Subscribe to RSS feed
           
 
eBay dives deeper into the social networking pool

Over on MicroPersuasion, Steve Rubel breaks down an Auctionbytes report of eBay's decision to Launch Blogs, Wikis and Search Tags.

The report outlines how eBay will be introducing eBay Blogs, an eBay Community Wiki and other social networking tools to give sellers additional ways to market themselves.

Steve thinks it is a good move:
eBay Blogs will enable sellers to more efficiently market their products.

Working off the Auctionbytes story, I dug a little deeper and found more details including a tag/search platform. The eBay Blog help pages here and the wiki information pages here.

So if an eBay seller uses tags like "Pez", "dispensers" and "collectibles" they can increase their visibility in search results. All blogs will also support RSS.

I would not be surprised to see the company take this a step further and build eBay into a giant social network that lets like-minded buyers and sellers find each other.
Not all are convinced. David Binkowski, for example, is sceptical of the idea:
The biggest gripe from Ebay sellers has nothing to do with their items not turning up in a search or the ability (or lack thereof) to blog -- it's the rising price of their fees.

Additionally, a lot of sellers are already spending time taking photos, creating listings, doing their homework on price points, etc. -- What makes Ebay think they'll want to cut more time out of their day to blog?
I wonder what big eBay retailers like US-based iSold it, Germany's dropshop and the UK's newly funded Auctioning4u think about this. Given their volume, can they contribute in a meaningful way to the conversation on eBay? Is there a way that they can facilitate the publishing of information from their own customers? If so, they'd become powerful sources of auction-based conversations, recommendations and commerce.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Saturday, June 03, 2006   permalink to archived copy   del.icio.us   DiggIt  

  Comments:

Auctioning4u welcomes the introduction of wikis and blogs to eBay. We support any way which makes eBay a richer experience for buyers and sellers. Publishing content will allow sellers to establish themselves as authorities in their field, reassuring buyers.

I disagree with David Binkowski that people will not want to spend more time on eBay. Those people who enjoy using eBay on a regular basis will jump at the chance to form stronger relationships within the eBay community and casual users will be able to benefit from increased information about eBay's plethoria or products.

Trevor Ginn, Head of Consulting, from auctioning4u
# posted by Anonymous Trevor Ginn : 5:31 PM, June 23, 2006  

I'd like to respectfully disagree with Mr. Ginn. Ebay has a system for determining who's who and who's trustworthy -- it's called feedback.

They also have features like Me Pages and Guides where sellers can establish themselves as "experts".

Finally, Ebay has problems with their current set up that should be fixed before introducing other potentially flawed options. I'm referring to their search function, which has been changed, some say experimented with, over the past month to display listings in different ways.

And by different, I don't mean better. I mean results that aren't showing sellers items. Not good. There are lengthly discussions of such problems on the Ebay forums/boards.

At any rate, a recent pitch for work led me to research specific brands on Ebay and the dissatisfaction of sellers with Ebay fees -- without mention of the lack of or newly introduced blogging feature.

Will the tagging items within blogs help with search results? Sure. But I challenge you to search for health information on blogs. 99% of them (and that's an estimate, don't hold me to it) are spam blogs for v1@gR@ or C1@L1S.
# posted by Blogger David Binkowski : 4:37 AM, July 05, 2006  

Ahhh.. But David I fear that you stray from the point. The reason that eBay is where it is today is because of it's community, and anything which it can do to strengthen this can only be good for the company. We have seen in recent weeks that eBay has been experience growing pains and anything it can do to make reinforce it's community is a no brainer. Looking at the explosion in the popularity of blogs and the success of Wikipedia, you can hardly blame them for jumping on the band wagon. Lastly, how are fees relevant to this issue?
# posted by Anonymous Trevor Ginn : 11:39 PM, August 19, 2006  

Post a Comment


 
Email: george (at) i-boy.com
Profiles: LinkedIn and Facebook
Subscribe:
Postcards by email


Powered by FeedBlitz
Rewind: In case
you missed it
Now showing on
crossprocess.com
Vienna: Old-school charm meets new-school photography.
Strong voices in
the blogosphere
Blogroll Me!
Parlez-vous Deutsch?
In Heavy Rotation

 
i-boy.com web





Previously


Archive
12/01/2001 - 01/01/2002
01/01/2002 - 02/01/2002
02/01/2002 - 03/01/2002
03/01/2002 - 04/01/2002
04/01/2002 - 05/01/2002
05/01/2002 - 06/01/2002
06/01/2002 - 07/01/2002
07/01/2002 - 08/01/2002
08/01/2002 - 09/01/2002
09/01/2002 - 10/01/2002
10/01/2002 - 11/01/2002
11/01/2002 - 12/01/2002
12/01/2002 - 01/01/2003
01/01/2003 - 02/01/2003
02/01/2003 - 03/01/2003
03/01/2003 - 04/01/2003
04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003
05/01/2003 - 06/01/2003
06/01/2003 - 07/01/2003
07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003
08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003
09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003
10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003
11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003
12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004
01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004
02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004
03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004
04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004
05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004
06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004
07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004
08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004
09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004
10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004
11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004
12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005
01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005
02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005
03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005
04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005
05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005
06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005
07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005
08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005
09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005
10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005
11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005
12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006
01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006
02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006
03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006
04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006
05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006
06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006
07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006
08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006
09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006
10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006
11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006
12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007
01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007
02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007
03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007
04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007
05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007
06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007
07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007
08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007
09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007
10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007
11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007
12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008
01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008
02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008
03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008
04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008
05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008
06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008
07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008
08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008
09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008
10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008
11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008
12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009
01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009
02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009
03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009
04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009
05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009
06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009
07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009
08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009
09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009


Author.ity
 
             
             
  © 2001-2007 George Nimeh & i-boy.com. All rights reserved. This site is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You may not use or distribute the materials on this site without the expressed consent of the author. Design by i-boy.com. Blog powered by Blogger. Atom enabled. Profiles: Technorati. LastFM. Common Content. LinkedIn. Newsvine. Ryze. Facebook.