Idea Feedback Request: Classifieds for your building

[dreadsword]

Would anyone get any value out of "classifieds for you building" - i.e. a craigslist with location-scope specific to your office or apartment tower?

The premise behind this is that many of us share space with thousands of people every day - most of the stuff I've sold on kijiji/craigslist/wherever I could have easily sold to someone that I could have met in the lobby of my office tower, as opposed to driving all over town, etc.

Anyway, I can't tell if this concept is useful, or useless.

Thoughts?

[byoung2]

I can think of two situations in the last few weeks that could have used something like this. I just switched from Sprint to T-Mobile, so I got rid of some CDMA stuff like an Airave (mini cell tower that plugs into a broadband router). I sold it on eBay and took a hit on free shipping, but there is more than likely at least one other person in my condo complex with Sprint and bad reception who could have bought it and saved both of us on shipping, PayPal, and eBay fees. The other situation was at my new job. The armrest on my office chair broke, so I bought a new chair. Unbeknownst to me, the business downstairs moved out and they left a bunch of equipment behind. It wasn't until a few days ago that the new tenants started moving in, and I saw them hauling away the unwanted office equipment. I asked about it, and they said we could take anything we wanted before it went on the truck. If only the last company had offered before I bought my chair.

[dreadsword → byoung2]

Right - those are exactly the sort of face-palm moments that happen to me all the time. Seems like transacting ultra-locally would take a bunch of friction out of the process.

Gaining critical mass, such that connections like the examples you shared could actually be made, would be an interesting communication challenge.

[ModOne]

The problem may be that it would only be scalable within Urban areas. Often on Craigslist I'm faced with the problem that I can't post to specific communities or locale's within a city such as Westside, downtown, or a housing development.

[ChrisNorstrom]

MANY people have tried this. It sounds nice in theory but it just doesn't work. I actually had an idea like this before and researched competitors. None of them caught on. Yet it's a startup that people try over and over and over again hoping it's some undiscovered market.

To most people, hyperlocal = less impact + less audience + less circulation + less reach. People don't want "hyperlocal" they want "giant stage", lots of reach, huge audience. Sure, dealing with people closer to you is better. But what people really want is just Craiglist with a "sort by closeness" filter.

[dreadsword → ChrisNorstrom]

Thank-you for the insightful response - craigslist w/ a closeness filter is a good way of thinking about it.