- First, if people wanted more in depth discussion - wouldn't the product descriptions and the buyer/seller feedback be less mass produced than they are now? "Great customer! Would sell to again for sure!" over and over again. What percentage of the auction pages are mass produced by huge eBay store owners?
- Given that this will be a pure commercial space it seems like the promised land for comment spammers. Will eBay be able to fight spam in a way that doesn't shut down discussion but works for users?
- Not sure that these mediums are the best suited for this context. It seems like kind of an awkward application of two very hip, exciting tools.
- Tag support makes sense if implemented in conjunction with pre-selected categories and full text search. Given the nature of this particular market, though, I wonder if this will be the space where we really see tag spam emerge in a big way for the first time.
- Internationalization of discourse will be an interesting mess to watch, I'm guessing. Most businesses large enough to do a lot of international business mitigate language and cultural differences by hiring specialists to help with these issues. Micro-businesses will not have these resources and I'll be curious to see how many miscommunications, previously silent prejudices and other communication issues emerge.
- Business blogging often helps build relationships between companies and their customers. How much loyalty do you feel to any particular eBay store? I'm guessing not very much. Thumbs up, thumbs down on reputation may be enough reputation/communication system for the vast majority of eBay users.
eBay to include blogs, wikis - will people use them?
Steve Rubel discovers coverage and then goes in depth on eBay plans to incorporate blogs and wikis in their service offerings. It looks like an impressive implementation, but I have a few questions about it.
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. What is puzzling is why there isn't more of a "profile page" on eBay so people could put up details and contact information about themselves. I guess eBay is trying to avoid people bypassing the transaction, but I figure they're passed that now. If they're going to introduce community functions, I'd be doing profile pages, testimonials and revamping the messaging system before doing blogs and wikis. BTW. I think something like 60-70% of all eBay postings are via the API.
The one thing I really want them to do is to go into competition with AdSense where the Ads are a paid extra on the listing fees. That's where a tie up with Yahoo! to make use of Overture's context advertising engine would really make sense.
Posted at 3:36AM on Jun 3rd 2006 by Julian Bond
1. Good points on the tag spam, etc. Add the fact that storekeepers will likely becomme the least objective bloggers in the 'sphere, and the world may have to squint a bit to find the value here.
It's a start though. eBay might be stirring.
Posted at 12:19AM on Jun 3rd 2006 by Aaron