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Market Maker: What is it? How can we use it?

Sam Rose's picture
Sun, 09/28/2008 - 14:36 — Sam Rose

Hi friends,

I received lots of great feedback from many of you that I had a chance to speak with at the Stinner Summit recently.

 

Lots of projects and groups were interested in havign access to geographic mapping online.  It turns out that there is already a resource available that offers quite a bit of publicly-available data.

 

That tool is Ohio Market Maker

 

(also linked to under useful links above)

 

Lots of you did not know that it existed, and I think lots of us still don't know about everything that you can do with this resource. So this message is intended to be the kick-off to a full blown "how-to" resource that I will assemble that will outline:

 

  • What is market maker?
  • What can you do with it?
  • What are the types of data you can compare with market maker, and where do they come from?
  • What can market maker not yet do?
  • Is market maker usable in it's current form to solve problems that people here are trying to solve? What improvements could be made to it? 

If you have answers to the above questions, please leave a comment here, and I'l aggregate everything that we come up with into a page that OLFSC user can refer to about market maker. Hopefully this will help us get more use out of it, and help us better put the tool into the context of various problems people in our community are trying to solve.

Comments

Sun, 09/28/2008 - 15:16 — Steve Bosserman
Steve Bosserman's picture

Resources for Ohio MarketMaker Information

Thanks for offering to post more information about Ohio MarketMaker.  Julie Fox, who attended the Second Stinner Summit, and Julie Strawser are excellent resources to tap about Ohio MarketMaker.  An announcement about the launch of Ohio MarketMaker on the OSU Extension website last March is here.  An article posted in August on the national eXtension website, here, offers an introduction to both Julies and Ohio MarketMaker.  Perhaps they will assist you in addressing the thoughtful list of questions you presented in your post so that readers have a much better sense of what Ohio MarketMaker can do to advance local agriculture systems in Ohio and across the region.

Sun, 09/28/2008 - 15:19 — Sam Rose
Sam Rose's picture

Thanks Steve. Checking out

Thanks Steve. Checking out those links now.

 

I also want to commit to making some screencasts that show OLFSC folks how to use it, too.

Mon, 09/29/2008 - 09:44 — Julie Fox

Ohio MarketMaker

Its' fun to see interest growing in Ohio MarketMaker.  I work with a core group from OSU Extension/OARDC, ODA, Farm Bureau, CIFT and others on developing and promoting MarketMaker.  There has already been a tremendous amount of interest from individuals and groups from all over the state.  I'll do my best to answer the following  ...  It's 'still early' (MarketMaker was launched mid-March 2008) - I also encourage you to contact me if you want to discuss these and other ideas. fox.264@osu.edu

1. What is market maker?

MarketMaker is a national network of state web sites connecting farmers and processors with food retailers, consumers and other food industry contacts. Each state site allows users to register and manage their business listing, as well as query, map and locate data - for free. 

2. What can you do with it?

a).Users can register and manage their business listing. b) Users can query, map and locate data - contact information, demogrpahic information and more.  c) Users can post and respond to messages on the buy/sell forum.  d) Users can suggest useful links and features to be added to the site.   e) Users can share success stories.

3. What are the types of data you can compare with market maker, and where do they come from?

The data includes a) producers, wineries  and farmers' markets - this information is added by the user (we can assist with the listing if preferred), b) processors - such as meat - this information was entered based on state and federal lists. c) restaurants, grocery stores and other food buyers - this is purchased data which is included as part of our licensing agreement with the national network. d) demographic data - from the U.S. census.  e. All businesses in the food chain can add and improve their listing.  MarketMaker is intended to enhance existing directories and data sources.

3. What can market maker not yet do?

MarketMaker is currently being improved (but not yet released). One of the improvements is the ability for users to search by mile radius (current otpion is to search by state and county). We're exploring and developing a number of other improvements - thanks to input from the Ohio Food Policy Council, AMP, the national MarketMaker network (now 13 states) and other working groups. I will be attending the national network meeting the end of October and will have a more complete update then.

4. Is market maker usable in it's current form to solve problems that people here are trying to solve? What improvements could be made to it? 

MarketMaker is accessible on a no-fee basis to all Ohioans.  I am interested in hearing others' response to this question.  This resource can become even better with the involvement of individuals and organizations in the food industry. 

Mon, 09/29/2008 - 11:43 — Sam Rose
Sam Rose's picture

Julie, THANKS!   I'll be

Julie, THANKS!

 

I'll be sure to incorporate your replies into the resources that I am creating on market maker.

 

One of the things I am wondering on a technical level is: how is market maker made? Coud it be made better?

 

Right now, it looks like Market Maker is running on "Active Server Pages" (the ".asp" that you see at the end of the the URL on market Maker pages)

This means it is running on Microsoft IIs server, MS database, all of which are markedly slower than open source conterparts like PHP, Python, Ruby, Apache, nginx, Mysql, PostGIS, etc The great thing about the latter list of scripting languages, servers, and databses is that they are all free, which could substantially lower the cost of ongoing maintanence. Plus, they will be several times faster out of the box Compare the performance of http://www.openstreetmap.org/  using maps from many different sources or PostGIS and Open source MapServer  based http://restoration.gulfofmaine.org/projects/map/index.phtml?show_legend=y  Open source Adobe Flex can also give a better presentation for not too much investment  example http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/gallery/kudossalud  made with MapServer, PostGIS and Adobe Flex (all open source).

So, those are some possibilities if you ever decide to re-design the system. (probably could be done for less than the original system cost)

 

All of that being said, I have been experimenting with the existing MarketMaker and I think it is definitely usable for a great deal of what folks here are looking to do withdata on maps.

One possibility that could be interesting would be to make it possible to embed Market Maker maps on others site, with links in the map that lead back to Market Maker. This would let a user create a custom map on the Market Maker site, then bring that map into a conversation here or anywhere. This is currently possible with Google Maps, example:

 

 

 

 

 

 


View Larger Map

 

A similar funcationality could exist with market maker, even using existing codebase. This kind of remote embedding that leads back to your site could really increase the usage of the site, data, and toolkit.

 

These are just some ideas. 

 

Some of the very valuable things that I have found that could benefit OLFSC folks right now:

 

if you check out http://oh.marketmaker.uiuc.edu/search_type.aspx you can see that you can search via:

 

Markets:

  • Household type: married, marries with children < 18 yrs, non family households
  • Education
  • "Foreign born" (could be valuable for  speciality foods, a selection of global continental regions of origin is offered)
  • Race (again could be valuable for speciality foods folks)
  • Income
  • Income by Race

Or you can find by business (see http://oh.marketmaker.uiuc.edu/search_type.aspx find by business)

 

So, for those who are not used to using maps, demographics, etc to research for their business, I am going to make a template that a user could follow to get value out of Market Maker, and use it in a fictional scenario:

 

  1. What is the question I am trying to answer?  Maybe the question is "who else might be interested in pooling money with me to get a specialty piece of equipment to process grain?"
  2. Search http://oh.marketmaker.uiuc.edu/search_type.aspx choose "Find a business" "Producers/Farmers"
  3. I can fill on other attributes like "organic" etc as they apply to what I am looking for
  4. I can search statewide, county, city, or even multi state (I choose state wide. You can remove some of these attributes to broaden your search if no results are found)
  5. You end up with a page that looks like this image above (suggestion: would be conveneitn if there were a way to contact businesses via email, through a "contact" link, as we haev here on OLFSC)
  6. Click "Mapit" to see the map

This would at least give you data about where these other businesses are located in this example. You would still need to do some research to find either their email address or phoen number to contact them (although you could snail mail them, of course). also, you can Search here on OLFSC for business names, and contact them through this site

 

So this is one example. I am thinking ti could be demonstrative to give several examples for the different kinds of stakeholders we have here, based on questions that they are trying to answer about themselves, their markets, etc. But, then we also need to show what the existing options are for what you can do with what you find, how you can act on it to get value out of it. 

 

 

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