I agree about the name. The German spelling isn’t going to be easy for non-Germans to say, spell, or google. Might be worth trademarking “flomarket” and “flowmarket”. Maybe localized instance names will solve this though.
Flohmarkt
Overview:
The alternative to Facebook marketplace that began in 2024. Currently only Europe is supported.
Profile:
Messager:
Fleabook might work
That's only the name of the software running the instance. Each instance would have a more accessible name, like carboot.uk, yardsale.us, etc. I currently tell people to go and sign up with feddit.uk or lemm.ee, not vaguely point them at Lemmy.
If anyone asked what 'flohmarkt" meant, you tell them "flea market" and, at least for English speakers, I expect them to go "oh yeah, I see it now" and go about their day, slightly the wiser.
I mean if I was presented with 579 instances in an attempt to join Lemmy I would be scared too. I want to be lead through the dark with one choice. I started off with Lemmy.world but when I saw those .ca lemmings I knew that was my home. I think that’s how most people pick a favourite. Though it is fun navigating the catalogue after you’re in the know. Did you know we had a Bulgarian instance called feddit.bg? I only found it through Lemmy explorer.
Flohmarkt is much simpler to pick through, you have 2 uk choices and 1 European one. But I would think an instance that’s well talked about talked about in the region would be the most successful. I remember using Mercado when I lived in Costa Rica that was our EBay hehe.
Flohmarkt is much simpler to pick through, you have 2 uk choices
Looking around there is a third:
As well as:
- https://flohmarkt.modern-industry.com/
- https://fleamarket.neilzone.co.uk/ - a personal instance
I have wondered about region specific instances running Flohmarkt alongside their main service. Ideally this would be smaller than countries but I suspect we'll need to go country wide to start off until we get the numbers up.