Matt’s Cuppa

What draws me to Kollecta is the genuine enthusiasm of Barney, Kollecta’s mastermind and chief ‘gatherer’, which is Kollecta jargon for a person who collects things. You know that your inner pack rat is welcome as soon as the page loads. And I’m certainly not the only one who has felt this way, judging by the 1.3 million items logged on the site.

It’s difficult to find where Barney ends and Kollecta begins, which is, I believe, a major reason for the site’s success. When asked about himself, he prefers his collections to do the talking. Among the items that Barney gathers are: “New Order, 808 State, Cabaret Voltaire, Durutti Column music, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Faye Kellerman, and Nick Hornby books, PS2 and PSP games, just about anything with a fish on it, some anime and superhero figurines, old coloured glass bottles, the occasional fountain pen, microscope, light emitting diodes, and live corals.” (How cool is that?! Live coral scores points for being quite possibly the most interesting thing I’ve ever heard anyone collect! Apparently, he keeps them in an aquarium in his basement, but I forgot to ask how big his collection was.)

I wanted to get a good feel for the kind of things other people were gathering on Kollecta, too, and I obviously didn’t have time to scroll through over a million items, so Barney filled me in on the Take Five feature. When you click on the Items tab, it pulls up five random items available to the community to peruse, edit, and so on. You can check out the items or refresh the page to see another five. You can also view newest or most wanted items.
After refreshing the page some dozen times or so, exploring various groups, and checking out items for sale, I was left with the impression that Kollecta is something like a flea market, something like a museum, a bit like grandma’s attic, and something like eBay’s alter ego. And not quite like any other online community out there.

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>>Briefly, what is Kollecta?

Well, I’d guess I’d call it an online collecting site for collectors and gatherers. That’s the simple description. Reading about our member
profiles will help to explain it more

>>What is your typical user like? Who is most likely to use Kollecta?

We have four typical users or profiles, I guess you could say. There are the serious, hardcore collectors of one specific thing, the people usually
associated with the term ‘collecting’. There are however also many people who ‘gather’ more than collect. They typically have a pile of CDs, books,
DVDs, maybe in specific genres, and supplement it with quirky collections like teapots, lighters, and such like.

Some users like to collect in themes … rather than target a specific type of item such as stamps, they collect any item type matching a
theme. For example, I have a friend who loves ‘frog’ things. Bathmats, cups, toys, anything with a frog on it - she wants it. Her house is full
of frogs and she is always on the lookout for more! Finally, Kollecta embraces small traders in specific collecting areas, who may have relevant things they want to sell to an appreciative audience.

As far as who is most likely to use Kollecta - everyone! Everyone has something they collect or gather, maybe without thinking of themselves as a collector. Many people use it to catalogue and showcase the things they love, while others use it to meet people who collect the same things as they do.

Some people are fascinated by the number and variety of the items on the site, and others focus on meticulously updating and checking
data on ‘their’ items. Someone even suggested using it to catalogue their valuable possessions, as insurance proof should their home ever
be destroyed!

>>Where did the idea for Kollecta come from? Is there a good story behind Kollecta?

A year and a bit ago, in a land far, far away… me and a friend both commented that the big auction sites, while they have a ton of users and items for sale, are very cold. It’s usually a very quick ‘buy it, sell it, next please’ kind of arrangement. Those sites don’t really care about the items, or the importance of the items’ data, or the passion of the people who like to collect certain things.

Collecting or even gathering things you like really has a warmth to it, which is what we’re trying to do with the site. The members are the
experts in their fields, so we wanted to let them update the data, add images of the items, and so on. Kollecta hands the ownership of the
data to its members. As an aside, if members want to trade things, they can, with people who share their enthusiasm and in a ‘quieter’
space than the eBays, and so on.

We also wanted to ensure Kollecta doesn’t discriminate either, which I think is very important. Whether you have a box of comics, Barbies,
coins, pens - it doesn’t matter. You can have a Smurf collection, a Metallica collection, and a china thimble collection. No problem. We
found that if you collect more than a few different things, it can quite quickly be a pain checking in at all of the sites relevant to each thing.
With Kollecta, we hope it will become members’ central hubs for ‘their things’. Sort of a My Space for your things, one of my friends
suggested. Cheeky!

>>If you could tell someone about only one Kollecta feature, what would it be?

Anyone can catalogue online anything and everything they love.

>>How do you imagine Kollecta being used to impact some of the major issues we face today such as climate change, poverty, or violence?

That’s a pretty interesting question. One idea I have with Kollecta is to somehow make it accessible to less affluent communities who could
showcase collectable things made in their region. It might become a new avenue for them to inform others about their economic plight,
their culture, and sell items they’ve produced. Not sure yet exactly how it will work, but I think there is merit in it for sure.

>>If Kollecta were able to contribute or work with a charity, is there a charity that you would choose?

I think it would be neat to somehow team up with a charity for the elderly. Many of the things we’re starting to see appear on Kollecta are from
times long gone. Google is great but you can’t beat learning about something from a real person! People from these eras can contribute so
much through their memories and knowledge of such things, and Kollecta in turn can help them to relive those memories.

>>What will we see from Kollecta in the future?

We have a list of upgrades longer than… a very long thing! We want to make it easier and quicker for members to build up collections, talk
to other members, and so on. We also have some fun stuff planned - maybe a game or two, a competition here, that sort of thing. We’re
always open to suggestions from members too. The site is constantly evolving, and a lot of the cool changes have been made as a result of
a member sticking their hand up and shouting “Oi! What about…”.

>>What is the best part about working with Kollecta?

Definitely the variety of members, and the variety of their interests. People collect the most amazing, beautiful things - and the pride in which
they present their things makes me feel pretty darn good to be doing what I do. p0sitive

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