Online marketplace Bonanzle is using a game to gather metadata that will help with its merchandising efforts. The information will help power features such as personalized recommendations for items that a user might want, or with selecting which items may be good targets to merchandise in category pages.

The premise of the Merch Match Game is to "get together with some friends" and pick the items that best match the category given. Current categories include Best Picture, Most Bizarre, Funniest, Next item to sell, Best gift for (various people), and others.

Bonanzle said it now has over 3.5 million listings. Its efforts at Item tagging proved only nominally useful, it said, "as many users ended up mis-tagging items either out of confusion or a desire to see certain items get more exposure on the site."