Edgeio launches classified platform for the masses
Edgeio started out as classified marketplace for the blogging masses a year ago, where bloggers post items they want to sell on their blogs, tag them as "listing," and then Edgeio's crawler plucks and indexes them on Edgeio.com. Classified Boards, the latest incarnation of Edgeio, just released in beta, unleashes the underlying platform, allowing Web site owners to create their own classified sections on their sites or blogs.
Edgeio provides the marketplace tools and takes care of hosting and commerce services. The classified boards are free to set up; for fee-based classified boards, Edgeio captures 20 percent of listing fees, which are set by Web site owners. In addition, Web site owners can build create their own affiliate network. Edgeio CEO Keith Teare calls it "an ecosystem for classifieds on the Web in the same way that AdSense is an ecosystem for advertising." Or, he could say it's a platform alternative to the Craigslist approach for classified marketplaces.
Edgeio Classified Boards is part of the growing mashup platform/ecosystem plays that are defining the next generation of Web services. SimplyHired, for example, launched a similar marketplace service, Job-a-matic, earlier this year but it focuses only on jobs.
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