The Social

Classifieds listings have returned to Facebook, thanks to the social network's partnership with e-commerce service Oodle. With Facebook Marketplace's focus on making classifieds "social," the company hopes to give Craigslist a run for its money. But at least right now, it won't mean any new revenue streams for Facebook--it's powered by ads and sponsored listings, with no transaction fees yet.

You may recall that in mid-2007, Facebook launched its own "Marketplace" feature, but it never really caught on. Late last year, Facebook made it public that Marketplace would be relaunched with Oodle's collaboration.

It's different from other Oodle-powered classifieds systems (which include News Corp.'s MySpace): namely, it looks like a Facebook news feed. You can fill out listings as though they were the social network's own status updates, by choosing one of four options (sell, sell and donate proceeds to charity, give away for free, or ask for something). Then, it'll show up in your friends' news feeds as something like, "Caroline is selling a lightsaber." You can sell items to any Facebook member, though friends-only listings are on the way, and when someone looks at your listing they can also see, for example, how many friends you have in common. Oodle and Facebook hope that will boost the trustworthiness factor.

There's no payment system, which means that buyers and sellers currently need to negotiate a means of compensation. It does, however, leave the doors open for an internal Facebook payment system, something that is either in the works or on the back burner depending on who you ask.

Additionally, at this point, posting a classified on Facebook Marketplace is free. But the service is focusing at launch on the sale and exchange of material goods. You can't hunt for jobs or apartments on it yet--that's on the way, and Oodle representatives wouldn't say whether there may be fees for these listings. (Craigslist makes its money from real estate broker fees, for example.)

Oodle and Facebook are highlighting the "donate to a charity" option, which taps into the array of nonprofits reachable through the Network for Good (it also powers the popular "Causes" application on Facebook). While there are over a million registered 501(c)3 nonprofits in the listing, about 20 are launch partners that have agreed to promote Facebook Marketplace.

Classifieds start-up Oodle will be powering Facebook's official "marketplace," the company said Tuesday. Members will be able to use it just like any third-party app on the Facebook platform--the only difference is that this one is official.

"Turning the development and management of Marketplace over to an innovator in online classifieds will give users more advanced ways to create and share listings on Facebook," Ethan Beard, Facebook's director of business development, said in a release. "We're excited by the potential of the Oodle-powered Marketplace application to offer an engaging classifieds experience on Facebook."

Facebook launched its own Marketplace about a year and a half ago, a potential rival to the Craigslist juggernaut. But it didn't really take off, and though it was never formally pulled, Facebook decided to revamp it with Oodle to "further expand the functionality and breadth of the application."

It'll relaunch early next year. Facebook, meanwhile, has been working on developing a PayPal-like payment system for quite some time; it has yet to launch, but presumably could be closely integrated with an official classifieds service.

Oodle also has powered MySpace's classifieds since July.

Police in Monroe, Wash., say they've arrested that guy who robbed an armored car outside a bank, hired unsuspecting dress-alike decoys on Craigslist to fool authorities, and escaped downriver in an inner tube, according to the Seattle Times.

Contrary to what news media had speculated, tracking him down doesn't seem to have involved Craigslist at all.

Three weeks prior to the September 30 robbery, a homeless man contacted city authorities after seeing someone recover an oddball array of items from behind the same bank branch--a black wig, a reflective safety vest, dark glasses, a two-way radio, a baseball cap, and a can of mace--and provided a license plate number. It's believed that the witness may have seen a test run of the heist-in-progress.

The actual robbery, as fans of wacky news may recall, involved a dozen people responding to a Craigslist ad for road maintenance workers who were asked to show up near the same Bank of America branch wearing a very similar outfit.

Using the license plate data, cops tracked down 28-year-old Anthony J. Curcio, recovered a "significant" amount of money from him, and are holding him in the Snohomish County Jail. His family had apparently recently had some financial difficulties, and had a prior home foreclosed. Curcio also had an infant daughter born 10 days before the robbery, according to birth announcements that the Seattle Times surfaced. Quick--somebody give him a job devising plots for CSI.

But it's not over yet: "(Police) still want to know what role the inner tube played in the robbery," the Seattle Times reported. "They believe it may have been stolen. They are asking anyone with information regarding the yellow inner tube, or the robbery, to call the Monroe Police Department."

Please, think of the inner tubes.

In an elaborate robbery scheme that's one part The Thomas Crowne Affair and one part Pineapple Express, a crook robbed an armored truck outside a Bank of America branch in Monroe, Wash., by hiring decoys through Craigslist to deter authorities.

It gets better: He then escaped in a creek headed for the Skykomish River in an inner tube, and the cops are still looking for him. "A great amount of money" was taken, Monroe police said, but did not provide a dollar value.

It appears to have unfolded this way, according to a Seattle-based NBC affiliate: around 11:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, the robber, wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a blue shirt, and a respirator mask went over to a guard who was overseeing the unloading of cash to the bank from the truck. He sprayed the guard with pepper spray, grabbed his bag of money, and fled the scene.

But here's the hilarious twist. The robber had previously put out a Craigslist ad for road maintenance workers, promising wages of $28.50 per hour. Recruits were asked to wait near the Bank of America right around the time of the robbery--wearing yellow vests, safety goggles, a respirator mask, and preferably a blue shirt. At least a dozen of them showed up after responding to the Craigslist ad.

"I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour," one of the unwitting decoys, named Mike, said to the NBC station. As it turns out, they were simply placed there to confuse cops who were looking for a guy wearing a virtually identical outfit.

Authorities eventually found the getaway inner tube (a getaway inner tube!) and suspect that accomplices may have picked up the robber in a boat. According to the NBC affiliate, police hope to track him down by figuring out who posted the Craigslist ad in the first place.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark was not immediately available for comment.

Bye-bye, Expo. We, um, didn't use you.

(Credit: Windows Live Expo)

This post was updated at 11:56 AM with comment from Microsoft.

Chalk one point up to Craigslist: Microsoft has decided to shut down Windows Live Expo, the classifieds service that it originally launched in February 2006.

Expo will disappear on July 31, a notice on the site explains. Until then, no new listings can be posted or extended, and no new accounts can be created. Microsoft representatives responded on Friday with a statement from the company: "We have learned a tremendous amount from our experience with Windows Live Expo and believe this decision, while a hard one, will serve to more effectively focus our resources towards other priority online service investments for our customers."

The most recent post on the Expo blog is from last September.

Online classifieds continue to be dominated by Craigslist, a scrappy start-up with a hippie attitude and a user interface worthy of 1997. The company is currently ensnared in a legal tiff with major investor eBay over the auction giant's in-house classifieds site, Kijiji.

The Eyebeam Art & Technology Center was decked out in red and black for Tuesday night's annual benefit.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

NEW YORK--"We skipped the paparazzi," Eyebeam director Amanda McDonald Crowley said as she welcomed several hundred people to the digital art center's annual benefit on Tuesday night. "We've got a photo-taking duck."

That requires a little bit of context.

On display at Eyebeam's "Freedom and Creativity"-themed benefit, held at the organization's headquarters in the post-industrial West Chelsea neighborhood, were a number of commissioned artists' and fellows' projects. One of them was Taeyoon Choi's "Camerautomata," literally a robotic duck that skittered about the floor, Roomba-like, taking photos with a camera embedded in its head and then printing them.

But that was just the start of it. This year's Eyebeam benefit featured a surprise live performance by the Walkmen, an MC gig by Comedy Central's John Mulaney, a DJ set by the downtown trio known as the MisShapes, and an auction of bizarre items that had all been found on Craigslist.

That's because the guest of honor was Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, selected for his company's values and community ethos. The newspaper industry, with advertising revenues hurt badly by online classifieds like Craigslist, might beg to differ, but the free-spirited Newmark is inarguably a geek hero.

"Pick almost any project coming out of Eyebeam and you'll see an attempt at humanizing the technology that so much of the world is rushing to cash in on," Eyebeam founder John Johnson said as he introduced Newmark.

He hailed the Craigslist founder as the embodiment of that goal. "(Craigslist is) a community service that does something simple very, very well. It connects people to people and the things they're looking for," Johnson explained. "It has fostered a community that is both local and international, and has helped to provide millions of stories that illustrate that people at heart, when given the chance, are basically good, helpful, and trustworthy."

Camerautomata, the robot duck who takes photos. He's dangerously close to skirt height.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

Accepting the dedication, Newmark insisted on staying humble. "Craigslist is a platform where people give each other a break, and you know, that ain't bad. And I'm honored by this and I feel pretty flattered, but the reality is that before I came over here, I was doing customer service at the hotel, and in the near term I think there's about 30 to 45 minutes of it remaining when I get there. And that's what we focus on."

At the reception prior to the benefit dinner, Newmark--sporting a Barack Obama campaign button--had been checking Twitter updates about the North Carolina and Indiana on his iPhone.

To support Eyebeam's mission while continuing to keep Newmark the center of the evening, the evening also featured an auction of several oddball packages that consisted exclusively of items mined from Craigslist. A "political package" featuring a talking Bill Clinton doll and a Palm Beach County voting machine from the 2000 election (among other things) sold for $750; a "wacky technology package" that included an antique typewriter, an '80s-era computer, and some hand massagers sold for $1,050; and an assortment of art including a Marilyn Monroe piece by Andy Warhol, a DC Comics cell featuring the supervillain Brainiac, and a vintage T-shirt featuring art by downtown New York icon Keith Haring sold for $5,300.

Comedian John Mulaney, who was explaining each of the auction items, gave some background on Brainiac, a high-tech villain whom Superman started battling in the 1950s, and then said, "If you know what I just said and understand it, you did not go to prom."

Judging by the appearance of the attendees, the only Eyebeam benefit-goers who didn't go to their high school proms were the ones who considered themselves too cool to show up. The mix of designer dresses and skinny hipster jeans was, for the most part, too chic to be geek-chic. The tech community was represented strictly by a few well-connected luminaries like Gawker Media founder Nick Denton and Personal Democracy Forum czar Andrew Rasiej.

The event was also, apparently, highbrow enough for benefit-bouncing socialite Kristian Laliberte to make an appearance: he waltzed into Eyebeam's headquarters carrying a gift bag emblazoned with the logo of luxury lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, proudly declaring that it was his second party of the evening already. I regrettably didn't ask Laliberte, who according to gossip columns will be the star of a reality show about New York's posh Upper East Side called The 10021, if he has any clue who Craig Newmark is.

The presence of Taeyoon Choi's omnipresent paparazzi duck, however, kept the quirk factor high, as did a comic monologue from Mulaney, who referred briefly to Craigslist ("I love Craigslist! It has so many different faces! If you're not comfortable talking to drag queens in real life, you can do it there!") but preferred to stick to non-tech topics for the most part.

"Pirates never have a big enough chest," he mused when discussing buried treasures. "In movies, the chests are always overflowing. Why is that? I think with the eye-patches, they have poor depth perception."

In a tiff over its 28.4 percent share in Craigslist, auction giant eBay has filed suit against the online classifieds site in a Delaware court of chancery. According to Reuters, eBay has accused Craigslist's board of directors of diluting its share.

The court confirmed that eBay filed its complaint Tuesday afternoon but could not provide further details, because the suit was filed under seal.

In a phone conversation, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said, "We're still trying to digest it," and recommended contacting CEO Jim Buckmaster for further comment. Buckmaster did not immediately reply to an e-mail inquiry.

Newmark, Buckmaster, and the Craigslist company are reportedly named as defendants in the suit, the Reuters article asserts.

Bebo co-founder Michael Birch (left) in an interview with Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster at the Glasshouse event on Monday night in San Francisco. And a few beers.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

SAN FRANCISCO--It's kind of cheating to showcase the dotcom scene by hosting an event featuring Bebo co-founder Michael Birch and Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster. An outsider, observing Buckmaster's interview of Birch on Monday night as part of the Glasshouse salon series on entrepreneurialism, would get the idea that Web 2.0's scions must all be tall, stylish, and exceptionally good-looking.

That outsider would also get the idea that Silicon Valley had the comic timing of Juno, as it was, for the most part, a witty and borderline tongue-and-cheek interview. Bebo's success, Birch said, was "was mainly due to (his) pure brilliance." Buckmaster then reminded Birch that his site could no longer claim to be No. 1 in the U.K., where it had sat on top of the social-media scene before Facebook passed it in reach.

"You still have New Zealand and Fiji, I know," Buckmaster said at the event, held at an expansive new bar called Orson in the heart of San Francisco's start-up-heavy SoMa neighborhood.

"Fiji is an up-and-coming market," Birch replied.

The witty banter was amusing. But want to know the funniest part? Birch's site was sold to AOL for a monstrous $850 million and the interview didn't even touch upon it until audience members (including yours truly) brought it up.

Rather, most of the discussion between the two was centered on Bebo's raison d'etre and its short history (the site was founded in 2005). Buckmaster brought up server problems that came close to halting the site in the manner of Friendster, and Birch replied candidly. "It was quite challenging," he said. "It kind of grew, and then it stopped growing because it wasn't working very well, and then we would fix things and it would start working again."

The audience additionally learned that the British-born Birch prefers fish and chips to hamburgers and that his biggest headache on the site is the occasional whiny teenager. "I think Bebo's single issue we've had is people being mean to other people and trying to solve these life disputes," he said. "You get these e-mails like, 'Jennifer was really mean to me at school today. Can you cancel her Bebo account?'"

There was also talk of the "Open Media Platform," a strategy Bebo launched to bring professionally-produced video and audio content from partners like CBS and MTV onto the site. "Bebo has been called the first social media network," Buckmaster said. "Is that just marketing hype or is there something to that?"

"It's not just marketing hype, it's incredibly good marketing hype," Birch answered to laughter. "We kind of tried to think how we differentiate, because there's these other two Web sites (Facebook and MySpace)...We have to differentiate, so we thought we'd take the best of both, which was the common utility of one and the media of another, and blend them into one."

He elaborated: "We've always been a much more media-centric site. So where Facebook is openly non-media focused, and MySpace is very media focused, we wanted to become 'media' but in the way Facebook had done it, with the widgets and applications."

Buckmaster also asked what it was like for Birch to work on a site with his wife, co-founder Xochi Birch, and brother Paul Birch. "It's really nice working with my wife," Birch said. "My brother is OK. It's been fine. We're still related. Normally, you start a Web site with friends and it's like, 'Are you still friends?' And often you're not...but (Paul and I) are still related. And friends."

Cute. But what about AOL?

As the event was winding down and the Craigslist exec had only a few questions left, I figured finally they'd touch upon the acquisition. No such luck. "I understand that you had short hair in the U.K., and you only grew it out when you moved to the Bay Area," Buckmaster observed in reference to Birch's shoulder-length locks.

"I always understood it as camouflage in Haight-Ashbury," Birch said.

The discussion was then opened up to questions and answers, and I seized the opportunity to ask the two why neither the term "AOL" nor "$850 million" had surfaced at all throughout the interview.

"850 million is an interesting number. It's a lot bigger than some numbers and a lot smaller than some numbers," Birch responded jokingly. "It's not a prime number." Finally, he addressed the acquisition directly. "There were many other companies (as potential buyers)... It came down to fit," Birch said. More specifically, it came down to AOL's AIM client, which will see deep integration with Bebo. Birch said it offered a much more intimate social-networking experience. "You connect with friends who actually mean something to you, and no one's actually exploited that social graph."

But no matter how press-conference-worthy the questions were, the levity remained. When someone in the back of the room asked Birch where the $850 million valuation at the time of the AOL buy came from, the Bebo founder answered accordingly. "Eight hundred million," Birch said, "was for Fiji."

You don't mess with Craigslist, apparently.

A fan-run blog called Craigslist Blog has been served a takedown notice from the massive classifieds site, according to a post from blogger Tim White on Thursday.

Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist CEO

(Credit: Craigslist)

White posted the e-mail he'd received from Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, which claimed that White's URL "craigslistblog.org" was "infringing" and that its name was "needlessly confusing to members of the media and the general public, and must be changed." Buckmaster did not demand that White stop blogging, but he did request that he stop using the domain, turn it over to Craigslist, and additionally stop posting excerpts from Craigslist on the unofficial blog.

In response, White agreed to stop excerpting Craigslist content, and the unofficial Craigslist Blog now prominently displays the phrase "(the unofficial one)" in its masthead. But White wouldn't back down on the domain.

"I think you have received bad legal counsel and that this is potentially a really bad PR move for (Craigslist)," his e-mail response to Buckmaster said, an allusion to the company's friendly, hippie image.

Buckmaster seemed none too pleased with White's response, and in a second e-mail that White posted to his blog, he reminded the blogger that Craigslist's law firm of choice, Perkins Cole, "also does intellectual property work for Google, and for a lot of other prominent companies."

When White launched the Craigslist Blog last month, Craigslist did not have its own blog. That's changed recently, as Buckmaster now authors an official Craigslist blog. A report earlier this week estimated that Craigslist's annual revenue is likely around $80 million and could be significantly higher, except that the company is "not about the money."