Edgeio has opened to the public. Edgeio is as some of you may know, the project I’ve worked on from September to the end of last month and the reason I spent 2 great months in California. It is great to see the service open doors for several reasons, but most importantly because of my involvement, and secondly because of it’s significance in the world of online content publishing.

The basics

Edgeio monitors the blogosphere for classifieds. Basically, if you post something on your blog and tag it “listing”, edgeio picks it up and categorizes it, making it available to a much bigger audience. This means that your blog or website can now become your store - even if you don’t think of it that way.

In practical terms, lets say I was going to sell the powerbook I’m typing on right now (because you know, Macbook Pros are much better). I could, just as I’m writing this entry, write another one about the powerbook, tag it appropriately (I’d say: listing, powerbook, apple, 17inch) and bam - edgeio would pick it up. Now everyone who visits edgeio (and maybe had no clue about my blog in the past) can see I’m selling a powerbook and get in touch.

Why is this relevant?

Remember the old age of centralized portals for news, discussion, shopping, or any other kind of data? They have been (and keep being) replaced, even as you read this story, with decentralized services aggregating content. You’ve obviously seen it happen because you’re reading a blog, not CNN.com. Also, there’s a fairly good chance you got here with an aggregator.

The old center of the online content network is now a space for aggregating (instead of archiving or controlling) microcontent from the edge. People are posting on their webpages and own domains. They want to control their own data but still make it available. Edgeio allows for just that, with microcontent that is for sale, on RSS powered websites - like weblogs.

Get out there and try it

So February 27 marks the date edgeio opens to the public, and the day a whole new concept of selling and listing classifieds online comes about. It’s all about the edge of the network. You know, websites like yours or mine.

Congratulations to everyone that was involved in the project since the beginning - I guess that includes me as well. There’s a lot of people who’ve been helping edgeio since it was just an idea, but I leave that for Keith and Mike to post about on the edgeio blog - that needs a new layout, got damn it :-).

Om Malik is also talking about the launch.