last login, the number of days it takes an owner to reply to a message, etc.

An owner’s reliability rating is displayed in the ‘Parking Space Owner Information’ box at the top of each page that shows the details of a parking space (see below):

Booking a Parking Space – We got rid off the annoying monthly declaration forms and replaced them with what we hope is an intuitive booking process.

Once you’ve agreed to rent or let out a parking space, simply click on the ‘Complete booking’ button on the message center page. This will create a booking confirmation with all the agreed transaction details.

Much easier than the previous declaration nonsense, wouldn’t you agree?

New My Account Page – We have also completely revamped the ‘My Account’ page by reducing the clutter, removing the confusing menus and making all the functionality accessible with just one click!

All the main functionality is now accessible from four main tabs – Messages, Bookings, Invoices and Parking Spaces.

• Messages – This tab displays your messages from other users. To read or reply to a message simply click on the message itself. To send a message, click on the `Contact Owner` button on the page that shows details of the parking space.
• Bookings – This tab displays your confirmed booking reservations. A parking space can be booked by clicking on the ‘Confirm Booking’ button during a message exchange with a parking space owner.
• Invoices – This tab displays the invoices that have been issued by ParkatmyHouse.com to parking space owners.
• Parking Spaces - This tab displays your parking spaces (if any).

The rest of the site functionality is still available from the links displayed below the main tabs.

We have tweaked almost every other page as well, so please let us know how we are doing!

We are excited to bring you two new features that should further simplify your parking experience with ParkatmyHouse.com.

The first feature is the completely revamped search results page that includes the map with all the parking spaces and local amenities all on one page, making it easy to find the right parking space for you. Do a quick search and let us know what you think!

The second feature is the Enhanced listings that should help you rent out your parking space faster (and helps us cover our costs :-). Enhanced listings allow you to change the way your parking space appears in the search results. Here is the standard listing that we all know and love

You can draw attention to your parking space on the search results page by making it Bold

or Highlighted

You can even make your parking space both Bold and Highlighted to really make it stand out from the rest

The final enhancement is Featured and it makes your parking space appear above all the other search results that are not featured. This guarantees that parkers will always see your space first!

Notice how the Featured parking space is listed above all the other results.

The enhanced listings can be enabled using the Enhancements tab when adding or editing your parking space listing.

The cost for Bold, Highlighted and Features enhancements are £1.50, £2.50 and £4.95 per month respectively and you can cancel them at any time.

Happy parking!

Over the past few days we’ve been hard at work to allow you to view our available parking spaces in as many ways as possible. Today we added a few feed icons which are displayed on all our parking space search pages.

By clicking on the Google Earth Icon you will be able to download our parking feed which will automatically add our parking space data to your Google Earth interface.

For all of you that have not checked out the wonder that is Google Earth you can download it here. Even if it just to see your house with your car parked outside or find out who in your local area has a swimming pool in their back garden, it is a great way to kill a bit of time on your own or with a friend.

We also now provide a RSS (‘Really Simple Syndication’) feed for all search results.

You need a ‘RSS News Reader’ to get started - Google Reader is one of the most popular ones but you can do a google search to find others.

You can now subscribe to a website by clicking on the orange button representing the RSS feed ( or ).

Once you have subscribed to a website feed, you can then read all the latest information right there in your news reader, without having to navigate to the site first.

Try and do a search for `parking near london` or Parking in SW1 with 24/7 Access and Underground. Then click on the orange button in the top right hand corner of the search results and you will be able to save this feed and be notified whenever new spaces become available.

In addition to all the above (yes, we’ve been working very hard!), you can now tell your friends on Facebook about ParkatmyHouse.com by sharing our search pages with your friends. Simply click on the facebook icon and it will be added to your profile. It really could not be easier.

As usual, if you think we could improve our service in any way or you want to have a little moan then please contact us.

Happy parking!

Renting out a parking space online is quite a new phenomenon for most of us. Renting a property however has been around for years and one of the leaders in this field are Nestoria.

Nestoria have recently integrated all of our spaces in to their website. Do you need a flat to rent in Victoria? Well now you can also find out where you can park, be it in a commercial car park or at one of our user’s many driveways. Simply click on the Parking tab below the map, and nearby parking opportunities are displayed as pins on the map as displayed on the image below.

We see this as a great opportunity to increase the exposure of our listings making it more likely that someone needing a space will be able to find something that matches their needs and also provide Nestoria users with relevant and useful information around properties they are searching.

On Wednesday 27th June 2007, I had the opportunity to talk about ParkatmyHouse.com in front of representatives from Google, Yahoo, Newscorp as well as many enterpreneurs, journalists, investors and anyone else who wanted to hear about the exciting new companies within the new ‘Web 2.0′ Internet scene.

Presenting companies varied from established companies such as jaiku, WAYN and Seatwave to exciting new ideas from Huddle and WeLoveLocal.

Chaired by a humourous Doug Richards, CEO of Library House (also formerly a dragon on BBC’s Dragon’s Den), the Essential Web 2007 conference proved to be a fascinating insight in to the range of web innovation currently taking place across Europe and Israel.

Here is a picture of Anthony Eskinazi, ParkatmyHouse.com’s founding director talking to the panel about the way we aim to increase awareness of ParkatmyHouse.com both online and offline in the future to help secure our number one position in the online parking marketplace.

Chris Seth - UK Managing Director, Piczo Inc
Judy Gibbons - Venture Development, Accel Partners
Paul Walsh - CEO, Segala
Anthony Eskinazi - CEO, ParkatmyHouse.com

If you want to read some more reviews of the event, here are some links to some recent articles that have been written by those who attended.

Small Biz Pod
Argolon
Four Starters

Considering I had the idea for ParkatmyHouse.com while trying to find parking around a stadium over in San Francisco, I realised today, after we were mentioned on TalkSport radio, that I haven’t really talked about this issue in great detail.

We now have over 28 parking spaces available in and around the Emirates Stadium in North London and the majority of these receive enquiries before every major event taking place at the stadium.

Fans hate it, commentators always mention it, but wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t feel like we had to leave the ground early before the end of the game just to avoid the huge rush in the car park and be resigned to awful congestion on the roads after the final whistle has blown.

By parking in someone else’s driveway or garage quarter of a mile of even half a mile away from the stadium, you can make your day out much more enjoyable.

With Wimbledon starting soon, the demand for parking spaces in SW19 is expected to increase over the next couple of weeks. If anyone reading this post lives in the Wimbledon area, list your space quickly to take advantage of the thousands of commuters needing somewhere secure to park.

I just want to say a big thank you to David Levene for remembering us when they started talking about car parking on TalkSport radio this morning.