July 1, 2009
New features over at Kashless.org and why they matter…
It has been awhile since I have posted about the new features we have been building at Kashless.org. The Krew has been heads down for the last two months. I have been saving up. Over the weekend we released all the new code.
Lets start with a review of some of the business problems Kashless.org is trying to solve for our members who post and search for free items.
Search and browse. There are multiple sites with free listings. Many sites lump all free into one category. Or they make you read every e-mail searching for what you want. Or subscribe to multiple lists. No easy way to browse free listings by category, neighborhood, city, distance from where you are, or have the system search for you.
Everything is done only in email. While I love my email client, it is a pretty blunt instrument with which to perform ecommerce. Giving and getting free stuff is ecommerce. That is why eBay, Amazon etal have lots of ways to do business with a browser based application.
User transparency is lacking. Many marketplaces today are anonymous or you only have an e-mail from someone. No context as to that person’s reputation, feedback in prior transactions, history, etc. When I am giving something away or going over to someone’s house to pick something up, I want to know something about who I am dealing with and have the software application help me establish trust.
Those aren’t the only problems we are solving, but some of the big ones. So lets check out some of the new KL Alpha features with this context.
Way better UI. The whole look and feel of the site has been re-designed by Krew member Jordan. Better colors, fonts, more intuitive navigation, standardized buttons, more tab, all the bells and whistles of a professionally designed consumer ecommerce web site.
New Browse tab. When you mouse over or click on the “Browse” tab, you now get a list of product categories and neighborhoods/towns to browse. With a count of how many items in each. So for example if you live on Queen Anne in Seattle and want to see how many free items are in your neighborhood, you now can.
Manage Conversation through the site. We have implemented a very sophisticated message handling system that now allows you to send and receive e-mails as you always do about free items, but a copy of each message is saved on the Kashless site. So now you can see all the messages relating to one of your listings in one place. You can respond to many people at once. Coming soon, you can have the system tell new offers when an item is taken. These are very powerful features when dealing with the large volume of responses you typically receive on free offers. The Krew was also worked very hard so that you can use e-mail OR the Kashless site to interact on listings. This is probably our coolest feature.
Requirement to be logged into Kashless.org. During the initial part of the Kashless Alpha, we let anyone who came to the site see all listings, make offers, and use most of the features without an account. But then we started thinking about transparency. Every Kashless.org member has a public profile page. Many of our third party sites that provide listings also only allow individual use of those listings. So we made the change to require users to be valid Kashless members in more cases. While this is a pain in many ways, it leads to more trustworthy transactions and a more efficient market.
Posted by Martin at 3:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |
June 25, 2009
Frustrated by Craig’s list flagging system
CraigsList has what is called a “user moderated” system. Users can flag listings in any number of categories, the results being the listing gets removed. Their site boasts “millions of inappropriate listings removed every month”. It further claims that “98% of the removals are for violations of Craigslist TOU”. I don’t know how they can say that since there is no company oversight. Any user of any reputation with or without an account can flag anything for any reason. The owner of the offending post receives a mail saying their post has been removed. No repost button. No explanation other than a link to the standard explanation of the flagging system. No knowledge of who flagged it, how many times, for what reason. Nothing. Zero transparency.
In my personal experience zero of my posts have been removed for actual CL terms violation and 100% of them have been flagged by haters. There are competitors on CL that can flag your posts with impunity and no repercussions. I have a friend in the rental business and this is a constant war between her and competitors flagging her listings. Her listings have about a 2 hour life on CL. Today I posted a “Gig” for some BRoll video footage. Completely a valid job paying $2K. I received a stock email from a video production company which was basically spam and did not address any of the specific needs of my project. I replied that I thought it was unprofessional to respond with a form letter and please address my RFP directly. Five minutes later my post was flagged and removed. A hater. “Well if I can’t get the job, no-one will". No visibility for me, nothing.
This system is bad for both sides. The crazy minority can ruin the market for the majority. Craig’s list could really use a reputation system.
Posted by Martin at 1:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |
June 16, 2009
Bezos on kindle/ebooks
They are separate businesses. Very interesting conclusion statement… Simplicity, he suggested, has been a reason that Kindle books now account for 35 percent of the sales of all titles that are available in both Kindle and paper formats. “We humans do more of what’s easy,” he explained. “If you lower friction, you always get more of what’s easy.” On the Kindle, he added, “you can think of a book and have it 60 seconds later. That is driving book sales.” I resemble that comment. I have bought and read 5X more books since I have the Kindle. Also I agree on the lower friction totally.
Posted by Martin at 11:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1) |
June 15, 2009
Watch the new RePower America ad
About time.
Posted by Martin at 4:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |
June 10, 2009
The sad story of biofuel implosion in the Northwest
Plenty of blame to go around. This Oregonian story captures the lowlights of the story. Industry did it’s part in building the biofuel plants including my part at Imperium Renewables. But the lack of consistent government policy, lack of enforcement of mandates, and shifting commodity markets caused on again off again markets. Without appropriate capitalization of the startups there was not enough money to make it through the bumps to the other side. That is the unfortunate story of Imperium, killed by lack of sufficient working capital.
Posted by Martin at 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |
