FreeAdLists Blog – Free Classifieds

TechCrunch reported that Edgeio.com is closing their doors. Edgeio was a service that collected and organized classified ads listings that were published on other RSS enabled web sites or directly onto Edgeio.

I used Edgeio.com for FreeAdLists.com. At first, I quickly navigated away from it because I didn’t quite get it. But later, I played around with it and was able to use a couple of its tools, such as creating listings and attempting to submit XML listings.

I focused mainly on Home Sales and Apartment Rental classified ads because the bulk of my free classified ads are concentrated in those areas. However, I was constantly prompted with metadata errors because Edgeio didn’t like my XML format. It was regimented on a specific format, which was costly in terms of time and effort for me. I’m operating off a shoestring budget…my own “VC funds” and whatever revenue I’ve earned via “Featured Classified Ads” and Google Adsense. Anyways, I validated my feeds against feedvalidator.org, but edgeio.com still complained about them, so I ended up using the service for a singly purpose: to advertise “Feature Classified Ads,” not exactly what Edgeio had in mind. Needless to say, I was frustrated in using their service but I kept trying. Why? I thought it would be a valuable resource for my posters.

Frankly speaking, I wished it would have worked out because I think their metadata aggregation idea was novel and I still think it is… I’m hoping Keith Teare, Edgeio’s CEO/Co-Founder, will post something on his blog and provide a few insights/lessons learned as to why the doors are being closed.

I wonder how oodle.com is doing.