As promised John Dowd – the product manager for edgeio marketplaces – opened up the beta of the Classified Boards product to the public today.TechCrunch France has already used the platform to launch Crunchboard France.

The announcement is here; Dan Farber has covered it here, and Robert Scoble has an exclusive video walkthrough on the Scobleshow.

I really believe John’s product will help create a classifieds ecosystem for the Internet in the same way Adsense created an advertising ecosystem. Now, just like newspapers and magazines, any web site can earn revenue by putting up a classifieds board and taking paid listings (free boards are also supported).

Congrats to the entire team.

TechMeme conversation here