A Walkthrough of the New Matchmaker
- By Thomas McKinney
The main Matchmaker page
In moving to our new site, we are pleased to announce that we are now offering a version of Matchmaker for every Americana Exchange member, free or paid no matter the level of subscription. It is a service which allows you to submit your wants or interests, based off either keywords or specific titles, authors and dates, and then on a daily basis your wants are checked against listing sites with new matches reported to you.
Octavo level members who have been paying for Matchmaker now continue with the same service — that is, matching against 3rd party listing sites like ABE, eBay and ILAB. Paid research and free members now have access to what we call Matchmaker Lite. It provides the same functionality for submitting wants and interests, but rather than matching against all Matchmaker listing sites, the Lite version matches against AE sources only: Books for Sale and Upcoming Auctions.
Like the rest of the website, Matchmaker has undergone an aesthetic change in moving to our new software.
There are two main pages associated with Matchmaker. There’s the Matchmaker page, accessible from the menubar on every page of the site. This is the place for editing your wants, and turning on and off specific listing sites. This should be the first page you visit if you’re interested in Matchmaker. The other page Matchmaker is associated with is your general My Account page. For daily users who are checking their matches, this is where to do it most conveniently.
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A Walkthrough of the New Matchmaker
- By Thomas McKinney
Note the individual buttons for editing wants
Another common appearance on the new site is the section for Quick Links. They always appear on the right side of the page, directly below the Universal Search’s Advanced Search toggle button. This is a good place to check for important links no matter what service of AE you’re using.
In Matchmaker’s Quick Links, we have links for:
1. Matchmaker. This takes you back to the main Matchmaker page.
2. Keywords & Phrases. Click this to view, add, edit and delete wants based off keywords and phrases.
3. Authors, Titles & Dates. Click this to view, add, edit and delete wants based off authors, titles and dates.
4. Matchmaker Preferences. Click this to set your advanced Matchmaker preferences including the length of time a match should be held, which fields to match, and whether or not you receive a notification email.
On the main Matchmaker page, the listing sites’ On and Off buttons are now permanently displayed there. Do remember to hit the Save button after making changes to which Sources are being matched against!
Below the On/Off buttons are two tables for Matchmaker Matches: Keyword Matches are on the left and Title Matches on the right. These function just like the ones on the old site: click the name of a listing site to view those specific matches; individual items open in their own pop-up windows.
Once you’ve gotten your wants setup on Matchmaker, the majority of the time viewing results can be spent directly in your my Account page. Rather than going to the main Matchmaker page and scrolling down to view your matches at the bottom of the page, My Account, which is accessible from the top right corner of every page, can also help. The tables you’ll find in My Account are identical to those on the Matchmaker page, and they function identically as well.
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