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A Fishing Trip

The Idea

Father’s Day is all about appreciating the Father – and hanging out with him is probably the best way to do that.  I used to love fishing with my dad when I was little, and something like this would be perfect to spark back old memories and good times.  Plus, fishing is never really about the fish, is it?  Fishing is an excuse to hang out and have some good conversation.  That combination sounds like a great gift to me.

Bar Stools

The Idea

So maybe the old man isn’t what he used to be.  Maybe he doesn’t have it in him to make it downtown to the bar.  That doesn’t mean he has given up on social drinking altogether!  Bring the bar to him.  Buy a couple of bar stools, a bottle of Jack, and a good CD.  Get a friend to bartend.  Spend the night catching up over some bourbon and good music.

Golf Pull Cart

The Idea

It might be my southern upbringing, but golf to me is a way of life for any man over 40.  Seeing as stubborn pride is a stereotypical powerful thing with men, your father or husband might not be willing to admit how hard carrying that bag has gotten for him over the years.  Save him the embarrassment of using a golf cart and throw in for an in-between solution.  Now he can still walk the course, but the shoulders and back get some much-needed rest.  Get out there and play a round with him Sunday.

Corn Hole

The Idea

Well-known among the pastel-wearing college crowd, corn hole is a game that requires a fierce competitive spirit, a spare hand for beer, and almost no athletic ability.  You toss some sacks into a hole a few feet away.  Sounds about right for the ideal Sunday in the sun.  The guy in the link above will design the boards however you want, so be creative.  Personally, I would design each one like a golf-themed tie, to remind Dad what I could have gotten instead.

Paintball

The Idea

Be careful with this one.  I set this last item aside for the father-son relationships with a bit of tension, as paintball will resolve all former, petty arguments.  Because really, what arguments with your father are really anything more than petty?  Ultimately you’ll get over it, and buying two paintball guns is effectively skipping part of the process.

What else would you like to see us do? I’d love to hear your thoughts on what we should be doing with Twitter on Oodle — or how people can use Twitter for classifieds.

Give us a shout.

Internet search is in the mature phase of the innovation timeline.  While we occasionally see cool new advancements, it is pretty incremental stuff.  Many of the new features in Bing, we saw in Ask two years ago or at Excite nine years ago.

I’d put real-time search in the incremental bucket.  Twitter and Facebook are certainly enabling the development of real-time search, but I believe they are doing two other things which will revolutionize discovery: sharing & asking.

People are increasingly discovering things through sharing – a blog post to read, a restaurant to visit, a great movie to see.  In fact, Michael noted this trend on Tech Crunch earlier this week both here and here.  People are increasingly discovering TechCrunch articles because they are being shared by friends on Twitter and Facebook.

I believe people will increasingly discover content by asking.  If I’m looking to buy a new convertible, I may search for “best convertibles” on Google or Bing.  I’d probably get better results, however, by asking my friends on Twitter and Facebook “which convertible should I buy.”   Indeed, I’d probably do both — search publicly available content and solicit trusted opinion and advice.   While Twitter and  Facebook aren’t ideally set up to facilitate asking right now, it seems like a natural course of evolution.

Fun, disruptive times again in the world of search & discovery.  Needless to say, we’re focused on applying sharing & asking to classifieds.  More on this in subsequent blog posts this summer.

From a platform perspective, Oodle has a lot in common with Twitter…

1. We index a real-time a stream of perishable, unique “tweets” (800-900k new messages a day) in the form of classifieds listings. Actually, we do more than just index these listings.  Our real-time infrastructure tags, enhances and prunes the messages flowing through our system.  For example, if someone posts a listing a for “2006 Prius,” we determine that it’s a car listing (hybrid subcompact), year=2006, manufacturer=Toyota, make=Prius and enhance the listing with all the standard features, including a stock photo if one was not submitted.  (In other words, we auto-apply hash tags.)  Moreover, if someone posts a listing that is fraudulent or inappropriate, we have a range of proprietary technologies that automatically detect, flag and remove the message.

2. Users search and browse our stream. Due to the volume and structured nature of our stream, we enable users to quickly slice and dice the stream both through keyword search and by selecting attributes (or tags).   Moreover, we’ve applied our parsing technology to search, so if someone searches for a 2006 Mercedes, we convert the query into year=2006, manufacturer=Mercedes Benz to deliver the most relevant results.

3. Users post “tweets” (classified listings) into our stream.  And the post is a quick and simple process. Recently, as part of the work we did with Facebook Marketplace, we streamlined our post process to make it as lightweight as possible.  It’s not quite 140 characters but we’re getting close. More importantly, we bring the user’s identity into the listing.  So rather than a stream of anonymous content, listings are tied to the identity of the poster (on Oodle, Facebook, MySpace, etc.).  Someone can also see the previous listings posted by that user.

4. Users follow relevant topics in the stream. When you’re looking for a car, you want to see all the listings that are currently posted, as well as new listings as soon as they get introduced into the stream.   With a single click on Oodle, users can easily follow any search (e.g., Acura TLs for under $10k within 60 miles of Burlingame, CA).

5. Users share and discuss “tweets.” It’s easy to share an Oodle listing with your friends on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.  You may see a listing you think a friend would be interested in — or want feedback from a friend (should I buy this car?).   Having said that, we’re really only just getting started in this area.  There are a lot of interesting features coming soon…

It’s exciting to see users become more comfortable with metaphors around streaming, subscribing and sharing.  It not only enables us to better represent the cool stuff we’ve built over the last few years, it serves as a wonderful launch pad for where we’re going with “social classifieds.”

Here are a couple of nifty green Father’s Day finds:

1) A classic or audio book: I found more than 465,000 used books on Oodle, including The Davinci Project at a bargain price $6.00.

2) A handmade wallet or accessory: I found this Tyvek wallet, which is made out of old coffee bags ($22.00), also perusing on Oodle.

3) Sports, theater or other event: Tickets to a baseball game or other event are a real treat. Even better — opt for two so that the event includes your time. I found a Burning Man Ticket for sale on the Facebook Marketplace ($260).

4) Alternative transportation: If the dad in your life is in need of new wheels to make emission-free transportation an option, consider roller skates, a scooter or a bike. I found a gently-used Trek bike on MySpace Classifieds ($125)

5) If the dad in your life prefers indoor sports, consider a gift that the entire family can enjoy: I found a gently-used pool table on MySpace Classifieds for $350. (And if you have a salt water tank, the seller mentions that she’ll trade you.)

Online classifieds is not only a greener way to shop, it’s also a lot of fun. Happy browsing.

Recently, I’ve also noticed a growing number of artists and designers who have been using the Marketplace to generate awareness to their one-of-a-kind creations, including personalized art and custom-made accessories. For instance, a woman in Tennesse is selling custom-made portraits as a unique Father’s Day gift. That’s a sound marketing strategy. Another woman in New York is selling hand-made clips and bands that can be made to match little girls’ clothes. Also, a very strong selling proposition.

In addition to being able to post these listings for free, there is another more compelling reason why using Facebook Marketplace makes a lot of sense for home-based businesses: Social classifieds allow you to share listings with friends, who can in turn, spread the word. And because you can explain why you are posting your listing, you can encourage your network to support these home-grown businesses, which as one woman in Georgia explains why she is posting the designer’s little girl outfits , “to help my friend start her business.”

Whether selling customized scrapbooks or Swarovski crystal-adorned sneakers, I think we’ll continue to see more and more ways creative users will find clever uses of the Marketplace to grow their businesses.

Fast forward to a little over a month ago when I attended the Apartment Internet Marketing Conference, a venue that brings together thought leaders in the rentals industry. I was
surprised to see how the conversation had moved beyond maximizing your presence on the Google Web. Instead, it seemed that the big topic was how to best tap the opportunity of social media – and embrace the “Social Web.” Dan McCarthy of NCI (a large media company in the real estate and rentals categories) explains this enthusiasm well on his Viral Housing Fix blog.

Not only is the shift towards social media by local advertisers (real estate agents, property managers, car dealers, etc.) well underway, but I expect this
transition will happen much more quickly than it did with search. The benefits of social media are more intuitively obvious to this crowd. Local advertisers have
long known that their best form of advertising is word-of-mouth marketing.
The Social Web presents an amazing opportunity to drive word-of-mouth
awareness.

It’s critical that local advertisers quickly figure out how to:
1) get their listings into social environments;
2) get people talking about their listings;
3) figure out how to participate in the conversation.

Needless to say, we’re excited to help local advertisers successfully navigate this journey.

Since launching the Facebook Marketplace a few months ago, we have been learning a lot about what sparks conversation around Merchandise listings.  As the number of comments per listing continues to climb, we have learned, for example, that your friends are often more interested in why you’re selling something than what you’re selling.

We’re excited to begin applying what we’ve learned about sparking conversations as we expand the Marketplace into Homes, Cars and Jobs. Whether you are looking for an apartment, car or job, there’s plenty to share, ask for and discuss. It’s our job to make this easy and compelling.