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A big problem with the concept in my opinion is that there doesn't seem to be a mechanism to allow people who find things to be matched with those who lost something.
It would be cool if, when posting an ad, you are notified of possible matches in the opposite category.
For example, if I found a handbag, when creating the ad I will tag it with "brown", "handbag", "louis vuitton".
If the owner of the bag is creating an ad, they could be notified of any existing matches in the Found database as they enter those tags. If I first type "handbag", it could say "10 matches for handbag", then when I type "brown", it could say "2 matches for brown handbag", then add "Louis Vuitton", it could say "1 match for brown Louis Vuitton handbag".
The owner will then see that their bag has already been found and can directly contact the person who found it, rather than finishing the ad and maybe or maybe not finding the Finders original ad.
A big problem with the concept in my opinion is that there doesn't seem to be a mechanism to allow people who find things to be matched with those who lost something.
It would be cool if, when posting an ad, you are notified of possible matches in the opposite category.
For example, if I found a handbag, when creating the ad I will tag it with "brown", "handbag", "louis vuitton".
If the owner of the bag is creating an ad, they could be notified of any existing matches in the Found database as they enter those tags. If I first type "handbag", it could say "10 matches for handbag", then when I type "brown", it could say "2 matches for brown handbag", then add "Louis Vuitton", it could say "1 match for brown Louis Vuitton handbag".
The owner will then see that their bag has already been found and can directly contact the person who found it, rather than finishing the ad and maybe or maybe not finding the Finders original ad.
This is kind of the case already. When a user posts an ad they can opt in to receive email alerts if a matching item is posted at a later date.
An algorithm analyses each new post and determines a match based on a number of different parameters, for example location (to a radius of 20 miles), the category of item and some keyword matching.
If a match is found and the user opted in for email alerts then they will receive an email notifying them of the match seconds later.
