Mommybloggers get inside look at Kijiji

Early this week, Kijiji brought in a group of mommybloggers and personal organizing professionals for a summit at eBay headquarters in California. The bloggers tweeted heavily about the anticipation, the meeting, the party and the departure. It was, in the edited words of Joe Biden, a big goshdarned deal.

The most in-depth recounting of the trip I've found so far was from Tracey at Tree, Root and Twig.

Some info from Stacey... (Not 'Tracey' as originally reported -- thanks, @KijijiUS!)

Mommybloggers flown in for the conference:

• Selfish Mom – Amy Oztan (NYC)
• Little Tech Girl – Kris Cain (Chicago)
• Living as Mom – Tiffany Morrison Dockery (Atlanta)
• eBay Tech and Toy Director – Cat Schwartz (LA)
• SV Moms Group – Linsey Krolik (San Jose)
• Once a Month Mom – Tricia Callahan (Dayton, OH)
• Green and Clean Mom – Sommer Poquette (Petoskey,MI)
• Five Dollar Shake – Jennifer Padgett (Detroit, MI)

Facts they were given about Kijiji's mythical origins:

• Kijiji was created because eBay felt there was not a market adequately serving the online consumer needs of mothers.
• One of Kijiji’s top priorities is keeping their site safe and family-friendly. They have over 2,000 filter “rules” in place that help to detect spam, fraud, and adult content placed on the site. Employees also scour the site and data to make sure that nothing appears on the site that your children couldn’t see or read themselves.
• Kijiji’s value on user experience is also clear in how easy it is to sign up, post an ad, or export that ad to Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The moms were also given advice on SEO and how to make more money on their blogs. (Wish I knew -- this site has made about enough money to buy a stamp since the day it launched.)

Another momblogger, Sommer Poquette aka The Green And Clean Mom <trademark>, is now infatuated with Kijiji after being lovebombed by the staff. Her summary of what she learned:

• They have kick butt spam and fraud technology working behind the scenes to make Kijiji safer. They’re not like that guy name Craig that takes out personal ads! Keywords are blocked when creating a FREE listing and guess what the duplicates are deleted!
• The Kijiji is number one in Canada and I like Canada. Apple even had the iphone Kijiji application as number one and advertised it and if I had an iPhone I would want a U.S. application. 
• It is Free. So if you don’t want to sell on eBay and have listings fees or maybe work for a better value for your item and auction it – have a Kijiji garage sale! 
• Kijiji has different categories then that guy name Craig so if you’re wondering if Kijiji and Craig are twins I promise you there are some different characteristics and features – date them both and you’ll find out which one is better! 
• Five easy steps and up to 8 pictures and boom you have a listing and can share it on Facebook and Twitter with a click of a button.

I love how she calls it "The Kijiji". That's so cute!

I've been begging on Twitter to have the mommybloggers share with this blog a little more about their experiences. We'll see how that comes about. I'd love some thoughts from them about how *not* to suck on Kijiji.

Ladies?