The Next Web

Social Wigix challenges evil eBay, a closer look

Written on May 5, 2008 – 2:13 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

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“Keep fees at eBay“, with that catchphrase Wigix challenges eBay for an open fight. This new socially-driven marketplace wants to compete with the online trade giant by offering transparency and a Web 2.0 flavor. They managed to stir up the blogosphere last week with their bold statements, so let’s take a closer look on what this service offers. The transparency comes down to this:

Stop guessing your fees. Wigix doesn’t aim to gouge its members.
For items sold between $25 and $100, we ask for a buck and a half from both the seller and the buyer.
We ask for an additional 2% of the portion above $100 from the seller if the price goes over $100.
If the price goes over $1000, we ask for an additional 1% of that portion.
For items below $25, we charge nothing!
Stop letting other marketplaces chip away at your profits with multiple fees. Wigix asks for no listing fees, and has no hidden fees.

And for the Web 2.0 flavor, or maybe Web 3.0 - you name it, Wigix is giving users the opportunity to become a category expert. He or she has the responsibility to review, reject, approve submissions made to their category and update blogs and discussion boards several times a week. It pays one percent of the category’s revenue. After a while this can become an interesting source of income.

There’s a second way of contributing to the community for a financial reward: homesteading. Just like the US government gave away land to pioneers in the Wild Wild West, Wigix gives users money for adding items to the catalog. So imagine there are no Burberry umbrellas on Wigix yet. You can then add this item and earn 5 percent of all the fancy umbrellas that will be sold in the future. Nice, uh?

It’s obvious that Wigix wants to create a community of people who all feel their part of a revolution. That’s why they draw a line with the Wild west and speak of “like-minded collectors and traders”. Smart strategy, if you ask me. They might even approach active eBay users and lure them into the Wigix camp by addressing their conscious: “Wouldn’t you want to be part of this honest way of trading?”. Let’s see if Wigix can pull it of.

Auctions, community, ebay, trade, web 3.0, Wigix

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RestyleMe is styling 2.0 and certainly not 3.0

Written on March 28, 2008 – 4:07 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Although Web 3.0 seems to be coming closer by the day, typical 2.0 initiatives are still launched on a daily bases. Just for the record, I follow Calacanis’ definition of Web 3.0: balancing the ‘wisdom of crowds’ by embracing experts. A good example is Topicle, a search community with a pool of small search engines that use the human intelligence of experts.

So I just registered to ReStyleme, a service that allows users to rate other users’ clothing style. What pleads for the ReStyleMe is that they don’t just offer a dull 1 to 10 rating system but actually make it possible to judge in detail. To be more specific, you can rate the hair style, body style (?), accessories, makeup, eye glasses, dental style, facial hair, clothing and tattoos. Moreover, it’s possible to pinpoint good and bad points on the picture. And of course, users can leave comments as well. Like this one, from DieWeissenRose about steph19812006:

You need to cheer up some! :) try straightening or curling your hair. Also wear clothes that are your size.

KillerStartUps is raving about this service in their review:

RestyleMe fills a gap for a website that’s specifically built for actually useful style advice. (..) It utilizes Web 2.0 features that makes it user-friendly and fun to provide or obtain style advice.

Yet you could also see their remark as negative. If you think about it: who wants a style advice based on the wisdom of the crowds? I mean, a business man might want to see if other business people dig his suit. And a goth teenager only cares about the dark view of other goths. ReStyleMe doesn’t offer this possibility. You can only sort the style results by age, geographical location and sex.

Moreover, if every body pays attention to the fashion sense of the majority, that would be disastrous for creativity. People would just adapt their style to the generally safe (= dull) judgments of Average Joe. So I hope ReStyleMe will soon create some more options to select opinions. Otherwise they’re just making the world a bit more gray.

Don’t agree with me? Express your anger here by giving me a thumbs down for my clothes.. or hair. Whatever you want.

clothes, fashion, Opinion, restyleme, topicle, web 2.0, web 3.0, wisdom of the crowds

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