edgeio Invitation Codes

I had the chance to catch up with Atherton polymath, Michael Arrington, earlier this week. It was my first glimpse of Edgeio, Michael’s new startup (where he is teaming up with RealNames founder, Keith Teare), which is nothing less than an assault on the traditional notion of classified ads’ listings.

[Exhaustively annoying disclosure: Michael is a friend, and I am in fact staying at his house tonight, and I am not reimbursing him for that. We are both members of the Web 2.0 Working Group, and we talk on a regular basis. I am not an advisor or consultant to the firm, and have no financial interest in its future, although I did offer various off the cuff recommendations during the interview. I am not providing independent or unbiased advice here. Beware. Take your vitamins, and wear sunblock when outside.]

The Edgeio concept is a perfect example of the edge dissolving the center. In this case, publishing of classifieds is moved from newspapers, eBay, and Craig’s List sites out to the individual. armed with nothing more than a blogging tool. I could post a blog entry describing my out-of-date but still charming 2002 Dahon folding bicycle. All I have to do is a/ register with Edgeio, including pointing my feed their way, and b/ tag or categorize my post as a ‘listing’. Edgeio does the rest, aggregating my post along with thousands of others, and aggregating based on the other indicators latent or explicit in the post. If I tag the post with “Dahon”, “folding bike”, “$200 or best offer”, and so on, Edgeio tries to make sense of that, and uses it to help people find what they are looking for. The obvious terms are predefined tags (like “bicycle”) but users will be able to create user-defined tags, too.

Michael asked me not to share screen shots, since the application is likely to undergo various tweaks in coming weeks, but what I saw was cleanly designed, effortless to use, and intuitive.

The company plans to make its slice by offering eBay-style options to increase the likelihood of being found first by searchers, like top placement in lists, bolding, adding photos, and so on.

Michael donesn’t suggest it, specifically, but the opportunity exists for a full social architecture to underlie this system. By social architecture I mean that three tiers of social dynamics are supported:

1. the individual — who in this case wants the obvious tooling to help him/her in the listing process
   
   
2. the extended social networks — mediating the communication and negotiation necessary for these conversations and interactions, and supporting the social net with reputation and so on
   
   
3. the market — and here is the place where Edgeio — and others, in their own markets — could become really successful, but making liquid whatever is the barrier to market flow. Edgeio could become the central bank of a decentralized market for selling your junk.

   Of course, they have entrenched competitors — newspapers, eBay, and other upstarts. But Edgeio has the edge on its side: individuals become the publishers of their own classifieds, and the edge always dissolves the center.