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CampusTrade : The Blog saving time, money, and trees. one reader at a time.

08/19/06

Trade On.

Hey there, it's been a while.

How was your summer? That's cool. CampusTrade's was awesome too.

Many of my concerns about possibilities of a patchy, seasonal market for CampusTrade's model have been abated by this past summer. CampusTrade traffic actually grew during this summer - a traditionally slower (UF undergrad population drops by about 75%) and less serious (ie: take 6 hours of class and get wasted every night) time of the year . The average daily unique users and traffic are nearly double what they were at the end of this spring.

So this is pretty exciting. Bloggers are also starting to publicly express their optimism for the site.

When I think about it, how can you not be optimistic about CampusTrade? It saves time, money, and trees, and last time I checked, most people like time, money, and trees.

PS: We'll soon be switching this blog over to a more dyamic model that lets people comment directly underneath the posts. In the mean time, keep the emails coming, and we'll keep writing back.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

04/06/06

Contest Winners

Congratulation to the first two winners of the $100 give-away contest: UF seniors Lindsay Wright and Sabrina Suddath.

Wright posted her Summer Sublease in Campus Club after reading about CampusTrade in the Independent Florida Alligator.

Suddath placed an ad for her Room for Rent after a friend emailed her about the service.

The contest continues for three more weeks including this one. Users are automatically entered once for every ad posted during that week, up to five ads. For more info, check out the contest page.

Posting an ad takes about 30 seconds, so why not do it now?

And yeah, those are real Benjamins.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

03/28/06

Clothing & Shoes Category

We noticed that more and more people started posting clothing in the "Other" category.

To better organize these ads, we've added a separate category titled "Clothing & Shoes."

Despite what I thought at first, this probably won't turn into a used clothing category. So far, all clothing posted in the "Other" category has been brand new, and in many cases, still in the plastic packaging.

So this creates an ideal forum for you to sell that useless Duke sweatshirt you got for graduation and never wore, or that tenth Christmas-colored tie you got over the holidays but never took out of the box.

You might also find people who work at department stores selling new clothes in this category. If you work at a store and they give you a discount on clothes you buy there, why not make some extra money?

Just be careful if you decide to make some extra money on the side like this because stores with these policies usually have dollar amount limits on how much you can buy per month. Ultimately, they don't want to compete with their own employees selling identical merchandise for 10% off the in-store price.

Watch out for counterfeits too. This shouldn't be too much of an issue because you can meet before you make the sale and see the product in person.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

03/22/06

What is a "Clip?"

I developed the clipping system for two main purposes:

1) It allows you to save an ad that you think is interesting to the My Clips section of My Account.

2) The most frequently clipped ads show up on the front page for other users to see them. It is a self-rewarding system in that users who post interesting content are more likely to have their ads clipped, get more messages, and complete transactions faster.

This makes CampusTrade much more user-regulated than before. The ads viewed on the front page are entirely under your control.

Scary? Maybe. But I trust you guys. And if inappropriate content does somehow make it to the front page, the problem drop-down provides an added level of control for users to mark ads they feel are inappropriate and not good content for the site.

So to sum it up: clip ads that you think are interesting, and don't clip ads that suck. And if they really suck, you can flag them with the "problem?" drop-down.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

03/20/06

CampusTrade in the Alligator

There is a very good article in the Independent Florida Alligator today about CampusTrade:

http://www.alligator.org/pt2/060320trade.php

The article starts off with what I thought was a pretty catchy introduction:

"Whether a student is in need of a quick make-out session, a pre-owned futon or an exotic pet, a new classifieds Web site will help them find it all for free. "

It also provides a bit of a bio about myself:

"Developed and managed by UF sophomore Bryan Scott, www.CampusTrade.com allows college students to post an unlimited number of classified ads at no charge.

Scott, a 19-year-old finance major, created the community completely out of pocket. He said he hopes to provide an arena for student-to-student trading by offering categories such as subleases, textbooks, electronics and jobs. CampusTrade will even send a text message to your cell phone when a buyer expresses interest in your ad."

The article goes on to describe my experience in designing it from the ground up.

"During the several weeks leading up to CampusTrade's launch, Scott said he poured about 60 hours a week into its upkeep. 'I didn't sleep or go to class,' he [Bryan Scott] said."


This publicity is great. The added benefit of increased site traffic benefits every user by delivering more traffic to their ads. Tell your friends about CampusTrade. It will help you complete more transactions, and ultimately saving you money. And hey, that's the whole point.

You probably notice a few new features today. A "Clipping" feature has been added along with a redesign of how the ad content is displayed. I'll write more on this tomorrow.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

03/07/06

IM your ads

We recently added a few feature that lets you send an instant message over AIM about any ad you see on CampusTrade. Just look for the familiar AIM icon next to the ad.

This makes it easy to tell your friends about ads. Since it's just one click, you don't even have to type.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

02/21/06

Text Messaging

Only about 16% of ads posted use the text-message notification option. This is a really sweet feature for when you are looking to sell something quickly.

The text message notification feature for ads sends you a text message with the user's cell phone number and cell phone service whenever a user sends you a message linked to an ad.

So if I message you about Your Car, you would get a message like:

Bryan Scott has messaged you about Your Car.
Cell: xxx-xxx-xxx
Service: xxx

You can also receive text messages when people reply to ad-related messages for ads you did not post. To setup this feature, check out the bottom of the My Preferences page.

When I wrote the text messaging feature, the entire purpose was to make it ridiculously easy to use. If you are out on campus and somebody sends you a message about your textbook on CampusTrade, you can call them immediately and pick up the book on your way back from class. Cool huh?

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

02/08/06

New server. Pictures working again. CampusTrade has a search toolbar!

I finished switching over to the new server this afternoon. You should not have any more problems posting or adding pictures to your ads.

For the record, this is server #3 in less than two weeks. This pretty much stems from the demand a site like this puts on a server and the broad range of features it requires.

We have also finalized some new features on the browse and search pages including support for our new CampusTrade Search Toolbar. The toolbar is completely free, as is the rest of the site. The install is virtually instant. Sorry Internet Explorer fans: this one's only for Firefox. We'll see how it goes. Perhaps we'll write one for IE later on.

I gotta give credit to CJ on this one. It was 100% his idea. I started playing with it, and now its part of the site.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

02/07/06

"Um, yeah..."

Not that related to CampusTrade, but I figured it was worth posting anyway. Doesn't this guy sound like the guy from Office Space? This guy called me back regarding some real estate stuff here in Gainesville. Listen for yourself.

Here's the sound clip: [289kb mp3]

Uuummm, yeah... we're going to need you to come in on Saturday.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

02/06/06

Banning the banners

For promotion here at UF I had some banners printed up. These were pretty big (about 5 feet wide by 3 feet tall) and decently vivid. I decided it would be a sweet idea to post this banner to the outside of my apartment on sunny Friday afternoon (I can't give you the exact name because it probably violates one of the 9,000 sections of my lease agreement, but for my purposes I'll call it Yardcourts).

Since our apartment is right above the office, I didn't think this would last long. To be specific, I said I'd give it a week tops. In the typical "because we care" attitude of Yardcourts, I was informed on my cell phone that the banner was a violation of my lease agreement. Imagine that.

Here's the call: [106kb mp3]

That sounded mean, didn't it? Besides, who would want to take down a banner that looks this good:

For the sake of improving the overall frontage of the building, I think they should have paid me to put it up. After all, this is leasing season, and they need to fill their rooms. And hey, if I saw a banner that looked that sweet above the office, I'd definitely sign a lease with Yardcourts.

So later on that day I went down to the office and talked with the nice young lady who called me. She told me that management has to give tenants 7-days written notice to remove any such "decorations." I guess this buys it some time.

The banner went up again shortly after the office closed for the weekend. No phone calls yet.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

02/04/06

Pictures down temporarily

Ok. So our hosting provider decided to institute a new policy to make the network safer. As a result file uploading (and therefore picture uploading) no longer works. We are in negotiations with the host to grant CampusTrade some kind of exception.

Hopefully this will only take a couple days. I know this really sucks not being able to post pics. I'll definitely keep you updated and let you know how this pans out.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

01/26/06

Login problems fixed. A little about the new features to come...

Everything should be working with the login now. Again we apologize for any inconvenience you may have experience because of server transfer.

As far as new features in the works, we are greatly improving the search page. The new search and browse pages will have a much better layout and ways to "highlight" ads that you like. You will also have more filtering options for both searching and browsing.

I'll keep ya posted.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

01/25/06

Login problems...

We are aware of the login problems with your accounts and apologize for any inconvenience. Unfortunately it’s a byproduct of switching over to the new server. These kinds of problems are very difficult to forecast. Everything is being done to get the site back to full working condition as soon as possible.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

01/25/06

New server. Breathe in, breathe out.

The switch to the new server is complete. You might be redirected to a temporary URL that looks kinda weird, but don't worry, nobody hacked the site or anything. It's just a feature that allows us to seamlessly transition between the two servers.

I was running some tests a few minutes ago, and this server is processing request about 10 times as fast as the previous one. This should hold the site for another five thousand users or so. I'll keep ya posted on that.

As for the next week, we’ve got some major improvements to the search feature in the works. Anyway, it’s almost 5 am. I’ll write more on this tomorrow.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

01/15/06

Newer, faster, bigger, better, etc. server in the works.

A new server is in the works to accommodate the increasing growth in activity on the site. I apologize for any slowness you have experienced. The switch should be complete by the end of this week.

Email me: bryan@campustrade.com.

01/07/06

Site updates. What's your name?

I uploaded a few interface changes to the site tonight. It should be a little easier to navigate. In general the design is smaller and tighter. Basically I cleaned up some wasted space on a few pages.

Your name also appears with ads you post. This is a change from the old way where your email address would appear. I think this gives the site a more personal feel. Don't worry though, only registered users can see your last name. If you are not logged in, you just get a friendly initial for your last name, like "Bryan S." You still have privacy on the site.

Lemme know what you think of the changes. Hit up the email at bryan@campustrade.com.

12/30/05

So its time I had a blog?

So a bunch of you have suggested that I start a blog. Well it’s the day before New Year’s Eve, and here’s my blog.

This began over the summer as an idea of mine to improve upon existing classified ads systems, student book buyback networks, sublease web sites, etc. I admit this idea isn’t new. There have been several other classified ads web sites here at UF, but they all seemed to fail for one reason or another.

Basically, the idea of CampusTrade is this: a web site where students buy and sell things from and to other students on their college campuses. Part of this involves knowing that you are dealing with a student, not some sketchy guy who works at a pawnshop on 13th Street. That’s why you have to have a .edu email address. The feedback system helps cut down on users selling bad items (i.e.: broken iPods) on the site without repercussion. The system is free simply because I think it can be and students don’t have the money to spend on classified ads.

So back over the summer I decided I’d try to make one that doesn't suck. Here's what I've got so far.
Got any suggestions, comments, etc? Email me at bryan@campustrade.com.