I am writing this from California. A few weeks on the road — but work on the platform continues. Here is what arrived lately.
The inquiry inbox: every message in one place
Until now, inquiries reached you as email — and with it everything that happens to email: buried between a newsletter and an invoice, filtered into spam, rediscovered two days later.
Nothing changes about the way inquiries reach you: every one still goes straight to your email — and to WhatsApp, if you have added it. What is new is the net underneath: every inquiry is now also saved to your inquiry inbox under "My Listings" — who wrote, about which horse, with what message. If an email ever slips through, nothing is lost.
There is a deliberate decision underneath: the inquiry is saved first and the notification is sent afterwards. If the mail ever fails, your inquiry is still there. The other way round is easier to build — but then a lost email would be a lost inquiry.
A calmer look
The horse cards — the thing you see a hundred times while browsing — have been rebuilt. Calmer, clearer, and finally consistent everywhere: the name is set in the site's own typeface instead of capitals, the photo gets more room, and the whole card is clickable. Before, only a small button at the bottom responded; tapping the photo did nothing.
Plus a few things that should have been obvious:
- Prices in local notation. German and Italian readers now see 12.500 € instead of €12,500.
- Mare, gelding, stallion in the reader's language. Someone searching for a "Stute" types Stute.
- More legible small text. Spec labels and form hints were too light for the contrast they need. If you are outdoors at the barn in bright sun, you will notice.
Nearly 10,000 times you brought someone here
Over the past 90 days, close to 10,000 visitors reached Dream Quarters through Google search — and the number keeps climbing.
That is not my doing. Search engines show what people actually look for, and what gets found here are your horses, your descriptions, your photos. Every one of those clicks is somebody who went looking for a horse and found one of yours. Thank you for that.
37 new horses in thirty days
Thirty-seven horses joined last month — from foals to finished reining horses, from Germany, Austria, Italy and beyond. Thank you to everyone showing their horses here. You make this place what it is.
What is next?
Breeder profiles are up next: more room for your story, not just your horses. If something is missing or something annoys you — write to me. The best ideas of the past months all came from emails like that.
Warm regards from the other side of the Atlantic,
Simon