Facebook Marketplace

Facebook is unveiling the Facebook Marketplace according to various news outlets. The service went live on Friday according to them, but I see no mention of it when logged into Facebook. The Facebook help area does have a whole section on Marketplace, but none of the links to the marketplace work. This could really be a great service that would help people, and it would eliminate the need for Nexus Trade. So we’ll see what happens and I’ll have to decide how to proceed.

And to Donna Bogatin of ZDNet: you are wrong to think that Facebook is attacking Craigslist’s market. Facebook would be seeking to serve a niche that is currently going unserved, that being the college market. College students already use Facebook every day so they would be able to easily list their items for sale with a simple system. Sure there have been Facebook groups seeking to enable people to list items, but they were messy and unscalable. A Facebook Marketplace serves the Facebook users and will enrich the experience because it won’t take much effort for people already using the site to list their items for sale. I applaud Facebook, even if it does render Nexus Trade moot.

Check out Drew Meyers nice hands-on look at Facebook Marketplace. When I am able to use it I will check it out and write up something more detailed about it.

Sources: MSNBC, New York Times, Drew Meyers, Donna Bogatin’s ZDNet opinion piece

Nexus Trade Places in TCNJ Business Plan Competition

I placed second with Nexus Trade in the Business Plan Competition sponsored by the School of Business and Small Business Development Center at The College of New Jersey. First prize was $1,000 and second prize was $600, so I came out okay. :)

Nexus Trade Has Wishlists

Nexus Trade has a new feature called Wishlists. This is the feature I pushed for from the beginning, and it is a delight. Students are able to add books to their wishlist, and other people can then see what other students are looking to buy. When a book is listed for sale students with it in their wishlist will be notified by RSS feed or email. You can even add other items to your wishlist. I just added Mario Kart for Gamecube to mine.

Things are going very well and hopefully we’ll be able to open up to more colleges in a few weeks or months. Unfortunately we did launch at a time when college students are on their winter break and may not be looking to buy or sell books just yet.

Update: I didn’t realize all types of items could be added to your Wishlist already. I have updated the post to reflect that.

Nexus Trade is Back

Nexus Trade began as a TCNJ club that enabled students to buy and sell textbooks on campus. It has now been reborn and redesigned with better features, as it languished in limbo for months.

Students are still able to buy and sell books to other students online, but they now handle the trades themselves so there are no fees. We have a great system where you set a public place to complete the transaction once someone is buying your item. We have also expanded into other items besides textbooks, and a few other colleges besides TCNJ. All you need to do to access the site is go to www.nexustrade.com and enter the zip code of your college. You will then see available colleges in that area. If we don’t have your college listed you can request that we add it.

We have launched with the essential features, and some great new features are planned in the near future. One of the coming features is a wishlist that will notify you when items you are looking for have been posted to Nexus Trade.

We hope you enjoy it and had a happy holiday season.

The Nexus Trade Project Staff at Etation Media
Justin Jones and Jason Schramm

Nexus Trade: Beta Testers Needed

Do you like testing out the coolest new projects around? Do you get joy from finding bugs? Then we want you to beta test Nexus Trade. We are building a great place for college students to buy and sell items to others nearby. This is your chance to help us make sure that everything works as expected when we launch.

More details are up at www.NexusTrade.com. And you can post comments here if you have any questions.