The blogosphere is abuzz with the news that Facebook has moved into classifieds with the launch of Marketplace. Reactions vary from horror “Another nail in the coffin for newspapers!” to complacence.

But how many of these writers are active users of Facebook?

For what it’s worth, I’m a social networking junkie, a newspaper nerd and a journalist - and I think Facebook Marketplace is something that alts should watch very, very carefully.

Overview of Facebook Marketplace

Traditional Classifieds Categories

Facebook Marketplace offers traditional Classifieds sections, geared towards a younger audience: For Sale (Books, Furniture, Tickets, Electronics, Other), Housing and Jobs. As to be expected from the demographics of the site users, ‘Housing’ skews towards rentals and shared rooms - not too many 3 story brownstones for sale.

Cost and accessibility

Registered users can post ads for free, and you cannot peruse the ads unless you are a logged-in, registered member. Facebook is based around local networks - based on a city, workplace, school or region. You can browse other networks, but you cannot post in a network you do not belong to.

Integrated Functionality

Facebook is an extremely well-thought out site, and classifieds ads are accessible in multiple places throughout the site, increasing utility for users.

The homepage of Facebook features a News Feed - a list of updates from all of the friends in your network. Classifieds ads that your friends post show up here, as well as on their profiles. Browsing the Marketplace, you have access to standard FB tools - so you can check out the profile of the seller or email them; send the posting to a pal, or post it to your own profile with a short note (e.g. “Someone ought to buy this futon, it’s wicked cheap!”)

The end result? It’s much easier to stumble across an ad that interests you than on a traditional online source of classifieds such as a newspaper.

Why Facebook Could Eat Market Share

Local & Trusted Network

Over time, the usefulness of Craigslist has diminished, with spammers repeating job posts, and overseas contractors answering ads for local employment. But Facebook carefully restricts who can join the site. At present, it’s impossible to post an ad in multiple networks (although the NYTimes reports this might be a later, paid option) - which means the majority of ad content will be genuine. And although the networks on FB are admittedly limited to your geographic/work/school region, I don’t see this as a disadvantage. As a wired 20-something, I just need one roommate, or one person to buy my car. I would rather do business with someone who I can check out digitally, versus the dealing with the relatively anonymous responses you’d generally get with a traditional ad.

Strict Community Policing and Verification

Facebook has a stringent policy of protecting it’s users from spammers, and ‘fake’ profiles for companies or porn stars are not allowed. A few weeks ago, I was temporarily banned from the site for sending the same message to over 10 users. I’ve since been reinstated, but I learned the hard way - FB takes spamming seriously.

Marketplace ads are no less strictly policed. I spotted a mean “Jane Doe is a Whore”-esque post on Marketplace, and tagged it as ‘Targeting an Individual’. I’d bet money that the poster’s account will be temporarily or permanently disabled. For users who have invested lots of time in building their friends list, uploading pictures, and joining groups, getting banned is a powerful disincentive to abusing the classifieds system.

Ease of Use

Facebook is slick, easy to use, and integrates all of its functionality so seamlessly that it’s comparable to a Mac, with behemoth MySpace as serving as the metaphorical clunky, buggy PC cousin. FB is smart about creating useful peripherals, such as Javascript browser pop-ups that allow you to post a news article to your profile, or iPhoto integration that allows you to upload images from your Mac - so smart, methinks, that their foray into classifieds will no doubt be accompanied by other user tools that make selling and buying easier.

Small Scale Transactions

With few exceptions, classifieds transactions tend to be small scale. It’s my opinion that users will appreciate the ability to conduct these small-scale business deals in a platform they are already spending their time using, versus creating additional accounts or seeking out another classifieds vendor.

What are your thoughts?

Lots of folks disagree with me, and think that FB Marketplace is no big deal. What’s your take on it?

“My newsroom has great ideas for online innovation. We have great brainstorming sessions, but then it all kinda peters out, and nothing happens.”

Paraphrased, this is a question a paper staffer asked me recently: How do I bridge the gap between a great idea and its implementation?

I know this is the hardest thing for an alt-paper - time and resources being so limited.

Here are some suggestions I had - what would you add?

1. Think Small

Sometimes, thinking of a great meta-strategy is too-much - too overwhelming, too expensive, too far out of reach. Identify a small improvement that can be made, and get it done this week. Free tools that bloggers use are a great place to start - embedding video, adding audio, or creating a photo slideshow - any tool that someone is using to spruce up their MySpace page can probably be incorporated into your site.

2. Think Storytelling

Photos, video, and audio are tools in your journalistic arsenal. From the first pitch of an idea, through reporting and story meetings, consider these tools in addition to your standard print accompaniments of sidebars and graphics. Its much easier to gather multimedia content during the reporting phase than to add it at the last moment.

3. Think Experiments

It’s one thing to imagine adding local mp3s for each music story running in the paper. That could potentially be a lot of work! So - think experiments. Try different methods; see what works for your readers and your staff before making commitments.

4. Think Collaboration

Many papers have a dividing line between the editorial staff and the web staff. The website might be produced downstairs, by a freelancer, or by another arm of your corporate ownership that you never see. Of course, at many smaller papers, the web duties are 20 percent of what a staffer with another full time job does. In either scenario, the key to accomplishing a project is for the content producers (writers, editors) to work with the web producers throughout the writing and reporting process - no Monday morning requests for slideshows.

5. Think Workflow

“That sounds great. I have tons of ideas. The problem is - I HAVE NO TIME.” This is really one of the biggest challenges facing alts and the web - overloaded staffers who are already overwhelmed with their weekly duties and planning special sections. There are no easy answers here - but the biggest tip I can offer is to look carefully at workflow, and to make as many time-saving technical changes as possible in order to free staffers up to innovate online.

Those are my tips - what advice would you offer a newsroom struggling to implement its great ideas?

UPDATE, May 1, 2007
Innovation in College Media has adapted these tips for a college audience - with useful tips for everyone.