Pictures add useful and interesting information to suggestions on Jig, but they weren’t that easy to add. Starting today, you can now easily choose a picture from a link that you attach to a suggestion. It’s super easy, just enter or paste a link into your suggestion, and we’ll show you a choice of pictures you can use to represent your suggestion. If you enter your link before filling out the title of the suggestion, we’ll prefill the title with the name of the page that you just linked.

Please enjoy putting pictures in your suggestions, and, as always, thanks for using Jig!

When you see a great suggestion or comment on Jig, be sure to thank them by clicking the “Thank” links on the page. This is an easy way to show your gratitude for a job well done, and starting today, you can do this from emails as well.

We’ve also been rolling out category specific banner images for our site to make it easier for new users to know what we’re about. You can check them out in most of our categories, like Shopping, Apps, Travel, and Cars.

Over a month ago, I posted that I needed a great movie on Netflix streaming. Since then, I’ve received over 30 great recommendations, and they keep coming in. This is indisputably great, but it takes me a while to get through my Netflix queue, so I can’t easily remember which movies I want to try.

With Favorites, it’s super easy for me to mark suggestions for the future.  Think of it as a reading list for the most interesting things on Jig. With one click, you can mark a suggestion as a Favorite, and you can quickly access a list of your favorites from your Profile Page.

Favorites makes Jig that much more useful, and we hope that you enjoy marking your favorite suggestions as you explore Jig and find interesting things to try out.

-Nick

We’ve been working hard here in Jig HQ, and I’m happy to announce that we have two new features- Facebook Login and a new Follower Page.

When we created Jig, we wanted to make it as low-friction as possible, in everything from the way you post needs to the way you sign up for the site.  What we had was pretty great for people who wanted to create a new account to join. However, a lot of users want to sign up using an existing account, so we’ve launched Facebook login.

This feature is exactly what you think it is- a way to sign up and login to Jig with your existing Facebook account. It’s super easy, and if you already have a Jig account, you can use either your Jig account or your Facebook account to sign in.

We’ve also created a Follower page to make it easy for you to see who’s following you.  From this page, you can also return the favor if you’re not following them back.

You can get to this page from your profile page by clicking on your list of followers, or from the email you receive when you get a new follower.

We hope you enjoy both of these features and have a wonderful winter holiday.

-Nick

We’re constantly impressed by the quality of the suggestions on Jig, all because we have users who have lots of useful advice on a wide range of topics. To get a better sense of who knows about what on Jig, we’ve launched Endorsements. To endorse a user, visit their profile page and let them know what you appreciate about them. Endorsements will then appear on their profile page.

This is only the beginning for Endorsements, you’ll see this feature evolve quickly over time, so let us know what you’d like to see next in this feature!

Over the past few months, we’ve had a number of great users who keep coming back to help others on Jig. We’ve launched the first version of Leaderboards, which let you quickly see the most helpful users on Jig. You’ll see a different Leaderboard for each category, so you’ll easily be able to tell who the most helpful users are in a specific category.

For those of you who are curious about the “behind-the-scenes”, here are some tips:

• We take all activity into account that helps other users, which includes suggestions, comments, thanks, and agrees
• More recent activity has a greater impact on your ranking than older activity
• Posting needs has no negative effect on ranking (helpful users shouldn’t be penalized in any way for wanting help)

We’ve been impressed by the effort our users have put into helping each other on Jig, so please check out our Leaderboards to see who some of our most helpful users are.

When we launched Jig a couple of months ago, we looked closely at the feedback we were receiving and the most common request was for a way to view needs by category. Today, I’m happy to report that we’re launching categories.

We’ve created an initial list of categories that you can view by clicking the category name in the sidebar.  The best thing about categories is that you don’t have to do anything to put your need in a category when you post your need- we’ll take care of that for you.

In the future, we’ll keep refining the list of available categories as well as provide a way for users to help categorize needs. If you’d like to see a new category on the list, please let us know via a blog comment.

Nick

Loyal Jig users may notice a little more bling on the site as of late in the form of cute 16×16 icons by the profile pictures of certain users.

This is part of a new feature we’re trying out called “affiliations”.  Affiliations allow you to connect a group of users together so that you can easily see who a person is affiliated with as well as find needs from other people who share something in common with you.  For instance, if you’re part of the “Des Moines Surf Club” affiliation, you can proudly show off your association to other Jig users, as well as see what others in the DMSC are posting on Jig.

For now, only Jig Staff can create new affiliations.  If you’d like an affiliation for a group that you’re a part of, send an email to feedback@jig.com with the following information:

• Name (20 characters or less)
• 16×16 icon to represent your affiliation
• Public or private visibility (icons for private affiliations are not visible to users outside the affiliation)
• Expected number of members

If you look up “Jig” in the dictionary, you get this:

• A lively dance with leaping movements
• A piece of music for such a dance, typically in compound time
• A device that holds a piece of work and guides the tools operating on it
• A type of artificial bait that is jerked up and down through the water

Notice something?  Anything that is a Jig is either fun or useful. We hope to innovate by being both.

Our Jig is a website, one that helps you with your needs– by making it easy to share them with people who can help solve them.  We built Jig to make it easy to describe what you need with just a few words.

We’re only starting now, and if you’re reading this, you’re part of a select group of people who enjoy life on the bleeding edge.  Not everything is perfect, but we think it’s pretty useful.  Please post as many needs and solutions as you’d like; we’ll use what we learn from you to keep improving our product and the experience for everyone.

Keep an eye on this blog if you’re interested in what we’re up to.  We’ll keep it updated with product announcements, things we’ve learned, and fun glimpses into our lives working at Jig.  Thanks for reading!

Nick Nguyen

Jig Co-founder