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The Networks of Modern Classifieds

In early 2016, a sixteen-year-old named Ben Pasternak launched an app called Flogg that merged your personal network with a platform that allowed you to sell and buy miscellaneous items. It seemed to be a promising start up and according to Anneta Konstantinides of The Daily Mail “Silicon Valley investors were knocking on his door…”. You could sell to people that were in your local area just as you would look for people on Tinder. Upon looking at their twitter profile, it seems as though they are no longer in business; however, Facebook, their network’s source has launched something with similar attributes to Flogg. Facebook Classifieds launched in October of 2016. It’s similar to the late Flogg; however, through Facebook, you get a more personal experience. You can connect with your seller see if you share any friends. Facebook can also work as an informal background check. For most people, their whole lives are on Facebook giving the seller and buyer the opportunity know one another. People are more likely to trust people in their own networks.

In Facebook’s marketplace, nodes are represented by people and edges are represented by friendship. According to Nicky Woolf of The Guardian “Facebook has huge advantages over its competitors because of its vast audience…”, When sellers use Facebook’s newer marketplace or older selling groups they are entering a new network with new nodes; therefore, new buyers are more likely to create an edge to sellers. Unlike craigslist where you sell to random people, that could potentially come with negative consequences. The many seller groups on Facebook represent clusters, thousands of these ‘clusters’ are locally administrated, therefore many of the new clusters have local bridges, sharing novel information to lead to a transaction. The seller is more likely to sell their item and the buyer doesn’t need to be worried. This solved Craiglist’s problem of anonymity while exposing merchant posts to more sellers just as Flogg did initially.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3541239/16-year-old-tech-tycoon-Ben-Pasternak-launches-new-app-Flogg.html

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/03/facebook-marketplace-launch-ebay-craigslist-classified-ads

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