One of the best things about friendsell.com is that we give you a way to give friends and family first dibs on stuff you are selling. Instead of posting your item amongst a billion other nondescript things in an attempt to convince some stranger on craigslist or ebay to buy your item (no, seriously, MY item is worthwhile, please look at and buy MINE), let your friends have first crack at it: Dibs before bids!

Missed opportunities abound! Here’s a recent example: Over the holidays, I watched a cousin of mine unwrap a brand new iPod touch for Christmas. D’oh! If only his mom (my aunt) would’ve been hooked up with me on friendsell, she would’ve known that I’ve actually got one of those for sale right now! She would have saved her self a bunch of cash and put some in my pocket! (Sidebar: WAY cooler gifts nowadays than when I was 12…but I digress).

Don’t let this happen to you!! Go get your friends and family to sign up to create a thriving network where you can all get first crack at the great stuff the people in your life are ready to give up. You can bet that aunt has received a friendsell.com invitation from me!

p.s. We expect to be rolling “groups” out as a new feature in the not too distant future. This will allow you to create customized groups around your communities, schools, mommy groups, churches, car clubs, fraternities…. and so on. It will enable you to further customize and expand your friendsell community. So, be thinking about what groups you want to create and be a part of!

You’ve probably noticed that we’ve done a little housekeeping on our “categories.” Here’s the what and why…

Key Changes & Why We Think You’ll Like ‘Em

• Reduced the number of categories (combining or eliminating many) >> This streamlines the category system without sacrificing usefulness.
• Renamed items to be more casual and intuitive >> This also streamlines things (and makes it more fun, don’t you think?)
• One column instead of two >> This is easier to read and will give us room to add more useful features and make our pages prettier down the road

Remember, you can always use hashtags to create more granular and specific categories. This works best as a supplement to the categories we provide, since it allows people to find your item through various routes.

As you know, we’re constantly looking for ways to make things smoother, easier, and shinier for you. Part of that is getting feedback from y’all. Did we miss something? Did we miss the mark entirely? Let us know what you like and what you don’t (we won’t have hurt feelings, we promise). We’re all about making friendsell.com useful for you!

You need an invitation to join our little party.

We don’t let just anybody hang out with us. Nope. Only the cool kids.* We do this so we can monitor and control the growth of our user base, which helps us keep things running smoothly in these early stages.

We’re counting on your feedback.

We’re constantly fixing, tweaking, and polishing here (especially right now). We do our best, but you — the users — know best. Tell us what you love, what you hate, what’s confusing. The most helpful feedback we get is when we learn what’s hard to find or what is hard to do (well, if something’s broken, that’s pretty important, too…). This way we can make things better for you.**

Communicate this stuff to us via the Contact Us link on the friendsell.com page or through a message to “The Friendsell Team,” or, of course, through this blog.

We’re counting on your participation.

In order to help us out with whole feedback thing (see above if for some weird reason you jumped to this item first), we need you to actually be using the site. Sounds crazy, right? Posting things. Sending messages. Inviting friends. Doing searches. If you don’t use the site, how the heck are you gonna know what works and what doesn’t. So go for it! Go to your closet or basement, find something you don’t use anymore (we ALL have something). Post it on friendsell.com.  Then, send out some invites telling your friends/family/coworkers to check it out. If you want to be one of the REALLY cool kids, point them to this blog post and encourage them to follow your lead.

So, yeah, we’re asking a lot of our private beta users, and we know it. As a result, we will soon be showing our appreciation with a promotion that is just for you guys (<–bolded so you don’t skip over this part), so keep an eye out for that.***

*Don’t worry, our definition of “cool” is VERY broad (since we had to make sure our nerdy selves fell within its bounds).

** Kind of like those “Windows 7 was my idea” ads, but not made up.  You could say — “moving that button to this side of the page…that was ALL me” — and it might actually be true!

*** Not-so-subtle hint: It will be tied to the things we ask of you above!

Hi friendsell family (and future family)!

We are completely geeked* about everything going on at friendsell right now. This new blog you see is just the first of many very cool changes that you’ll see over the next several weeks.

We’ve been getting tons of great feedback from our current beta users and are gearing up to transition to a public beta very soon. This means a bigger community, with more listings to browse and more friends and family to connect with. (And more feedback for us, which means a better experience for you!) So, start thinking about what you’ve got to sell. More listings –> more visitors –> more cash!

If you’re not already a member, head on over to the site and request an invite for the public beta, so you can be in on the action from day one! (Do feel free to tell your friends and family about it, too. All of them. We won’t mind. Really. )

To celebrate the move to public beta (it’s a big deal around here!), we’re going to have a really sweet promotion during December (with prizes you’ll actually want to win), so definitely keep an eye out for updates on that.

Stay in the loop by subscribing to the blog (rss or email, links to the left) and following us on twitter (friendsell for updates, stuff_for_sale for public listings). You’ll be first to find out about all sorts of stuff: upcoming changes and features, tips and tricks for buying, selling, and getting the most out of friendsell, and (last, but certainly not least) our awesome promotion. (Seriously guys, these prizes are going to rock – I want them. All of them.)

For you technical-types out there, we’re also going to have some posts about the cutting edge technology that we’re using to build the site, which is insanely cool .** (Non-techie people, fear not, for when we have those posts, we’ll be sure to let you know how all that gobbledygook makes friendsell a better experience for you! Then you can just skip over the confusing stuff and pretend you knew what it all meant.)

p.s. Sign up now! www.friendsell.com (Pretty please!)

*Several geeks are indeed involved. I can absolutely vouch for that. But they’re ridiculously awesome geeks, so it’s a riot.

**Like I said, real live geeks on board.