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When I use the Internet nowadays, it’s mostly to check if I have received any e-mails and sometimes to find information about certain products or activities. The high participation level I might have had in the past isn’t applicable to me anymore. I used to have good times with ICQ and MSN and I remember chatting a lot on websites like www.carmageddon.com. That was kind of fun, especially when your nickname is being recognized by other chatters you don’t know in real life. The peeking moments must have been when chat rooms were opened with titles like: “Razor where are you?” (Razor was my nickname). One could say I was part, or member of some sort of Internet society that acknowledges my presence and tries to embrace me into this society. Another example I remember was that someone tried to attack me verbally in a chat room and others started to defend me. It almost looked like I had an important status in this small society.

But like all peeking moments, the counter side was that I lost interest. Although chatting with people can be fun, the chance that you will meet or have a substantial relationship with that person is rather unlikely. So the attention for the moment was quite fun, but the compulsion of using the Internet vanished. Furthermore, I never had the urge to create my own website. Not only because it looks quite hard in designing it and putting it online, I always asked myself what benefits can I subtract from it? When familiar people see my site, what good does it provide me? I’d rather see them in real life and if unfamiliar people can see my site, I ask myself, is there a mutual interest? I couldn’t imagine that either. So if I’m not part of the chat culture anymore and I don’t participate in taking my own small part in the almost infinite ether world of Internet, in what do I participate?

Except for e-mailing and information finding, I buy and sell commodities with the use of the Internet. Almost a year ago I started liking music that was very popular in the mid-nineties. That music, not being in the charts anymore and not as popular as almost ten years ago, was quite hard to find in the stores. So where was I to look? Newspapers didn’t advertise them and jumble sales weren’t very helpful either. Maybe the second-hand selling sites could be useful? And so they were, this was just the place to find the music I was looking for. For my first order, almost a year ago, it was quite something. I didn’t know the ropes and bargaining was quite hard and I didn’t always believe in a good ending; I was afraid people would rip me off somehow. But after using it for some time, I got the hang of it. I also started selling some commodities I didn’t want anymore and I’ve even met some of my sellers and customers.

So when talking about participating in an Internet society, I think Marktplaats is the qualifying subject for this paper. In the next chapter, I would like to discuss my central question and how I will structure my paper to get a thorough answer to it.

I would like to find out how people participate in www.marktplaats.nl. My paper is structured as follows: firstly I will try to provide a thorough overview of the Internet site www.marktplaats.nl. What is it and how can it be used? The facts and aspects of Marktplaats on a theoretical basis will be provided. The second chapter is dedicated to the way in which people use the site. How do people participate on the site? People who participate in Marktplaats, do they compete with each other in selling and buying the commodities and how do transactions get established? The theoretical and empirical aspects of the sites will be compared. In the third chapter I will focus on the participatory culture the site creates and establishes. Do communities arise and into what other prospects does the site result? In the conclusion I hope to have found an answer for my questions and I will also try to make a prognose about the future of www.marktplaats.nl based on the assumptions and information provided in the chapters before. In the discussion I will state if other researches might be useful and what they could look like.

I would just like to emphasize on one more thing. Although I will strive for objectivity as much as possible, some of the statements are based on my own findings, experiences and advises gained from friends and family and articles I’ve read (and of course what I’ve learned during the course). This holds especially for the second chapter. I will try to provide an overview of how the site is used. There are no proven facts, just assumptions. This is just to express the participatory usage that will later be defined in chapter 3.

-In which way do Markplaats and the Dutch law offer protection to Marktplaats users?

“A medium can be a bodily mediator to the beyond or the mechanical form of societal communication….”[1]

Www.marktplaats.nl is a site designed for selling and purchasing commodities, especially second hand products. Like newspaper or magazine ads, Marktplaats is an intermediating factor, a way for buyers and sellers to find each other and to get communication between them established.

Illustration 1: Frank Crébas

René van Mullem originally created Marktplaats for a study project in 1999. In February 2000, the site was sold to recycling shop ‘Het Goed’. “Frank Crébas, beheerder van één van Nederlands meest succesvolle websites Marktplaats.nl”[2] [Frank Crébas, owner of one of the most succesful Dutch websites: Markplaats.nl] In an interview for the website Onlijn Frank Crébas says: “Geloof het of niet, maar ik was paardentrainer. Zo rond 2000 kreeg ik veel last van mijn lichaam en ik had het ook eigenlijk wel gehad met het vak. Omdat ik René van Mullem kende, ging ik voor hen bannerruimte verkopen.”[3] [Believe it or not, but I was a horse trainer. In the year 2000 my body started to ache and I was quite through with the job. Because I knew René van Mullem, I started to sell bannerspace for them.] So from being a horse trainer, Frank Crébas got to work for René van Mullem. When the site was sold to ‘Het Goed’, they asked Frank to stay and manage the site for them and eventually he became the owner of Marktplaats. But before it was a success, there were problems. In 2001 the site almost went bankrupt. At a critical moment the managers from Marktplaats.nl made a crucial decision. For every advertisement, offering or searching commodities for € 200 or more, Marktplaats charged € 6 euro. And it worked. From paying depths the subsequent year, the wind started to change, as Frank put it: “Vorig jaar was de winst 800.000 euro en dit jaar komt het op 4 miljoen euro.”[4] [Last year our profit was 800.000 euro and this year the profit will amount to 4 million euro.]

Frank Crébas thinks that his success might come from the simple structure of Marktplaats. In this chapter I will try to provide an overview of how the site works and is structured.

The homepage of Marktplaats can be seen on illustration 2 and is structured as follows: left at the top there is a hyperlink to place an advertisement. Below this, one can find out about the terms and conditions. Right at the top there is a ‘quick search’ hyperlink to search through the advertisements. Below the ‘quick search’, there is a function to search more thoroughly through the advertisements. Right under this there are four little icons, named ‘Hoofdmenu’, ‘Nieuw | Top 25’, ‘Marktkramen’ and ‘A 1 Markt’ [Mainmenu, New | Top 25, Market Stalls and A 1 Market].

The row on the left consists of different categories of the commodities and the cells in the middle have the same topics as the row on the left, with only a small difference that these cells also embed the five latest advertisements. At the very bottom there are little icons of flags. These flags represent different languages as well as different countries, being: Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, Turkey and Canada. Below the flags there is another hyperlink for the same terms and conditions and next to it there is a hyperlink for ‘contact’.

Illustration 2: Homepage of Marktplaats

Although this paper’s intention isn’t about comparing this site with other second-hand commodity sites, one can say that Frank Crébas wasn’t lying when he said that his site is simple structured. The site doesn’t have any banners or extra hyperlinks to anything other than what the site is structured for. It only consists of information for sellers and buyers, no extra data is added. When taking a brief look at similar sites, there can be concluded that the similarity might be scarce when focussing only on the way it is structured. As illustration 3 might illustrate, the variety and quantity of different hyperlinks for different options are very present.

When searching for a commodity there are several options of finding it. When clicking on a category, new cells appear with different subcategories. For instance, when clicking on ‘Auto’s’ [Cars], the new subcategories that appear present brand names like Alfa Romeo, Audi and so on. Although there were no banners on the homepage, there are banners related to this category on these pages. At the bottom of the page there are also links to websites that sponsor Marktplaats.

Illustration 3: From left to right: Ebay.nl and 2dehands.nl

Another way of finding advertisements is with the quick search option. In this little bar a word can be typed and the results refer to the most likely possibilities. But these advertisements only refer to the typed word(s). They do not distinguished different subcategories like wanted or offered.

Illustration 4: ‘Uitgebreid zoeken’ [search thoroughly]

To specialize your information further, you can use the ‘uitgebreid zoeken’ [search thoroughly] option. As illustration 4 shows, there are several options available to define your search requirements. The category and subcategory can be defined as well as offered or sought and so on.

When you have found a commodity you’d like, there is also an option to find every advertisement of one person. This can be helpful if you’re interested in the commodities this person advertises with. All the wanted commodities can be sold at one time, which can at least safe money with the transportation costs. This feature may be appreciated by the seller as well of course.

Illustration 5: Making an offer on a commodity

To get in contact with a potential seller or consumer, there are different ways to get in touch with each other. If the advertiser displaces his or her phone number or e-mail address on the advertisement, it’s easy. The contact can then be established without much further ado. But not all advertisers want their e-mail or phone number being placed on the Internet. Marktplaats offers the utility to encrypt the e-mail address. An e-mail can then be send without using the real e-mail address. For phone numbers Marktplaats offers a ‘box number’. When using a ‘box number’ the advertisers’ phone number is encrypted in a code. If someone wants to react to the advertisement, he or she can call a special number designed for Marktplaats and he or she can dial in the special code (of course for a special price). The advertiser then gets a call from the ‘box number’ with the question if the advertiser wants to connect to the caller or if the connection should be declined. In this way the phone number can be held private. Another way is that one can place an offer on a commodity. There is no date set but it is a way for users to show how much they think a product is worth and how much they offer. The one who offers the latest (not the highest), gets on top, as can be seen in illustration 5.

To place an advertisement, a planned course must be completed. When clicking on ‘Plaats een advertentie’ [Place an advertisement], cells appear and the wanted or offered commodity can be categorized. After this the question is posed if what you are offering or searching for has a price of € 200 or higher. If so you’ll have to pay € 6, if not, advertising is free. When proceeding to the next page all the wanted information can be provided as illustration 6 shows.

Illustration 6: Making an offer on a commodity

When a new advertisement is placed, it will be displayed at the top of the subcategory. When other advertisers place their advertisements, your advertisement gets the second place and so one. Meaning that after two weeks your advertisement is at a non-prominent spot. After twenty-eight days, advertisers get an e-mail which offer the option to prolong their advertisement. After replying within a week, the advertisement gets prolonged for twenty-eight days. There is also the option to get your advertisement at a prominent spot again. One can dial a phone number and an unique code that was sent with the e-mail can be dialled so your advertisement can be placed up the ladder again. This costs € 1,15. The same applies here for an advertisement where € 6 has been payed for. The only difference is that when advertisers want an extention for another twenty-eight days, there has to be paid € 6 again. After fifty-nine days the advertisement will be removed and users receive an informing message by e-mail about this.

The icons underneath ‘uitgebreid zoeken’ are quick links to different stages of the site. Wherever you go on Marktplaats, these quick links, as well as the orange bar at the top and the yellow row on the left, remain. When clicking on ‘hoofdmenu’ you automatically come back to the homepage of Marktplaats. The same holds for the Marktplaats logo on the top left. When clicking on ‘nieuw’, cells appear which show the newest advertisements placed in the different categories. ‘Top 25’ are the advertisements that have been visited the most. ‘Marktkramen’ refers to the sponsors of the site. All the categories have professional specialists and their links are shown. For instance, when browsing through the ‘Watersport/boten/surfplanken [5]’ [Water sports/boots/surfboards] category, a link appears to the Dutch Nautics site. The last icon is ‘A 1 Markt’ and links to the A 1 Markt site. This site is a similar site as Marktplaats but now owned by Marktplaats.

At the very bottom of the site flags appear. These flags refer to the international Marktplaats sites. The international name of Marktplaats is Intoko. Unlike the Dutch version, every other site is called Intoko. For instance the German site is www.intoko.de, the Spanish version is www.intoko.es and so on.

In which kind of ways does the site provide protection to its users of Marktplaats? As said before Marktplaats can protect users’ private information by encrypting their e-mail addresses and phone numbers. But in what ways can participants be insured that nothing will go wrong? Is trust the only motive to use Marktplaats? The Dutch law states the following about transactions:

“Degene aan wie een zaak is toegezonden en die redelijke wijze mag aannemen dat deze toezending is geschied ten einde hem tot een koop te bewegen is ongeacht enige andersluidende mededeling van de verzender jegens deze bevoegd de zaak om niet te behouden, tenzij het hem is toe te rekenen dat de toezending is geschied.”[7]

[He to whom an item has been sent and who reasonably may assume that this shipment was made with the intent to have him buy is – regardless of any announcement of sender to the contrary – entitled to keep the item without payment unless he can be held accountable for the fact that shipment occurred.]

“De verkoper is verplicht de verkochte zaak met toebehoren in eigendom over te dragen en af te leveren. Onder toebehoren zijn de aanwezige titelbewijzen en bescheiden begrepen; voor zover de verkoper zelf daarbij belang behoudt, is hij slechts verplicht om aan de verkoper op diens verlangen en op diens kosten een afschrift of uittreksel af te geven.”[8]

[The Seller is obliged to deliver and hand over the sold item with all accessories. Accessories include pertaining papers and titles; in as far as seller has an interest, buyer is obligated to provide seller the desires and is willing to pay the expense with copies or certificates]

“Iedere tekortkoming in de nakoming van een verbintenis verplicht de schuldenaar de schade die de schuldeiser daardoor lijdt te vergoeden, tenzij de tekortkoming de schuldenaar niet kan worden toegerekend.”[9]

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