I was fortunate to be online on early Monday when Facebook marketplace launched. It enables anyone to post something that they believe someone else in their network would like or to let other friends or people in their network know what they would like.

For example, you may be looking for a used textbook for German 210 for the Summer or you may searching for a room close to campus and want to list your requirements and credentials. You can also include photos if you like.
Relevance: At first I thought of this as being like craigslist however I believe that the trust factor may be higher using marketplace. With each posting you are able to see the person real name so that you could view their profile to get more information about them. In addition, if you share a common friend, that will also be listed so that you could do a background check on the person. This may increase the credibility of the person. For me, knowing that we share a common friend is a powerful feature in whether I would interact with the person in Marketplace.

I also feel that this is closer to the market metaphor that some of us that grew up in smaller cities are used to or that is more common in developing countries. You go to the market to sell good, share gossip, and spend time interacting with friends and those from your neighbourhood. Isn’t that what the networks really feel like?

While reading a blog entry on Creating Passionate Users by Kathy Sierra about Myspace and to why her daughter enjoyed using Myspace so much, a quote from her daughter has really stuck with me:

I just came back from dinner with my daughter Skyler (that’s her in the picture). She’s an extremely passionate myspace user. In her words, “If you’re not on myspace, you don’t exist.” So I asked what made myspace so compelling… why didn’t she fall in love with LiveJournal? Her answer is a lesson for software developers (especially Web 2.0-ers), and was a theme of SXSW:

“myspace keeps doing what everybody really wants, and it happens instantly.”

She said they respond to feedback, “As soon as you think of something, it’s in there.”

She said, “It’s always evolving. It changes constantly. There’s always something new.”

I feel that these comments are applicable to any social software/digital space tool that becomes integrated into your everyday life.