From katrin@cs.washington.edu Mon Nov 10 09:10:24 1997
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 23:52:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Katrin Petersen <katrin@cs.washington.edu>
To: Martin Dickey <dickey@shrimp.cs.washington.edu>
Subject: project idea

Hi,

I'd like to propose an online UW marketplace database.  It would be a
place where people of the UW (anyone with a UW email account) could submit
classified ads, ideally for free.  This would be a great way for students
to buy, sell, or trade textbooks, computers, furniture, etc.  

These are some possible features I think could be supported:
- automatic ad time out (e.g. a one week limit. user could reactivate.)
- shoppers query in various ways, like price range, keyword, category..
- an option to include a scanned photo of sale item
- provide buyers and sellers with accounts so:
	- each user of the system is assigned an id
	- buyers could post 'wants' and system notifies user of any
	  matches the next time they log in.	
	- sellers are also notified if any buyers have already requested
	  the item.
- provide buyers/sellers with past pricing information on item being put
  up for sale.	
- for users interested in trading, the system could match desired trade
  items with other postings.
- there could be online bidding for items a user desires to auction.


I'm sure there are many other features that could be implemented.  These
are just a few that I've come up with.  The system could be donated to the
Daily or linked to the UW or CS home page.  This project could be
implemented in Access, but of course that's up for discussion.

Thanks

Katrin Petersen