Facebook users once again find themselves struggling to navigate an unfamiliar layout after a recent update tweaked the popular social networking site. It’s a recurring cycle: an update is released, then panic ensues. In reality though, that’s just the way technology progresses. Starting with a clunky prototype, an idea is developed, features are consolidated and wasted space is eliminated, leaving the next generation sleeker and more efficient than the last.

Looking at emerging technology this way, it almost seems like Zaarly was inevitable.

Described by Joe Scannell, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences and Zaarly’s campus marketing representative, Zaarly is a “hyper local proximity-based buyer powered market.”

“What that means,” Scannell said, “is it’s basically an upside-down Craigslist.”

Accessible online or with a mobile phone app, Zaarly welcomes users with a map—marked with numerous Zaarly icons at different locations—indicating other users who are requesting some kind of good, service or experience.

On Marquette’s campus, for instance, someone in Carpenter Tower will say they are looking for a bag of Jolly Ranchers and are willing to shell out seven bucks for it. Someone located at 16th Street and Wisconsin Avenue is paying ten dollars for beat boxing lessons.

Scannell sums it up by asking users: “What do you want and how can we fulfill it?”

Zaarly’s college program, ZaarlyU came to Marquette back in July. Since then, it has been one of the most active campuses in the country, with the highest number of registered users, Facebook fans and Twitter followers. This is exactly the campus response Marquette alum and Zaarly co-founder Eric Koester was hoping for.

“(It’s) pretty damn exciting to see. We’ve already seen thousands of dollars of transactions just on Marquette’s campus,” said Koester, who graduated from the College of Business Administration in 1999.

After pitching the initial idea with his co-founders at a start-up weekend in Los Angeles, Zaarly got its big break with an investment from Ashton Kutcher, and it’s been growing since.

With Zaarly on campus, Koester keeps close ties with the school he says shaped who he is today.

“I was student government president while I was at Marquette,” Koester said. “And being a senior in college in charge of an organization with a half million-dollar budget working with hundreds of other students, that—more than any specific college class or experience—taught me how to run something, how to motivate and build a great team that can be successful.”

Zaarly, hometown roots and all, is a perfect example of technological evolution. Koester describes taking the best things about Craigslist and eBay, then using those features to create something totally new. That’s progress.

Even with innovation, Zaarly still manages to keep in mind its most important element.

“It’s about people,” Koester said.

Brendan Takash, a junior in the College of Communication and Zaarly intern, said Zaarly not only helps people get what they want, but it also encourages social connections, something that may explain its popularity at Marquette. Zaarly allows users to help each other out when he or she needs something.

“And isn’t that what Marquette’s all about?” Takash asked. “In a way, Zaarly is Marquette.”