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Classifieds start-up Oodle will be powering Facebook’s official “marketplace,” the company said Tuesday. Members will be able to use it just like any third-party app on the Facebook platform–the only difference is that this one is official.

“Turning the development and management of Marketplace over to an innovator in online classifieds will give users more advanced ways to create and share listings on Facebook,” Ethan Beard, Facebook’s director of business development, said in a release. “We’re excited by the potential of the Oodle-powered Marketplace application to offer an engaging classifieds experience on Facebook.”

Facebook launched its own Marketplace about a year and a half ago, a potential rival to the Craigslist juggernaut. But it didn’t really take off, and though it was never formally pulled, Facebook decided to revamp it with Oodle to “further expand the functionality and breadth of the application.”

It’ll relaunch early next year. Facebook, meanwhile, has been working on developing a PayPal-like payment system for quite some time; it has yet to launch, but presumably could be closely integrated with an official classifieds service.

Oodle also has powered MySpace’s classifieds since July.

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Facebook Marketplace relaunch powered by Oodle

As an update to the What Recession? post here in May, here are the latest figures. U.S. GDP grew 1.9% in the second quarter, so once again, we are not technically in a recession. On the other hand, the overall unemployment rate spiked upward to 5.7%; not catastrophic, but clearly disturbing.

Still, these two numbers taken together may signal a positive trend. Second quarter GDP growth increased over the first quarter, which had in turn increased over the fourth quarter of 2007. And the last time the unemployment rate was this high was…March, 2004—well after the end of the last recession. In other words, the unemployment rate tends to be a lagging indicator. The fact that the jobless rate is now at a peak, while GDP growth is accelerating, may signal the end of a relatively modest recession. Of course, the policy choices of the new administration after November could swing things in either direction.

But for marketers, at least one measure—the MarketingSherpa Career Classifieds—shows no sign of a downturn. Here are the updated weekly figures over the last 90 days:

As pointed out in the May post, if we’re really in a recession, the blue line in the graph above should be plunging “while the purple line shoots skyward—which is exactly what happened back in 2000. That clearly isn’t happening today.”

Again, it’s only one indicator, and the current sunny outlook for marketers could cloud up in a hurry if the Fed gets overzealous in fighting inflation, or taxes are increased, or any of a number of other things happen. But the fact that that marketers, usually among the first crewmembers to be thrown overboard in an economic tempest, apparently aren’t getting tossed to the sharks in droves is still news to be celebrated.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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For Marketers, What Recession? Part 2

News Corp.’s MySpace will relaunch its classified-listing section on Monday through a partnership with Oodle, the company is set to announce later in the day.

While it’s no Craigslist, MySpace said its existing classifieds section pulls in a million visitors per month, and that the improved technology from Oodle–better search and filtering, more extensive ways to tweak listings–will ideally pull in more users.

Among the new features is a way for individual users to share listings with friends lists, which the company calls “social commerce.” Considering MySpace’s slant toward entertainment and music, this could turn into a choice spot for finding stuff like last-minute concert tickets–as well as friends to hit up that show with you.

In addition, other Oodle listings from across the Web will be listed alongside MySpace’s own, bolstering the offering and potentially providing a worthwhile alternative to the Craigslist juggernaut. According to MySpace, this will mean more than 500,000 new listings every day. This is because Oodle’s reach is big: currently, the site aggregates listings from just about everywhere but Craigslist, including eBay’s Kijiji.

Rival Facebook already has a commerce section called Facebook Marketplace, which isn’t one of the site’s most popular or high-profile features but is nevertheless still alive and kicking. It might get a leg up when the service launches a much-anticipated payment system–currently anticipated for sometime next year.

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Oodle to power relaunched MySpace classifieds

Bye-bye, Expo. We, um, didn't use you.

(Credit: Windows Live Expo)

Chalk one point up to Craigslist: Microsoft has decided to shut down Windows Live Expo, the classifieds service that it originally launched in February 2006.

Expo will disappear on July 31, a notice on the site explains. Until then, no new listings can be posted or extended, and no new accounts can be created. Microsoft representatives could not immediately be reached regarding further information, and the most recent post on the Expo blog is from last September.

Online classifieds continue to be dominated by Craigslist, a scrappy start-up with a hippie attitude and a user interface worthy of 1997. The company is currently ensnared in a legal tiff with major investor eBay over the auction giant’s in-house classifieds site, Kijiji.

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Windows Live Expo set to expire next month