There’s a new version of the CrunchBoard job board – we’ve ripped out our custom code and replaced it with the new Edgeio marketplaces product.
Edgeio is a company that I co-founded, and I spent a lot of time with them working on the product features to make sure it was perfect for us and other sites that want to have their own classifieds site. They’ll customize the page to have the same look and feel as your main site, and handle all of the logistics, customer service and payment issues. They charge a flat 20% of gross fees generated if you choose to charge for listings, otherwise the product is free.
One feature edgeio has that we’ve already implemented – the ability to cross promote other job boards on your own. So in the process of listing a job, I can ask the lister if they would like to also list their job on another edgeio-powered board, optionally for an additional fee. If the lister chooses to do that, the fee is split between me and the other job board any way we want to split it.
Another feature, not yet launched, is an affiliate program. When that is launched other sites can become affiliates of edgeio powered sites, and receive a commission for selling listings. There will be both a widget and simple link option for affiliates. I’ll be adding this as well as soon as it’s available, and giving away a third or so of the fees to affiliates.
We’ll also now be expanding Crunchboard to other types of relevant listings as well. More on that later.
The important thing for us is to provide relevant job listings for new startups, and get employers and employees together as easily as possible. edgeio is letting us do that, without the hassle of managing all of the bugs and hassles inherent in maintaining your own code.
Note: There are lots of excellent other job board providers to choose from (I wrote about many of them here), and I am clearly conflicted in choosing edgeio. Still, I think the pricing and flexibility to expand beyond job listings into a customized craigslist-type site for any kind of listings makes it a good choice.
I sent a note to Marshall a while back when the new Edgeio Marketplaces service launched, but he must have missed it (when you were out).
I was surprised to see that it was not well-covered by TC.
Michael, you shouldn’t be conflicted. Since its your investment it is your best interest to pick it.
It would be conflicting if you had said that Edgeio’s platform is the best compared to everyone out there to implement CrunchBoard. It could very well turn out it is, should CrunchBoard take off and everyone loves it, which would be super awesome
Marketplaces are pretty hard to get going, other than ebay, amazon and craigslist and a few antique and ticket marketplaces most online marketplaces have failed.
This does seem like a better model for edgeio than their spam aggregating classifieds search engine, though I think this kind of stuff will probably wind up being handled by google checkout or ebay’s unreleased peer trading platform.
when are they going to add a feature to pre-screen for scams, like this posting on crunchboard jobs, which is clearly a money mule scheme:
http://www.crun...url=crunchboard
any consulting gigs?
It looks Good Micheal, Way more usable then the Edgeio website. The board looks good – Although Having the default image be EDGEIO makes it looks as though Edgeio is populating all the board itself
Garth;
I guess it really depends on your views – I consider marketplaces such as Etsy and AdBrite to be pretty successful. Edgeio also seems pretty active with other countries.
I certainly wouldn’t “can” a marketplace concept simply because it has eBay or Craigslist as a competitor. I’m glad others feel that way as well (namely Google, who went up against Yahoo, Ask, Excite, etc).
I can’t understand why u’re deleting my comment Mr. Arrington
. I wrote your work is weak and it’s my opinion. If this discussion is private, so make it private or stop writing or disable comment form or block my IP address.
Ah, sorry Ivan. I kept reading the comment and it didn’t make any sense. I thought it was just spam. It’s good to make your insults direct so I know what you’re saying.
Is this something to do with your company? I’m happy to write about it, just send me an email with details.
yo….
not sure how others are recieving the edgio job posts on this site. however, if you guys are having the information pulled from the edgio site, or it’s being pushed to you, the system might want to be rearchitected.
from my perspective, it’s slowed dow the site… i’m assuming this is a combination of data access/bandwidth issue.
for my own information, is the job information periodically pushed to your ’site’ server, where it’s then cached, and then displayed to your site when someone requests it?
peace..
No, it’s about you Michael
. I think you should make it better specially “Post new job form”. It’s very unclear. Also I can’t believe you write something nice about me, but never say never. I had schoolmate, we resented each other, he looked like you and now after 30 years we are best friends 
… I sent you an e-mail approx. two months ago, but I never got a reply (this had something to do with my site) … Everything is there, in FAQ section. No secrets.
Garth,
“ebay’s unreleased peer trading platform.”
Where did you hear this? If it’s true that’s not good news for me.
i’m sure the concept is there – as with all startups
but i question the co.s ability to make a paradigm shift within the existing environment
how’s the edgeio co. doing, mike?
in regards it’s own right – and within the greater field?
-if you don’t mind disclosing
Michael,
My team is putting the finishing touches on a similar service called Verticlans. Right now you’ve got us beat with some more advanced functionality, but I think we’ve got supreme ease-of-use.
Overview: http://test.verticlans.com/
Sample Marketplace: http://test.ver...0Red%20Ventures
We’re still months away from a full launch, be we’ve got some exciting features in development.
Robert:
I think I would put etsy in the same category as stubhub, it is a marketplace that expands exclusively on a difficult ebay category. For tickets fraud and timely delivery was a problem, for handmade stuff there is a lack of brand keywords for buyers to search on so they can’t find handmade items. AdBrite is also for a vertical. This has been a the successful way to start a new marketplace post ebay/craigslist.
edgeio wants to sell everything and offers free listings. That model has failed over and over and always succumbs to spam and poor listing quality. All I have ever seen when looking over edgeio was spam.
CSamarin:
See the “Student Superstore” group on facebook which is an interface to half.com. They have also been getting on google’s nerves by talking to MySpace about peer commerce and they released a blog affiliate program recently.
Garth,
Couldn’t find that Facebook group.
And I’m still confused. Are they wanting to get into the “peer trading” game similar to my site or lala.com?
Because if they want to get into the peer trading game they should just finance us!
I wish I had more connections!
Here is some info on the facebook group
http://www.star...70305-vara.html
I don’t think they are going to do swapping or points, but if you want to sell something for currency to another person they already have that infrastructure
Here is some info on their peer commerce myspace rumors
http://news.com..._3-6157059.html
I think you have a bug in the job search – I get returned a “Classified listings for ‘keyword’ “. I saw a nice pair of shoes but not so sure that it’s relative to your job listings
I just set up 4 (yes 4) Edgeio sites… jobs, real-estate, events, and stuff… and I’ve advertised them pretty heavily on my Blog as well as several MySpace account bulletins. Plan on hitting the advertisers hard in the next week to ramp up…
My ONLY problem so far (ease of use isn’t one of them) is that when signing up and choosing a price to charge for listings, you have to submit your Tax Id # … normally I wouldn’t be concerned. However, it’s located on the same NON-ENCRYPTED set up page… That about stopped me dead in my tracks! Maybe I’m a fool, I proceeded to unsecurely give away my SS#, address, paypal account info (hello? banking?) etc… but I STILL am uncomfortable with it… that’s why I’m writing this…
Edgeio might turn out to be a great service, and I hope it makes me and my Blog a TON of money… but at the same time, I hope I don’t lose my shirt due to the unsecure nature of it.
OH, and I’ll add… if people who purchase a listing on site have the same concern, lost sales will be the result and that will be terrible and nullify having the board in the first place. SSL is needed all around.
When building my own board, can I take listings from the edgeio network?…like what SimplyHired does by offering you to populate you board with network listings. That way my board does not look barren to start off with.
What does this mean when posting to Crunchboard?
Your listing will also reach other viewers by being distributed through the edgeio Network for free!”
Sounds like it will be put on any edgeio powered board that accepts free listings automatically? BUT, when creating a board on marketplaces, there is no option to set your board to auto populate with edgeio network listings.
oh, edgei network in that sentence = edgeio.com domain and subdomains
Someone should investigate new web 2.0 scam Worldvoicenews.com
Garth;
Thanks for clarifying – that makes much more sense!