Marketing Pilgrim

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Facebook is about the only social network I can stand. (Aw, you saw through me. This is a shill to get you to add me as a friend on Facebook—Jordan F McCollum.)

Okay, so there was some news that brought this on. Facebook has traditionally featured few advertisements. On my alma mater’s network, there was usually an ad running in the sidebar, called a “flyer,” often placed by a student. Now they’ve made it easier for students to sell things through their site by partnering with Oodle to provide classifieds. Oodle already featured the ability categorize classifieds by college, it seems like a partnership with Facebook, which was once exclusively for college & high school students, was quite natural.

I was curious about how they’d implement this: it’s a Facebook group. You can post and search for things for sale, jobs, cars, housing, etc. In placing ads, Facebook users have the option of restricting their classifieds to be viewed by Facebook users only, or opening them up to the entire Oodle network. You can also relist classifieds or auctions already listed elsewhere on the Internet by entering the URL.

Never heard of Oodle? Neither had I—but SEOmoz’s Web 2.0 Awards, released today, awarded Oodle second place in the Classifieds and Directories category—right behind craigslist. Meanwhile, Facebook earned first place in the Social Networking category. (Ahem. Did I mention that I, Jordan F. McCollum, am on Facebook? Jane? Rebecca? I’ll name a child after you!)

As far as I can tell, there’s no charge to list classified ads—and I just put my car up for sale.

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