zxlk21e's comments

The visits for one specific project were in the tens of thousands over the course of a few months after 'launch'. Feedback was numbered in the tens at most and mostly things like 'cool site!' 'cool idea!' or 'i cant find this specific product'

The site looked promising but noone comes back to check things and of the initial rush of users, a decent % signed up but did not participate in any transactions.

The last couple have been collectibles marketplaces and quantified self tracking platforms. I think that is my main thesis -- solving problems/making things easier for people through technology, especially in markets where they are not taking advantage of technology much.

Agree, but then again, most of the parroting that has taken place with respect to this entire debacle has served to expose people to many of the issues and practices around online privacy, so there is that (albeit under poor circumstances, but lemons -> lemonade).

What's with the weird goal amount though? Is there some significance there that I'm not aware of?

As a guy with a comic book marketplace startup (http://comicswap.com) - I'd have to disagree. Some of the recent prices fetched for key golden age issues are absolutely insane and many of the currently running series are fetching ridiculous prices (Image comics in particular, like The Walking Dead).

However, the bronze age - yep. Very little there worth much.

That would be fairly easy for us as we have "wantlists" and we do a good job (i think) of getting user information in the interest of establishing trust.

Excellent feedback. Even after having hundreds of emails of correspondence with users... this is still better :)

1. Business model - in the future the $ comes from dealers and additional functionality (stores/featured auctions) not present on the site.

2. Traditionally the collectibles markets are tough because while you can supposedly sell something for $xyz, you'll need to actually find a buyer willing to pay that. Many items are worth a lot of cash but end up selling for next to nothing because collectors are very specific. What we're doing is basically a reverse-marketplace on the back end. Users say what they want and then dealers get a feed of the most "wantlisted" items and compete for the bounty of filling those wants. All marketplaces have to solve the chicken and the egg problem (as you went on to note re: buyers and sellers both needed) -- this is our attempt at overcoming it for both sides. There is incentive for sellers, as they'll get a near instant sale. There is incentive for buyers to stick around as they just add something to their wantlist and get a near instant offer. At least that's how it works in theory :)

3. You can use the transaction system without the site right now, yes. It's just not well documented. I suck at the documentation :)

4. Agree on all. The help and support section is brilliant, will be working on that right now. Facebook login is a step in the "user start" page that lists a few tasks for them to complete in order to gain trust in the marketplace. That's a big push for us, trust building.

Excellent feedback. This is exactly what I've done and it does work. Now I just need to get them to stick around and actually use the thing.

Couple days for about 80% of them, but the other 20 have been there through iterations for almost a year.

The app is comicswap.com

a handful of the new features (from the "launch" email):

* Dedicated Comic Pages with Multiple Listings (no more 1 listing, 1 page setup)

* Wantlist - Add a comic to your wantlist and get an instant notification when someone lists it for sale or trade!

* Over 180,000 Unique Comics Available to Browse on the Site

* Many Comics Have eBay and other retailers Piped In along with Users Listings for Comparison Shopping

* Robust Feedback System (on swaps too!)

* New Messaging & Transaction System Allows for External Swaps (you dont even have buy/sell/trade through our site to be able to track and leave feedback on your swaps!)

* Mobile Design - works on phones, tablets... pretty much anything except stone slates from the prehistoric age.

* For dealers and those with lots of comics to sell -- you can subscribe to a feed of items that receive more than 5+ wants from users and receive an additional bounty for listing these items for a quick sale.

Other: Pair, Pagodabox

It seems like it's back: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1mf1io/found_a_small_ro...