Finovate Best of Show winner Prosper has just launched Talk Taboo, a new social website where users share stories about their finances. Since the site caters to those interested in improving their financial situation, it will hopefully bring Prosper a targeted audience for its peer-to-peer lending services. (FinovateStartup2009 conference video here). 
The Talk Taboo website claims that discussing finances is one of our culture's last remaining social taboos. By creating a place to bring financial discussions out into the open, Prosper is creating a social venue where it can encourage P2P lending. The site provides a simple interface for visitors to post their stories. Users simply enter their first name, email address, an optional photo, and a personal story. Prosper is also offering a $1,000 sweepstakes to encourage visitors to post their stories. The winner will be selected in April.
Will the Taboo site drive traffic to Prosper? The Talk Taboo landing page includes a link to the Prosper site, encouraging consumers to consolidate their debt with a Prosper loan (screenshot #1). The stories page, where readers can find personal stories posted, has an endorsement from a Prosper borrower (screenshot #2). Both pages also contain a link to a Debt Consolidation Guide, which, among other possibilities, recommends peer-to-peer marketplaces like Prosper.
While the Talk Taboo site promotes Prosper, the reverse does not appear to be true. Aside from the blog entry announcing Taboo's launch, there is no mention of it at prosper.com. However, the Stories tab on the homepage seems a likely candidate for a future linkage.
Talk Taboo isn't Prosper's first experience with social sites. In 2007, the company had a thriving forum community with more than 280,000 posts (see Netbanker story here). Prosper also uses social tools to allow family and friends to endorse borrowers and display how much of the loan they are willing to fund.
In February, the number of unique U.S. visitors at Prosper's website fell to 145,000, as compared to 219,000 in the previous month (see March 23, 2010 update, below). Traffic data is not yet available for Talk Taboo.
Traffic data from Compete.com, March 2010
# 1. The Talk Taboo Site - Note the Link to Prosper
#2. Talk Taboo stories
Update: March 23, 2010:
We’ve received an update on Prosper’s web traffic numbers. According to data from Google Analytics, provided to us from Prosper, the site had 210,000 unique visitors in January and 158,000 in February.
It may be too late for Prosper to drum up some followers. The magic is gone for us who were there from the beginning. However, microfinance and p2p lending has a potential to flourish as a solution to the credit problems... an alternative to banks is needed pronto
The pictures and descriptions of why people are looking for loans on Prosper has always been one of the things that makes it so interesting. So people having been breaking the "taboo" on Prosper for a long time in this way. Making this kind of storytelling happen in relation to, but outside of Prosper, is pretty interesting too.