www.bananas4free.co.nz - Here we go again?

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#727624 5-Dec-2012 20:45

I like it!

I threw a couple of auctions on there earlier in the days and found it a little slow - partly getting use to the layout, etc and partly server speed.

I threw some more items on later on in the day and found it a lot more responsive. :)

Have been providing constructive feedback also to help better the site. It has a HUGE amount of potential and I hope that it succeeds. :)

Good luck.

gzt

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#727634 5-Dec-2012 21:09

I have a problem. I have registered and that went ok.

But the auction listing form asks for an email address under the heading "Information displayed on your listing".

I would prefer not to advertise my address with every listing so I cannot proceed from here. I do not understand the need for this.

I think I'll enter a dummy and see how that goes. Hopefully that does not break the T&C `-`.

[Edit: Using a dummy email address allowed me to complete the listing. The dummy address is not displayed anywhere on the listing so there is no practical effect I can see. But I would like that clarified. Why is that email address required at that point? Maybe it is no longer needed and that field can be removed from the form].

[The listing process took longer than I anticipated due to the above. Also because after completing the listing details and choosing confirm, I was taken back to the choose listing category screen for no apparent reason. My new listing did not appear in current auctions so I used the back button to return to the details screen and submit that and confirm again. It took a couple of attempts of that but it did work eventually.]

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#727651 5-Dec-2012 21:29

mattRSK: I've listed something on there. Loads of useful features, works well on the ipad. The only thing I don't like so far is that I couldn't create a unique username when logging in with Facebook, it takes your Facebook username.

Yeah thats because facebook api requires it to work like that. We have to follow facebooks rules. :)

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#727652 5-Dec-2012 21:30

gzt: Inspired by mattrsk, I'm going to list a few items. Just started the process.

Terms and conditions: http://www.bananas4free.co.nz/index.php?a=28&b=140

I listed a few items on Sella last week. The result surprised me. One specialist item was paid for and gone in 24 hours. That must have been luck because the rest are getting no hits at all if the sella page hit counter is correct.

It's early days for bananas but it will be interesting to see them get started. For the average user they are providing more innovation than any other platform so far.

And ALOT more to come.

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#727665 5-Dec-2012 21:45

gzt: I have a problem. I have registered and that went ok.

But the auction listing form asks for an email address under the heading "Information displayed on your listing".

I would prefer not to advertise my address with every listing so I cannot proceed from here. I do not understand the need for this.

The system is suppose to grab the email address you used at registering. Might be cookies. if the person decides to change it they can. Your email is not displayed in the auctions or ads. If a person wishes to contact you they are sent to a form. Inside the Myaccount section you can also choose to have private communication. Meaning you read your email right inside the web site and the other person will never know your email. Both parties will use the myaccount section to communicate.

I think I'll enter a dummy and see how that goes. Hopefully that does not break the T&C `-`.

Awesome I love beta testers :)

[Edit: Using a dummy email address allowed me to complete the listing. The dummy address is not displayed anywhere on the listing so there is no practical effect I can see. But I would like that clarified. Why is that email address required at that point? Maybe it is no longer needed and that field can be removed from the form].

correct you can use any email you like but you should use one that you have access to in case someone has questions about what you are selling.

[The listing process took longer than I anticipated due to the above. Also because after completing the listing details and choosing confirm, I was taken back to the choose listing category screen for no apparent reason. My new listing did not appear in current auctions so I used the back button to return to the details screen and submit that and confirm again. It took a couple of attempts of that but it did work eventually.]

yes right now you have to go thru like 4 to 6 pages to complete. This is something that will be changing in the coming months. We want to have it down to 1 or 2 pages to speed it up more. 1 of the 500 things on the white board to do. :)

if you want your email really private. When you log in click on message settings set it to private. I believe we do that for you automatically. But you might wish to check.

DonGould

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#727678 5-Dec-2012 21:56

Ok, Hi Bananas, Thanks for a nice long response to the comments throw about today, great to see you guys off to a great start posting on GZ.

A little research and I'm sure you'll see we're getting adept at reviewing these sites ;)

bananas4free:
@Dongould - Yes it is very secure when you place ads you will notice it will take you into https secure socket layer.

Click the image to see the full size open in a new window...

You talk about https. As you can see from the image above, I've logged in and ventured to my profile page, but as you can see from the Firefox message, it's telling me that not all the content in the page is encrypted at all.

It's these simple little checks that users should always be doing. It's why the browsers have these features.

To me, this space is as much about confidence as it is raw delivery.

So far I'm not inspired to believe anything else you said and wondering if the site needs the same level of question that this community gave the Wheedle project?

bananas4free:
All passwords are encrypted not even we can see them. We can change the password but we can not see the password people put in. This just makes sense to us.

Yup we use facebooks API and follow all the rules. So logging in with facebook is perfectly secure.

Paypal is quite interesting actually. You could sell your product and during the place ad process enter your paypal email nothing more. When a client buys one of your items we simply send them to paypal. With the item title and description. So we have no information what so ever other then your paypal email which in most cases is a person email any how.

I do like the Facebook feature. The idea that Facebook is secure is just a joke to me and I guess we have to take you at your word that the API is implemented correctly.

I do think the Paypal implementation is great. Personally I use Paypal more and more and my trust in that space is close to my bank (when it comes to Internet transactions).

CSV

I did note the different account types.

It seems to me that these sites have value if they have lots of products/listings, so I assume you'll be wanting folk to do bulk listings.

It's annoying to me that none of the new sites I've seen recently seem to have a template solution and public published spec for uploading products in bulk.

Anyway, great to see you about here in this community and good luck with the project! :)

D

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#727696 5-Dec-2012 22:14

bananas4free: The system is suppose to grab the email address you used at registering. Might be cookies. if the person decides to change it they can. Your email is not displayed in the auctions or ads.

It does grab it correctly. There is little point though if you already have it on file and it will not be displayed in the auction. Hopefully you can eliminate that field.

bananas4free: if you want your email really private. When you log in click on message settings set it to private. I believe we do that for you automatically. But you might wish to check.

Yes, that is correct, it is the default setting. Text description is clear that is private for messaging but does not mention auction so there is confusion.

bananas4free:

I appreciate the quick response and detailed explanations. Excellent !!!

gzt

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#727712 5-Dec-2012 22:27

DonGould: It seems to me that these sites have value if they have lots of products/listings, so I assume you'll be wanting folk to do bulk listings.

One of the big failings of Sella is way too many bulk sellers which makes it really uninteresting to browse listings in categories of interest. Hence far fewer casual visits. If you are searching for an exact item on Sella then it is not too bad but still very annoying. Forget about casual browsing in most categories. Adding categories may help them a little bit but not that much. The ratio must be terrible. I would prefer to see competitors think very carefully about this and avoid making exactly the same mistake.

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#727725 5-Dec-2012 22:34

DonGould: Ok, Hi Bananas, Thanks for a nice long response to the comments throw about today, great to see you guys off to a great start posting on GZ.

A little research and I'm sure you'll see we're getting adept at reviewing these sites ;)

You guys are AWESOME!!!!

bananas4free:
@Dongould - Yes it is very secure when you place ads you will notice it will take you into https secure socket layer.

Click the image to see the full size open in a new window...

Oh my :( the google banner at the top right is messing it up. We are fixing it now. GOOD EYE!.

You talk about https. As you can see from the image above, I've logged in and ventured to my profile page, but as you can see from the Firefox message, it's telling me that not all the content in the page is encrypted at all.

It's these simple little checks that users should always be doing. It's why the browsers have these features.

To me, this space is as much about confidence as it is raw delivery.

We have placed so many test ads over and over and registering. Even tried it in many browsers and monitors. We tossed the google banner later. *sigh* should of ran thru all the tests again.

So far I'm not inspired to believe anything else you said and wondering if the site needs the same level of question that this community gave the Wheedle project?

:( months and weeks of hard work to provide one amazing portal for free. You can read about facebooks api on the developer site. Just search facebook api and it will bring it up for ya.

Any one who runs any form of professional site that takes in passwords better be encrypting them. Vbulletin and many packages out there do this. I can not show you the database but they are encrypted with in.

I do like the Facebook feature. The idea that Facebook is secure is just a joke to me and I guess we have to take you at your word that the API is implemented correctly.

When you code and api in it really is hard to do something wrong. The api is written to show error checking. You have to follow the rules of the API or it will not work.
Facebook Login uses OAuth2.0 for authentication and authorization. The Login Dialog creates a trusted link between you, your users and their info

I do think the Paypal implementation is great. Personally I use Paypal more and more and my trust in that space is close to my bank (when it comes to Internet transactions).

Paypal is far better to use being the buyer is protected. To just bank transfers is really risky. If you do not receive the product at least with paypal you can ask for a refund and escalate it. Where with a bank transfer you are well out luck.

CSV

I did note the different account types.
It seems to me that these sites have value if they have lots of products/listings, so I assume you'll be wanting folk to do bulk listings.
It's annoying to me that none of the new sites I've seen recently seem to have a template solution and public published spec for uploading products in bulk.

This is a tall order. We have a bulk uploader that works off CSV but only the system admins can use it. We do not having anything yet where the user downloads and it runs on the fly. If more and more request it we will certainly write something that is more user friendly. But right now they would need to contact sales then they send in the CSV and a person on the team would do uploading into the database. Something like this may have a fee attached to it being it is requiring us to do more work. Hard to say at this time.

Anyway, great to see you about here in this community and good luck with the project! :)
D

Thx appreciate the honesty. thank you so much for finding that item. We having a dedicated server being built as we speak to take care of the speed issues. We really didn't expect this many people to hit the site this quick. So in the next day or 2 I will be moving it to a bigger box. join our twitter we will inform people when we move it. So we will have some down time.

Did you see we have a iPad mini with Wi-Fi 16GB - NO RESERVE!! We are doing this to help promote the site. That is one nice piece of hardware.

Ok I am heading back to fix that tiny https problem with the google banner now. Let me know if you see anything else I happen to miss.

gzt

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#727753 5-Dec-2012 23:22

bananas4free: Ok I am heading back to fix that tiny https problem with the google banner now. Let me know if you see anything else I happen to miss.

Sent geekzone private message to bananas4free.

DonGould

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#727869 6-Dec-2012 09:43

ajobbins: Yawn

I have to 100% agree with you here aj!

I think we could all agree here on GZ that the market place needs a really solid TradeMe competitor who is innovative, reactive and brings something new and exciting to the market place in a way that New Zealanders will get behind.

So far the Wheedle thread is at 504 posts, 34 pages, a tireless effort by this community to discuss the issues in an open and transparent domain with very little regulation (ie MF clearly ban hammers the trolls and shrills as much and fast as he can and little more).

I think we all want to see one of these projects really fly, and I agree that it's going to take a lot more tireless support from this community and others to see one of these projects hit the road really running.

As a former security officer for the biggest provider in our market place currently, I can fully understand your reaction to these sites showing up month after month with really obvious security issues in them and that you become tired and bored of pointing out the same issues time and time again for the rest of us in the industry to just NOT get the message clearly that security needs to be taken seriously if you want to win and keep public confidence in your project.

Personally I doubt that Wheedle will be back.

Sure, I expect it will relaunch, it will do some tv stuff to generate some noise and interest and when the money runs out, it will fade away with people in communities like GZ expressing their lack of support because of the shocking way we were all treated by that team from day one.

KiwiNZ: It is little wonder that start ups so often fail in NZ, the land of the great knocker

Kiwi that's one way of looking at this, but I think it's a very glass half empty response.

My impression of this community is that we want these guys to happen/win/'go large'!

So far my first impression of Lance and Banana's is very favorable and I think I'll be back to put in the effort to help this team.

Sure, it took only hours to start finding the holes, but there is just nothing new about finding bugs in new software!

What makes the difference?

To me, the tyre hits the road based on how it is reacted to.

Lance and his team picked up our posts here on GZ very quickly and addressed them very well.

They didn't seem to hand ball it to their PR department to try and put spin or over reaction on it, but delivered a very human response quickly.

Lance accepted the minor mistake they had made and welcomed more feed back, while also explaining how the problem had happened and detailing what they're going to do to stop it happening again.

To me, that's the professional way to do things in this industry.

What's more, he addressed all of our questions with real responses.

If Lance will give us his personal attention with sensible responses then personally I'm much more confident that this team is heading in the right direction v's some other projects that just seem to hide behind press releases and a total lack of responding to the community.

D

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#727878 6-Dec-2012 09:52

Please tell me you salt your encryption. I'm not a programmer or developer yet I know how easy it is to implement salting, yet it is something that just doesn't seem to be done far too often.

DonGould

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#727901 6-Dec-2012 10:18

Jeeves: Please tell me you salt your encryption. I'm not a programmer or developer yet I know how easy it is to implement salting, yet it is something that just doesn't seem to be done far too often.

How does salt work?

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#727923 6-Dec-2012 10:43

bananas4free: You guys are AWESOME!!!!

To quote you... "GOOD EYE"! ;)

Yes, you're quite right, the GZ community is awesome when we see something that we're all really like to see fly.

I think the community is like that old teacher you had that you hated at the time because she drove you so hard you thought she was nothing more than an old troll out to make your life hell, but later in life she's the first one you thank at the 25 year reunion.

bananas4free: Oh my :( the google banner at the top right is messing it up. We are fixing it now. GOOD EYE!.

No. This was not a good eye at all. It was the simplest first thing I glance at when I see an https page. That you guys didn't spot it when you put the new content in is just poor.

It suggests to me that you're all working long hours but are starting to tire - a space that many of us here in this community can relate with, accept and understand.

We tossed the google banner later. *sigh* should of ran thru all the tests again.

As someone who's done professional test planning and testing for over 23 years on countless software development projects, I can tell you you're right on the mark... run the test plan again and continue to refine the test plan and make sure that you're not missing stuff because you're being constrained to your test plan. But even then you will miss stuff, it happens, and it happens all the time.

To me, what's really important is how you react to it and in this case I personally think you did a top job (as expressed in my earlier post).

bananas4free: :( months and weeks of hard work to provide one amazing portal for free.

Ok let's not go ott here...

First who's kidding who, it's not free to users really. It's internet content that we all pay for via data plans (same as we pay for a news paper) and then it will be supported by ads which hardly make it free.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting for a second that's a bad thing, it's not.

However in a week where we see Google and Facebook having a crow about their global tax obligations because they 'provide a free service', give me a break.

Let's agree to call it what is is, a fantastic new venture that we all hope will provide the market place with something new, different and interesting in the TradeMe owned space.

bananas4free: You can read about facebooks api on the developer site. Just search facebook api and it will bring it up for ya.

Any one who runs any form of professional site that takes in passwords better be encrypting them. Vbulletin and many packages out there do this. I can not show you the database but they are encrypted with in.

...

When you code and api in it really is hard to do something wrong. The api is written to show error checking. You have to follow the rules of the API or it will not work.
Facebook Login uses OAuth2.0 for authentication and authorization. The Login Dialog creates a trusted link between you, your users and their info

Now for anyone else who's reading, to me this is how you should respond to the kind of questions I posed.

I personally think we're all here trying to give this team some value and I feel they gave us some value back by providing some good response with links to quality information about the open interfaces, nice.

bananas4free: Paypal is far better to use being the buyer is protected. To just bank transfers is really risky. If you do not receive the product at least with paypal you can ask for a refund and escalate it. Where with a bank transfer you are well out luck.

Agreed. Very valid points.

bananas4free: This is a tall order. We have a bulk uploader that works off CSV but only the system admins can use it. We do not having anything yet where the user downloads and it runs on the fly. If more and more request it we will certainly write something that is more user friendly. But right now they would need to contact sales then they send in the CSV and a person on the team would do uploading into the database. Something like this may have a fee attached to it being it is requiring us to do more work. Hard to say at this time.

gzt: One of the big failings of Sella is way too many bulk sellers which makes it really uninteresting to browse listings in categories of interest. Hence far fewer casual visits. If you are searching for an exact item on Sella then it is not too bad but still very annoying. Forget about casual browsing in most categories. Adding categories may help them a little bit but not that much. The ratio must be terrible. I would prefer to see competitors think very carefully about this and avoid making exactly the same mistake.

gzt I think you made a really valid comment and I'd like to discuss more.

I agree there needs to be a way in these sites to remove all the commerical listings/listers from your view so you can see the 'one off's' and interesting stuff.

I wonder if the filter should also limit the number of listings presented by each lister so anyone with more than, say, 5 listings in a category is just filtered out.

I wonder if products should have a 'like' feature and traders should also have a 'like' feature and there be some way to filter by liked products and traders.

But I also see these sites as a product portal just like a supermarket. In the supermarket Coke just drowns out all the interesting cold drink products by shear volume of shelf space, but that doesn't mean we also should list the 30 Coke products in the system.

Lance I think CSV loads are a two way street and I think your side of the street should be to provide a tool set to let us put the data in if we choose without it imposing cost from you to us. We're already going to bear a cost in loading the products and getting our data into a format that your upload API will accept, but at the same time we're not getting any of the ad revenue that our products will generate and history on other sites shows that listing doesn't always relate directly to sales.

At the same time, I think it's unreasonable for us to expect your team to spend hours sorting out our poor, unclean, data sets with bad photos.

I think you should provide an unsupported API and a developers forum on your site where developers can work with each other and your team (in a very limited way).

But I also think you should also provide a fully funded time and materials service as well. So, if I just want to say "he dude, here's my shopping cart passwords, please extract what you need and just make it happen and send me the bill" then you just take care of the whole process end to end.

Thx appreciate the honesty. thank you so much for finding that item. We having a dedicated server being built as we speak to take care of the speed issues. We really didn't expect this many people to hit the site this quick. So in the next day or 2 I will be moving it to a bigger box. join our twitter we will inform people when we move it. So we will have some down time.

Did you see we have a iPad mini with Wi-Fi 16GB - NO RESERVE!! We are doing this to help promote the site. That is one nice piece of hardware.

Ok I am heading back to fix that tiny https problem with the google banner now. Let me know if you see anything else I happen to miss.

No I didn't see the iPad... might have to go put a bid on that one.

I do hope you guys are thinking in terms of a platform you can expand and migrate without having down time.

History seems to show that if you get traction then these projects just explode and you need to be thinking in terms of getting resources in place fast to match the pace.... and yes, I get that's so much easier to sit here and say than actually do, so good luck and if there's anything we can do then I'm sure all of us here would love to hear you shout! :)

D

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Check out mine - i.am.a.can.do.kiwi.nz - don@i.am.a.can.do.kiwi.nz

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#727935 6-Dec-2012 10:53

DonGould:

Click the image to see the full size open in a new window...

You talk about https. As you can see from the image above, I've logged in and ventured to my profile page, but as you can see from the Firefox message, it's telling me that not all the content in the page is encrypted at all.

I wouldn't worry. It means certain elements - if they are external to your site then you don't have much control over then.

Google AdSense and Google DFP work just fine with https. Sometimes the creative for ads is hosted on a third party server and that's the one that is not over https.

No big deal. The page itself is still encrypted. Just make sure all the contents from the main domain come over ssl and there'll be no leakage.

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