People whose old books, CDs, DVDs and video games are collecting dust on their shelves will soon have another way to resell them on the Web.
On Monday, Glyde, a start-up based in Palo Alto, Calif., plans to introduce a Web site intended to make it simple for people to buy and sell used media products.
The company, which will be challenging formidable giants like eBay and Amazon.com, is the brainchild of Simon Rothman, who worked at eBay from 1999 to 2005 and was the primary creator and executive in charge of its automotive site, eBay Motors.
Glyde?
Glyde? Was Lube taken?
Take a look at the picture in the article of Simon Rothman of Gylde leaning against the wall. Is anyone else put off by the hipster all in black look; trying to be “oh so cool”?
Soccer moms
Here is an interesting line in the article: Mr. Rothman said his target market was people who had never sold items on the Internet because it was too difficult. “We want the middle-aged Midwestern soccer mom to easily be able to buy and sell her stuff,” he said. “It’s a pretty straightforward ambition.”
other products
Sales of AstroGylde however, remain robust.
Actually, there’s a lot in common between Internet start-ups and masturbating. More so than Wired, NYT, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal would have you believe.
10 percent?
“Glyde takes a 10 percent fee on each completed purchase, and charges $1.25 to the seller for the envelope.”
I think middle-aged Midwestern soccer moms, (and pretty much everyone else), are going to see that 10 percent loss and decide to hold a garage sale instead.
Now why did LISNews boot me
Now why did LISNews boot me off while I was posting? (My opinions aren’t THAT pointless!)
Tech issue
Some browsers don’t play nice interacting with Drupal. We had to shift off Safari here because it would time out on uploading audio files. Safari’s internal timer relative to throwing up an error that something timed out is a wee bit shorter than Firefox’s we found out.
When in doubt, write first in a local text editor then copy into the submission form.
________________________
Stephen Michael Kellat, MSLS
PGP KeyID: DC5A625B
Still too much of a hassle….
I think that this is not a bad idea, however not a great one. I dont think it’s taking any of the work really out of selling your stuff online, and they’re taking a rather large cut. I read about this place on CNet.com that trades your cds for an iPod. At least then you get all the stuff out of your house at once and you get something cool in return that you can sell, keep or give as a gift. Much easier and faster.