Why would you buy a company like RapLeaf who have no community and no good infrastructure, when eBay can extend its own product outside the auction system? I don’t see any brand new idea at RapLeaf. It is an eBay ‘me too’ without a business case and any way to make money.

What’s so great about rapleaf? All those silly php functionality can be implemented by CS students at berkeley in a day or two. They are innovative how?

How do all these sites secure funding if they have no real business plan except to hopefully get aquired.

“How do all these sites secure funding if they have no real business plan except to hopefully get aquired.”

That’s the dot-com era problem showing up ALL OVER again. Thank goodness all these shitty web 2.0 companies are getting IPO’d.

That’s the dot-com era problem showing up ALL OVER again. Thank goodness all these shitty web 2.0 companies are getting IPO’d.

EDIT: Obviously I meant _NOT_ getting IPO’d.

Ebay wouldn’t want to extend their system to outside auctions/sellers, that would open it up more to competitors. Ebay has to be in crush/kill/destroy mode from now on in order to make sure noone else has a chance to compete with them on any level. Their value is their users, anything that draws users away is scary to them. They see Rapleaf as a potential threat, so they must destroy it. If Rapleaf was able to become popular within eBay, it would open eBay up to competitors. A lot of the sellers on eBay don’t even have auctions, they just sell at a fixed price. So they are basically competitors to every other website on the net selling the same stuff. If you can find it on Froogle or Craig’s list, or just some search engine (like Dumbfind! :), and they use Rapleaf, and Rapleaf becomes trusted, then eBay starts to lose part of their market. eBay lose market bad. eBay crush/kill/destroy good.

They might go IPO I dunno.

Why not use something like tinyurl to hide the RapLeaf feedbakc link, so that it makes it slightly more hassle for ebay to ban it?

If RapLeaf offered some kinda random url -> real feedback url mapping built in, then users would have no problem.

I think it is understandable, although inexcusable that eBay wants to remive these links.

eBay’s success has been not just in providing an online marketplace, but a marketplace in which people can trust each other.

Any weakening of this by other market entrants poses a risk to eBay. Don’t think that Louis Vuitton isn’t p*ssed off that there are bags that look like his flying around the globe that do just as good a job (and may even be better quality!!). He is threatened…and what do they do…try and close factories down and prevent the counterfeit goods being produced.

For those ready to launch at me, I am in NO WAY saying Rapleaf is a counterfeit operation AT ALL, but the analogy still rings true. The market leader in feedback systems (i.e. eBay) is being threatened by an equally good system and they don’t like it.

Rapleaf is a GREAT system and will become an essential component of any Web 2.0 retail company and should be supported around the blogoshpere if eBay decide to start pushing their weight around.

I think there is certainly a market for a 3rd party rating system. I am a avid eBay user and fan, but I think that the rating system is fundamently flawed. A lot of people get ripped off on eBay and DO NOT post negative feedback because they are worried that they too would get nailed with negative feedback. It’s happened to friends of mine and to me. I have a 60+ 100% positive feedback and I got ripped off once with pirated software, that instead of coming from the US, it came from Thailand and was complete fake crap. I sent complaints to eBay about pirated software and nothing was ever done. I didn’t give negative feedback out of fear of ruining my perfect score and I know lots of other friends who are in the same boat. So a perfect system, it certainly is not.

I agree that RapLeaf can be build from scratch for a week. I already asked Mike once why does he advertise such oneweekers as this is not doing any good to his blog, nor to Web 2.0 in general.

A friend of mine just built a reputation system like this for even less than a week - check out eCrater (http://www.ecrater.com). It was interesting to observe how initially most of the sellers were against the feedback system, but after some time they started to appreciate it when sales went up!

Regarding eBay and reputation systems outside of eBay - what about SquareTrade (http://www.squaretrade.com)? They’ve been providing seal and reputation services for years! SquareTrade is backing up my vision that one cannot build a credible reputation system without collecting fees or being in control of a marketplace. Providing ID verification and dispute resolution services simply cost money.

I’m not a big fan of eBay and I don’t buy/sell stuff there unless I don’t have a choice. My experience so far has been that when I provide negative feedback as a buyer, I get punished by the seller with negative feedback too. In other cases I receive positive feedback from sellers, trying to advertise for free on my profile.

Another problem with seller reputation systems is that sometimes sellers would get (most of the) negative feedback from competitors. I’ve done this many times myself. In other situations sellers get negative feedback from haters that haven’t had any business with that seller, doing it just for the sport.

As a member of BBB and I can tell you that their dispute resolution system involves real people on the BBB side and requires a proof from both the consumer and the business. I think this is the only credible type of feedback. Guy A giving credit to guy B is fine, but unless these two guys had some real business together, it’s almost useless information or least to me it is. Feedback should also be categorized as the feedback is towards different “qualities” and this does not apply only to businesses. For example, I can rate guy A 10/10 that he keep his promises, but rate him 2/10 that he’s never on time for meetings. For businesses, usually consumers are asked to rate customer service, shipping, etc. Having one overall rating could be a guesswork and lack analytics.

Just a note to say that I’ve posted an interview with Bill Washburn, Executive V-P for Business Development at Opinity, discussing eBay’s decision to ban postings linking to RapLeaf reputation profiles. (Note: RapLeaf is a partner of Opinity’s.)

We begin by talking about this development but move on to talk about the particular importance of reputation online and how eBay factors in.

You can find the podcast at http://blog.opinity.com/2006/0.....af_an.html.

Thanks.

Naturally this was expected. It’s expected in the same way I expect to get pulled over for speeding if I blow past a cop doing 20mph over the speed limit.

Speed limits are rarely enforced in my state. This is because they can’t afford to put a cop on every corner to watch for speeders. But you can be sure that if you are caught speeding, the law will be enforced on you.

Though it’s quite possible (and probable) that eBay is specifically targeting listings containing RapLeaf links, in the end having RapLeaf links in your listing is a clear violation of their (what I consider to be easy to understand) links policy.

As for the DigIt.com listing. I didn’t see any violation there — aside from the inconspicuous link to koove.com. I would compare that to going 5mph over the speed limit: Not worth a cop’s time (unless you’re driving through a college campus where the over eager campus police are looking for any excuse to nab you… and I can attest that there are eBay employees with this same attitude, but they have to catch you in the act first.)

@Tom (#16) “he is pretty loathe to do anything that is not basically his idea/his baby”. Maybe true, except Craig and Auren (Rapleaf founder) are buddies and have known each other since the first dotcom era…

i don’t think so