Claire Hennessey

I be proud. My sister-in-law is head of Internal Comms at airbnb and… I like them. I am biased. The end.

Thanks for sharing this Claire! When I read airbnb was launching new features, I was thinking something more innovative. This seems, like you said, behind the times. I guess with these features it’s better late than never. I will say, I really do enjoy the new look of their landing page, both web and mobile, with the “winter release” video. It looks more high end and clean. It also resembles and feels like the Apple website. I do think they could optimize their mobile display. It’s not very user friendly. User’s have to scroll so much to find what they are looking for. There is definitely room for a better mobile layout which can aid in user experience.

I agree with Kassi. I love them. The wifi feature is pretty important nowadays and I can understand the frustration of finding an apartment but realize the wifi is terrible. Overall, the other features are awesome and it’s kinda crazy that that are 50 new features overall and we only just seen 4.

The date flexibility is SO key. I’m often willing to build a visit around the exact right location, so date may not really even matter. Thanks for sharing this, Claire!

I love the concept of AirBnB and how easy it is to book a unique stay without having to talk to a hotel sales rep. I stayed in a cute little apartment two years ago when I visited Prague, Czech Republic during the holiday season. The flexibility feature is a fabulous idea for those like me, who have no idea where they want to travel to next but know they need to get out of the house. The translation feature is also key, so that more and more individuals who are not fluent in the English, can list their properties to rent and additionally consumers are more likely to travel somewhere new. I’m excited to see what other features they are set to release!

Not only are the features innovative but very timely, their announcement came one day after the U.S. dropped its travel ban, allowing vaccinated travelers from other countries to enter. Airbnb seems to be taking every opportunity to address the needs of almost every consumer and I’m a fan!

Love this post Claire, I think Airbnb does (and continues) to have an impressive digital strategy which keeps the innovative company, just that, innovative. I found it interesting that they also cut their marketing spend during COVID – and kept the overall budget less moving forward because they didn’t notice a difference in their traffic. I for one, love the flexibility option and I think that is definitely aligned with the shift in people’s lives with more remote work.

Airbnb hails early results from shift to brand building over performance marketing

Great post Claire! I’m happy about the new features, especially the I’m Flexible addition. It’s definitely easier to get a better deal on travel when you can choose the dates where the pricing is cheapest. The new Wifi option is cool too – that can be really important to know if you are going to try and work (or do grad school work haha) from wherever you are traveling. While I did think Airbnb would have come up with something more innovative, I think these changes really show that they are paying to attention their customers wants and needs when it comes to usability!

This is a great example of active listening as we talked about in our Social Media Innovation class. I wonder what their specific research tactics were to find these needs and implement the changes as a result.

To echo everyone, I do think they could have maybe been more innovative with their resolutions and rather than fixing age old issues (Wifi), maybe fix those issues while also being proactive about other issues they think their customers could experience. For example, instead of just allowing users to check the wifi speed before the stay, offer some sort of guaranteed hotspot option for an extra cost since the speed before they travel might not be the same once they actually arrive due to weather conditions and other factors.

Such a great conversation thread here! I must be a little behind the times because I thought the new features were quite creative. I guess it just means that I don’t use Airbnb much. One thought I had was that now these unique rental options are much easier to find, they can become much more expensive to rent. Many people would love to have a unique experience and that just means the availability becomes limited. I suppose that is where the extended rental dates come into play. Agree that the new Wifi option is a great feature as It’s very important to know before exploring a new remote working environment.

Thank you for sharing Claire. It is so interesting I you wrote about this because I was recently on Airbnb looking for destinations in Mexico and Brazil and was getting frustrated trying to gain information on certain properties that descriptions were written in other languages. I found it odd that with the success of Airbnb, the translation feature had not been implemented earlier. I came faced with similar frustration with filters as well. There are alot of common features I was looking for that were no abled to be filtered by (hot tub, fireplace etc.). I am excited to see the rest of the updates they will roll out!

Love this! It’s been amazing to see the growth at Airbnb over the years, as I have used the service for nearly a decade. The continued innovation there has been nothing short of impressive as they’ve constantly valued elevating the user experience when booking a stay through the platform.

Some features that I would love to see:
– An improved chat feature! It’s already pretty good, but adding some additional bells and whistles (like mobile video calling) would really take this feature over the top.
– Video Tours. Being able to see a detailed video of your destination would be amazing. I also think hosts and guests would take advantage of the ability to offer videos of entry and other quirky features of each stay.

Wow. The accessibility feature is hands down perfect. This is sooooo crucial to so many people who need to filter in handicap accessibility. I know we all are saying this is behind the times, but I honestly don’t think it’s very behind. Yes, hotels have this accessibility feature in place already but there are so many other features Aribnb has introduced in this update that other travel providers do not *have.*
Good for them, honestly.

Wow how interesting!!

My only concern with this challenge is that it may not be bringing enough traffic based on their social media interactions. I am wondering how many people who are capable of creating an innovation like this actually know about this opportunity. Here is the link to their hashtag

https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=%23mFITprize

This is a great initiative to drive change in this industry and I hope that their marketing strategy is driving enough traffic to provide them with great submissions. I cannot wait to learn more the outcome of this challenge, it would truly revolutionize first responder agencies!

Interesting post Claire! I agree with Alejandra above, this sounds like a really great opportunity to revolutionize first responder agencies. When reading your post about mobile fingerprinting capabilities, my immediate thought went to the iPhone. I have what some might call an older iPhone (8+) and I chose my phone because I wasn’t quite ready to give up my home button, even when the newer models were already out. I really like the fingerprinting function of the iPhone’s home buttons, and if iPhone already has that tech built into the phone, I think it’s really just a matter of connecting the dots and implementing that tech to the larger mobile screen. I’m not a mobile expert by any means, but I feel certain that this challenge will find it’s solution and someone will be a very lucky winner of $430,000!

Like Erin, the most experience with fingerprinting technology is also with my iPhone 8. In looking at the website you shared, I now have my eyes open to how this could benefit first responders, especially police officers. It seems as though there are many situations that arise when it is hard to get the true identity of an individual. As far as information architecture, I imagine accessing a federal database will be the main function and I do think this is an appropriate use of mobile technology, because as the site states, there are situations where it can help at risk individuals. Thanks for sharing, Claire!