MyAd

In “Why MyAd.com uses invite codes” I said that we were using invite codes to limit who could post ads.   And that’s true.  If you want to post from a yahoo, hotmail or gmail * account and don’t have another email address, you’ll need an invite code.

Post ad asking for invite code

However, there’s a way that you can post without an invite code.   If you have a microsoft.com or google.com or pbs.org or stanford.edu email address, you can give that as your email address.  We’ll send you a confirmation message and you can then sign up with any email address you want.

That means you can get one email at work or school with the invite and that’s it.  We won’t send any more email to that address.  Not quality surveys, not newsletters, not anything.

We’re trying to balance having a wide-open system, where anybody can post and we have to devote significant resources to spam-fighting, against having a very tight system where it’s hard to sign up.

We want to allow as many people to sign up as possible.   We want to make posting as easy as possible – no need to answer a CAPTCHA**, no need to click on a confirmation email – but we also want ads from real people.

Do we think this will solve all of our problems?  Of course not.   But we expect that it means that we can spend more time making the system friendly and fast.  When people do something we think is wrong, like post to too many areas or to many categories, we can work with them instead of having to write and install programs that restrict reasonable people.

We think it makes a system that’s better.

Good hunting,

Jim

*Those mail systems – and some others – give away accounts to anyone, including me.  But also including spammers and scammers.  The people running them try very hard to avoid this, using codes that you have to fill out to try and foil automated sign-ups.   They’ve worked fairly well but they can’t get too hard to read or people can’t use them.

** CAPTCHA is a way to try to screen out programs by showing an image.  Spammers are quite innovative in finding ways of beating them, including using optical character recognition to read them or hiring people in low-wage countries to answer them.

MyAd using that

When you’re looking at MyAd you might not realize the degree to which you can customize the search radius.

Radius demo for search

By default, it’s set to 25 miles. * We’d started at 10 miles but users found that they needed to look further around them so we increased it. If 25 miles is too large or too small, you can click on “preferences” and then pick 5, 10, … on up to 500 miles or the whole US.

We think that this ability to “look around” is great when you’re trying to do some comparison shopping. Is that a fair price for a used bicycle of that type? I’m a fan of the “PistaDex“, where BikeSnobNYC tracks the price of used Bianchi Pistas. As a fixed-gear bicycle rider myself, I find it amusing.**

It’s also a good way for people who travel to another city or cities to establish a range where they’re willing to look. Maybe you travel from Bend to Portland every other month or so. You’re willing to look in Portland and places along the way. Radius search lets you do that without having to switch from Bend to Portland.

Of course, you can look in both places if you want. Unless you’ve changed it, each time you’ll have a radius of 25 miles of the city you’re looking.

Good hunting,

Jim

* Technical detail: we use “centroids”, which are approximately the centers of zip codes. If we could get your address and convert it to latitude and longitude and get the addresses of all the sellers and convert them, then we could be extremely precise. In the meantime, we’ll use centroids as approximations.

** I have to admit that my “fixie” was bought ready-made with brakes front and rear as well as fenders and a chainguard. My customization has been adding a rear rack and a bell. Bike messenger, I’m not.

I’ve been looking to buy a tandem bicycle, ideally with a child stoker kit on the back.   The stoker kit makes it possible to move a set of pedals up and down the rear seat post so a child can use the rear seat.   More than you wanted to know, right?

What I would like is to get email every time an ad is posted that matches my search for “stoker” in the Portland area.  And now with myad.com, I can get that.   I just do my search:

Searching for stoker

and get:

no ads for "stoker"

Which is not a big surprise.   So, OK.  It’s fall and it’s raining here in Portland.  I commute by bike as long as it’s not icy but the kids don’t like the rain.   It’s not a big deal if I don’t find this for a few days or weeks or even until next spring.

What I don’t want to do though, is have to run this search every day.   And with search results via email, I can just put my email in:

Subscribing to search

and click subscribe:

Subscribed to search

OK.   Now, I won’t get any messages until there’s a match within 25 miles of Portland for the word “stoker”.  Maybe you should get a confirmation email right away but it’s going to be empty – there aren’t any results – and it’s one more thing to delete.

That might not matter if you only do one of these but if you do a lot, well, it’s not fun.  Hmmm. If you’ve got a strong opinion about it, please comment.

So what does a successful search result look for in email?

Let’s try subscribing to something like “Toyota Highlander”.  Wait a while and here’s our results:

Highlander email search

Notice that you can unsubscribe with one click and unsubscribe from all searches with a different one click.

This is a basic feature but it’s totally neat.  If you’ve got a narrow search, you don’t want to have to run it by hand more than once or twice.   If it’s a rare item, like a tandem with a stoker kit, you don’t want to have to remember to run the search.

And if it’s a hot item, you want the results via email so you know about them as quickly as possible.   Whether it’s sent directly to your cell phone or your inbox, you get to see it seconds after it’s been posted.

Good hunting!

Jim