Thank you to the blogs and forums that sent me the most traffic in the first half of the year. Also, I’d like to take a look back on the most popular posts of my p2p lending blog for the first half of the year.

Top Referrers:

• 1) Lazy Man and Money has sent me a good deal of traffic because I like his articles enough that I comment frequently on the site. Recent post I liked: Is organic food worth the money?
• 2) P2P No Bank – I even changed my blog theme to get back on this site.
• 3) The official prosper blog is also a good source of traffic. Not only does the official blog post the prosper numbers but it also posts interesting items like the history of p2p lending.
• 4) Rate Ladder often has interesting posts like the Zopa security issue.
• 5) Despite Peer Lend being more infrequent in posting than me. The site still sends me regular visitors.
• 6) The very unofficial prosper forums still send me traffic. I occasionally still visit there for posts like the Peak Prosper Theory.
• 7) Prosperous Land who unfortunately recently quit blogging had many good posts such as listing all the Prosper Days videos.
• 8 ) Lending Club’s Official Blog was also a frequent referrer.
• 9) I was surprised to see Moolanomy because I rarely comment there and don’t remember a particular post there that sent me a lot of traffic. I quite liked the recent post on building extra income streams.
• Wise Clerk was a top referrer.

Welcome to the 10th peer-to-peer lending blog carnival. There were some good submissions of a new market niche, a bonus program, two guides for borrowers, and a few P2P lending summary articles. I hope that you enjoy the articles.

• Wiseclerk posted about Zopa UK planning a Young Market to target borrowers who do not have a long credit history. This sounds like a needed market niche.
• Rate Ladder presents 8 Listing Strategies for the Best Prosper Loan Rates. I must agree with his advice to borrowers. See #7 — I always search first for loans that have endorsements from friends who have put money on the line. If friends have put up some of the money, I am much more willing to put down my money.

• The blog Earthlier Happy is the Rose Distilled submitted A Borrower’s Guide to Using Prosper. The guide starts by explaining the process and then moves on to some specific tips for borrowers. The list is short but good advice. For example, I have personally passed on several loans due to spelling errors in the loan description.

• Tom blogged about the details of Fynanz offering a huge bonus to lenders at Prosper Lending Review. Tom also mentions the referral program which is similar to Prosper’s.

• Rich Leverage summarized peer-to-peer lending in the post Making Extra Money With P2P Lending.

• DJMike also summarized P2P lending and borrowing at Prosper.com. You’ll want to see the link to his stats — $2,359 in loans with the first one being over 400 days ago and so far no defaults!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the 10th P2P Lending Carnival.

The previous carnival, number nine, was hosted at Rate Ladder and the post that started it all was at Lazy Man and Money.

If you want to participate in p2p lending carnival number 11, go to the submission form. Hosts are also needed, please contact Lazy Man Money to host.

P2P Lending has been in the mainstream media news a great deal lately. I decided to post a roundup of many of the recent news articles on Prosper.com, Lending Club, Zopa, GlobeFunder, and Virgin Money. It is unfortunate that Lending Club entered a quiet period just as they were gaining tremendous growth in loan volume.

CNBC February 5th, 2008: From Zero to Millions: Financing Your New Business:

Online Family Lending Use a lending network designed for inter-family loans, such as CircleLending.com. Tools at that site will help you and your relative come to terms on the length of the loan and the interest rate, and calculate the monthly payment amount. For $99, CircleLending issues a legally binding promissory note and a repayment schedule. For $9 per payment, the company will set up automatic repayments using electronic funds transfer.

Peer-to-peer Lending: Several websites now make it much easier to find an investor who will back your business. Check out prosper.com, lendingclub.com and zopa.com.

Lending Club’s founder financed his first company with personal loans and high-interest credit cards. He eventually sold the business to Oracle. That experience inspired his new company. Lending Club, which launched on Facebook in May 2007 and on its own site last September, uses technology to match borrowers to lenders willing to offer unsecured loans of $500 to $25,000 with three-year, fully amortizing terms.

The author, Laura Rowley, must have used some old notes because Read the rest of this entry »

This extends my posting on the blog roundup of Lending Club quiet period postings…

HollowOak asks: “How far behind is Prosper? Or do they get kudos for having started the SEC filing months ago?”

Lazy Man and Money is calling Lending Club dead:

I have been worked for a number of start-up companies and they had one thing in common – they are extremely fragile. A high percentage of new companies fail.. I’ve talked to a few other Lending Club members… and they said they are gone and never coming back. They feel their trust has been violated. With each day that Lending Club can’t or doesn’t say anything to justify this inactivity, the more trust is lost. I might be blowing this out of proportion, but I’d rather err to the side of being conservative until I have reason to believe otherwise.

LazyMan is correct that their inability to communicate this issue over the next few months (?) is going to hurt Lending Club. It was communicated poorly, so I can understand why many people must assume the worst.

ProsperousLand wondered why he took yesterday off in his catch up post today about Lending Club halting new lenders. Mike had posted previously about Prosper filing with the SEC. RateLadder also posted information on Prosper’s SEC filing. The key line from my perspective from the Prosper filing is: Read the rest of this entry »

I have already commented on Lending Club’s quiet period and referral program suspension. I decided to check other blogs to see what they have to say on the email notice that went out today. Since I was reading everything anyway, I decided to post links and a few quotes to everything that I could find using Google’s Blog Search for Lending Club.

Peer-Lend commented on the uncertainty of the meaning of the communication:

There has been a large amount of speculation recently in many corners that the P2P Lending models might be subject to some legal uncertainty regarding whether the loans should be classified as securities… The speculation has primarily been concerned with who, in fact, owns the loans (notes), and how exactly that ownership [is transferred]….

It is unclear whether LendingClub has ceased operations as a result of an SEC action or whether LendingClub has chosen to bite the bullet and submit to regulation voluntarily. This event could have major repercussions…

The g-spot posted:

My guess is their legal team is Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Prosper Lending Review for hosting P2P lending carnival number four. I entered carnivals one and two, but managed to miss number three.

For carnival number four, I entered my post: What were the early Prosper lenders thinking? I decided to select this post because of the interesting Prosper Marketplace history that came out in the comments, so thanks to everyone who commented.

By far, the most useful post of the P2P lending carnival was the one on Prosper Taxes by RateLadder.

DoughRoller had an interesting post on Read the rest of this entry »

I participated in the second peer to peer lending carnival which is hosted at Brip Blap. There were too many good submissions to decide on a favorite post in this carnival, but I will post links and comments below to a few favorites. I submitted my article on Lending Club rejecting most loan applications.

Peer-Lend posted information on the new bidding guidance and interest rates. Moolanomy posted information about his second loan on Prosper. Prosper Lending Review interviewed the Fynanz CEO. (That one was interesting enough that I already blogged about it.) Rate Ladder updated the vintage curves.

WiseClerk make some P2P lending predictions for 2008. One of his predictions (listed at 75% probability) Read the rest of this entry »

Thank you for reading my first two months of blogging P2P lending. During this time, I have written 37 articles on P2P lending as I have shared my experience and learnings about peer-to-peer lending.

I would like to thank all the bloggers who have linked to my posts and added me to their blog roll. P2P No Bank Aggregator (managed by Rate Ladder) has provided a some traffic and makes it easy to break into the P2P lending blogging scene and to keep up with other blogs. Lazy Man and Money also sent many users my direction with the first Peer to Peer Lending Carnival. My MicroFinance (link removed 3/5/2008 because blog now MIA) was the first to add my blog to his blog roll. Other blogs have followed such as Prosper Lending Review and I have received a few mentions in the official Lending Club Blog such as this announcement. Wise Clerk also linked to several of my posts. I am certain that I missed some more bloggers, but I cannot remember all the links at this time.

Bloggers also helped create the content for my most popular post to date “Advice for New Prosper and Lending Club Lenders.”

Also, thanks to Lending Club which has already paid out Read the rest of this entry »