For a student looking to buy something specific on the Free & For Sale Facebook page, it can be daunting to scroll through thousands of offers, McCormick senior Al Johri said.

To solve this problem, he and Bienen-McCormick junior Andy Bayer created a website called NUCraigslist, which pulls data from the Free & For Sale Facebook page, the NU Closet Recycle Facebook page and the Textbook Exchange Facebook page, allowing students to search for offers from all three pages.

Bayer and Johri downloaded all of the data from those pages, which included 6,500 posts from the Free & For Sale Facebook page. They then ran the information through an algorithm that determines whether the person is looking to buy or sell an item to determine what category each item belongs in.

“The issue with the Facebook page that we’re trying to get around is there is lot of data on there,” Bayer said, “and it’s hard to find something specific.”

In the past, students have tried to set up similar websites, such as NUList.org, NUBodega and Wildcat Exchange.

“I think the reason this one’s going to be successful is because we rely on an existing platform where people are already posting stuff,” Johri said. “People are already buying and selling things. It’s already a successful platform. All we’re doing is making it easier to search and easier to browse.”

Johri said the website will make it more accessible for the casual browser to search specific categories and for someone looking for a specific item to find what they want.

He mentioned that students looking for furniture at the beginning of the year will be able to go to the website and access the furniture section, making it much easier to browse different items.

When students want to buy things they find on the website, they will be able to Facebook message the seller directly, just as if they were buying it through the Free & For Sale Facebook page.

“To include any kind of transaction system on NUCraigslist would be a little alienating,” Bayer said. “People have been using Free & For Sale for years, and I think for us to go against what people have become comfortable with and what’s been established isn’t really the best option.”

Bayer said he thinks people will start using the website because it organizes the content in a better way.

“There’s no way that we can kill the Facebook page, and that’s not what we are trying to do at all,” he said. “All we want to do is create something that will allow people who already use the Facebook page to find things a lot easier.”

Johri said they hope to expand the website by adding more features, such as one that would indicate whether an item has been sold. He also said they are looking to expand to other schools, and he is specifically working on reaching out to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Waterloo.

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