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Collectors’ Quest Demo Review
Allen - September 5th, 2007
Collectors' Quest (CQ) presented at the NY Tech Meetup last evening. CQ is a community for collectors to share their collections and discuss the items with others. It's a Web 2.0 site says the presenter and combines social networking, video uploads and discussion. Here are my notes from the demo:
- They are most proud of their work in the social networking space for collectors
- "Antiques roadshow meets Match.com" – whaaaaaa?
- The user profiles can pull in external blogs so if you blog about your collections on a personal blog, they can be embedded in your CQ profile
- They have manufacturers as content providers – using profiles – this is one way they generate revenue
The question portion of the demo left me very confused – here are the notes:
- Someone asked about content ownership – the presenter said that the content is mutually owned - that didn't seem to sit well with the audience
- Sales go offline – so if you are interested in a piece, you must handle the transaction outside of CQ
- There is no rating or reputation mechanism in place so it could be a crapshoot as to what you would get on a sale
Here is my video from the demo (apologies for the lighting):
I’d like to fill in a bit more and flesh out some of the areas that perhaps were not clear.
1) “Antiques Roadshow meets Match.com” – why? Collectors can search for similar collectors in their geographic areas or look for a specific keyword in the same way that Match works.
2) Manufacturers do provide content by uploading their own collections which are available for sale but CQ provides content in the form of professionally produced broadband video which covers collectors and conventions alike, a blog on the industry, as well as user-generated content in the form of collection profiles.
3) Content ownership IS mutual. Collectors own the physical items and CQ owns the rights to the digital images to use for promotion and syndication. (obviously respecting copyright issues)
4)All sales do not go off-line. Only peer to peer which is the same model as Craig’s List which has been successful. If someone is purchasing a brand new item from our site – that is done through the manufacturer itself (Mattel, Hasbro, Corgi etc) and is backed by a major name therefore no rating system is needed.
Finally, for those of you who would like to take a look at the full video, which will give you a full blown overview of the concept, please go to http://www.collectorsquest.com/videos/promo.html