It’s official or so the NY Times is telling us that in (currently as I type this) about 9 minutes it will be Friday and that is the launch of the free classified ad network by Facebook. They are calling it Facebook Marketplace. I was writing about it last night from what I had read online on a few sites that had early word about it.
I scrapped that, as it was not totally clear at the time of that writing if Facebook was actually doing this. Now it is. The advantage of this Facebook Marketplace is that you are less likely to buy something bad. Why is that? Because there will be no anonymous listings. You will know this person either directly or via your network of friends.
On Facebook, buyers will be able to see how they are connected to the seller — the series of links between the friends they share. “There are no anonymous listings, and we give you a very clear path to see how you can trust the other person you are conducting business with,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.
This is a good thing as it makes the whole online marketplace a more friendly place. I don’t know how many times I have heard about those online auction horror stories. I never did like anonymous buying and selling. You really should know a bit about your seller.
Many moons ago, I was doing the whole buying and selling thing. Long story short, it did make good money, and I can show anyone how to do this on their own. The point is, I was actually meeting my customers face to face. They knew a bit about me, and I could find out a bit about them.
That is the key to a successful marketplace. With Facebook’s built in safe social networking, you are sure not to have friends that just want to rip people off. If you do, they won’t be on Facebook for long, and I think they won’t be your friend either. This will be noticed Friday(now today), by other big companies in the same ball game.
Many established companies are likely to be paying attention to the new service. Most notably, Craigslist, which is based in San Francisco and offers classified ads for more than 300 cities that are largely free. Job sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder, which have services aimed at college graduates, are also likely to take notice, as are dozens of other online classified ventures and car-trading sites.
Technically Speaking, this does look on the surface as another win for Facebook in the social networking universe. Facebook is an upward moving company, and they give social networking a better name then some bigger ones just a few steps away.
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