@Lizzie I got distracted by "featured" at the top. 🙂 But as you scroll down, they're not strictly in date order. They go April, May, April, May, April, May, March, May. Etc.
Some of them are news items - Inside the Listening Tour, Laura's Letter, etc. - but many of them are tips and tutorials. Very few real updates.
I guess the name of the board is confusing. I read "Airbnb Community Updates," and I think "Airbnb Updates." I think it should be called "Airbnb Community News." And there should be a separate board for system and policy updates.
There have been a series of updates to the look and content of the site. The top used to look like this:
A recent software update on my MacBook gives me a new version in Chrome, which looks like this when you go to Airbnb.com:
To get to the host dashboard, you click the Airbnb icon, scroll down, and choose "switch to hosting." Then you get your dashboard:
If you would like to check your inbox or go to reservations, calendar, etc., you choose the three little lines in the upper right corner.
So there are extra steps involved, which reduces one's efficiency over time.
Along with this update, the inbox looks similarly clean and new, but the messaging area is so narrow that there's a lot of scrolling to be done when you're sending information to a guest. Here's a recent shot:
See how small and narrow that text box is? When sending the house manual and driving directions it becomes very, very long. Much scrolling to proofread and amend. You can only lengthen the box, not enlarge it from side to side.
The latest update here in the messaging area is in "Saved Messages." Airbnb did a wonderful thing last year by providing the house manual, the driving directions, and other important information under "Saved Messages." Those are now gone. The only things in my "Saved Messages" are those I've created myself:
I understand guests are supposed to be able to access the driving directions and house manual after booking, but believe me - they don't. Or they can't. I don't ask, I just I routinely send every single guest both of these things, along with a link to the guidebook. I get very few questions about anything as a result.
Now, however, with the saved messages gone, I open a separate window, choose the listing, go to the house manual and copy it, then paste it into the message to the guest. Then I do the same thing for the driving directions. I also open a separate window for the guidebook, choose "Edit," choose "Share," and then paste the link generated into the message to the guest.
I'm going to keep doing all of these things for every guest, but when you consider how many more steps I'm taking for each message, again you can see how efficiency will be diminished over time.
I vote to bring back the house manual, house rules, and driving directions to "Saved Messages" and to add the guidebook link to "Saved Messages" as well.
In conclusion, if there were a separate board for these kinds of updates, where each update was briefly explained and accompanied by a feedback link or even a brief survey or poll, we experienced hosts would find it more useful.