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Tech

A Glitch Revealed Facebook Is Working on a Craigslist-Like 'Local Market'

Facebook says it’s still in “the very early stages of testing.”
Rachel Pick
New York, US

It looks like Facebook will soon be coming for Craigslist with a new feature called Local Market.

The lid was blown off this new venture when a glitch allowed Abs Elmaz in Melbourne a small preview by accident. Elmaz told Social Times that the Messenger button at the bottom of his app had been replaced by a new icon representing Local Market. Clicking on the "Sell" button displayed a "Coming soon" message, and clicking on any of the categories listed brought up a blank screen.

One of Elmaz's coworkers was also able to access the Market, and saw that it was pulling listings from various local For Sale Facebook groups she had joined. When she posted an item to one of those groups, she saw she had the option to also "post to Local Market." So it's a safe bet that Local Market will work partly by aggregating listings from across a range of Facebook For Sale groups, so long as the seller opts to crosspost their item.

Facebook confirmed to Business Insider that it was in "the very early stages of testing new ways" for people to buy and sell items using the social network.

Some of you may remember "Facebook Marketplace" from a few years ago, a venture made in conjunction with another buy-sell app Oodle, which failed to catch on and eventually petered out. I'm a big fan of yard sales—online or otherwise—so I have my fingers crossed this turns into something cool.