Oodle announced today that it has been chosen to power Marketplace, an application for online classifieds on Facebook. Oodle was chosen because of its track record of innovation with online classifieds and will be developing an enhanced version of Marketplace scheduled for release in Q1 of 2009.

Facebook first introduced the Marketplace application in early May 2007 as a way for Facebook users to easily create, share and respond to listings across categories. Oodle will develop and power Facebook’s Marketplace application, which will be integrated into the site similar to other third-party applications. The fact that facebook has chosen an outside vendor to enhance marketplace shows them maturing as a company as they realize that sometimes it is better to partner with a company that has vertical/domain expertise. I think this is a smart move on Facebook’s part.

“Turning the development and management of Marketplace over to an innovator in online classifieds will give users more advanced ways to create and share listings on Facebook,” said Ethan Beard, director of business development at Facebook.

“In many cases, finding good homes for items we are no longer using is more important than selling them at the highest price,” said Craig Donato, CEO & founder of Oodle. You can read more on the Oodle blog.

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