As you can see with the embedded Flash widget above, eBay is now letting users embed information about any listing or group of listings directly into a website. Their hope is to encourage bloggers and social network users who discuss famous listings to embed the information right into the page. The service will be available at togo.ebay.com this morning.
There are three types of widgets. Example of all three can be seen on this test blog set up by eBay. The first, embedded above, shows information on a single listing. users can mouse over the seller to get additional information, or do a search with the results returned within the widget itself. Users can also clone the widget for their own site. There is no requirement that the person creating the widget be the seller of the item.
The second type of widget shows up to ten separate items. The pictures rotate in a slide show, and when a viewer clicks on one, it replaces the slideshow with information about that item in the same format as the first widget. The third type of widget shows picture results based on a search query. Like the second widget, clicking on any picture shows information about that listing.
These widgets are just for fun and to generate discussion around interesting auctions, not for revenue generation by publishers. Ebay provides affiliate tools at affiliates.ebay.com and the company says that they will evolve those tools separately over time to meet the requests of affiliates. See our recent post on AuctionAds (one of our current sponsors) for eBay listing widgets that pay out affiliate fees.
Robert Scoble interviewed the team and got a demo:
I’d hate to be in AuctionAd’s shoes right now…eBay may not compete with them today, but the next obvious step is to do what AuctionAds does and take the user from the widget to the auction page.
I think eBay is going to pull a Microsoft on them.
EBAY also joins WEB 2.0 race.
So now practically everyone can have an auction site on their own site… that’s nice.. does ebay pay the referring site if someone buys?
Great idea, kudos to eBay for doing this!
Alex
There’s very little new here — it’s been possible to embed eBay listings on your own web site for many years. The only difference with this announcement is Flash, but even that’s been possible for more than four years (I wrote one of the first Flash widgets that does this).
It does seem like a step in the right direction but I dont see the point of this being adopted by heavy users of ebay. Probably light users might need this to generate additional publicity but heavy users would still continue to use older tools.
Very cool. Since these are Flash-based web widgets, they can also go right in your OS X Dashboard or Vista Sidebar with Amnesty Generator. And we’ll be sure to add a specific Autofill routine for eBay in our next release.
Well thanks for the resounding endorsement, Jeffrey
. This is the first time that we (eBay) have published official widgets. It has been possible to do this for years, and in fact developers like Cooqy have done it before — nothing about that has changed, and in fact we have some great new services that we are working on that we will be showing off at our Developers Conference in June (shameless plug). Developers can make money using our web services – no special contract required. That is something we are really proud of. And trust me, if you are a developer you want to develop based off of web services that a company actually uses itself. Bugs get fixed faster, you are more certain that the web services won’t go away, and developers can always innovate faster and fill market needs faster than a big company can.
Now go embed some eBay Togo widgets!
Alan Lewis
eBay Project San Dimas
yeah AuctionAds is in a shitload of trouble –
– Who can do Ebay better than ebay? –
– They will go phase II test, then cut off several parts of the API AuctionAds uses.
– I give AuctionAds 3-5 months left before they gotta make something happen (get Ebay to buy them)
Great idea indeed. Definitely worth using. Hope this helps bing up their stock price
It will be interesting to see if myspace allows people to add this widget to thier pages. The recent battles they have had shows them stating a rule of not letting people sell something through their myspace page. Wonder if they follow through and ban this widget?
This is a great move by eBay, and new/different way to reach a whole new audience.
I like this idea. When someone is posting about something for sale it will be nice to see the widget embedded instead of having to go to ebay itself. An example of this is when a blog or website goes up for sale like Kiko or Businesslogs this can be embedded directly into that page or post to make things easier for users.
This should spawn a bunch of other ideas and marketing avenues to increase ebays reach. Its about time eBay is doing something creative on their own.
Good stuff, Mike. San Francisco-based vFlyer (www.vflyer.com) is already demonstrating leadership in that it is offering a broad range of customizable widgets that support both Flash and Javascript. One of the unique aspects of vFlyer’s Widgets it the extend of its customizability.
I am not sure how this competes with AuctionAds at all. I use AA on some of my sites in place of adsense where adsense was not performing at all. I don’t list my auctions, they list auctions from keywords I specify. I make money when someone clicks on the auctions and makes a bit or registers at ebay. These widgets seem to allow someone with auctions at ebay to list those auctions on their site, but I currently don’t see how you can use ebay’s affiliate program with the widgets. Am I missing something?
Great another widget crowding a blogs sidebar.
Imagine splogpers putting up ebay only splogs with a big box of a Togo widget and a big box of Adsense Ads.
On the other hand, nice looking widget.
well, it is a good idea but I can see a solid reason why i would want something like this on my blog? the other question is how would i benefit from it?
People don’t get it….why does TC have to cover Yahoo, Ebay, Google, MSN, Amazon and other major brands promtion?
I find it 100% SPAM site… What happen to old techcrunch?
This will be blocked by MySpace within 60 days
Love this idea! It would be great when Ebay can develop an affiliate program for publishers wanting to post these widgets on their own sites or blogs.
THis is an excellent Widget… cudos to eBay.
Does anyone know if you can embed this Flash Widget into Facebook?
The widgets are nothing more than ebay ads on your blog, social network, or website…..and you dont reveive any revenue from using them…ebay does…..so what is the win for using this ?
Fortunately I have the Flashblock extension installed, it takes care of the Flash crap on webpages.
MacShout, you bring up some great points. I’d love to hear someone respond to them.
This looks to me like eBay finally getting into an area that they should have gotten into a long time ago. It’s unclear to me whether it’s worth cheering or not. I hope there is more to their distributed commerce plans than this.
@william
I completely agree with you.
The win is for active, online sellers that want to maximize exposure to their lsitings.
These widgets allow online sellers to better promote their ebay listings all of the web in places such as their web-sites, blogs, and social networks. We at vFlyer initially created portable HTML that people were embedding in some of these places. However, we were able to provide a broader array of form factors (heights and widths) that fit better with other content. People also like these widgets beause they can create their content/listings in one place and have the widgets (wherever embedded) display their active listings. That saves a lot of time.
@RE: CORPORATE SPAM PROMOTION!!1
Firstly, please learn proper English grammar and spelling.
Secondly, if you’d visit the about page, TC is about profiling new internet companies AND products.
The eBay widget is definitely worth covering since it is an innovative use of widgets and shows that a big company like eBay can still innovate in the Web2.0 world (and doesn’t have to resort to acquiring little teeny weeny companies for simple functionality like this).
Imagine if every big company was as resourceful as eBay, then Web2.0 would basically implode on itself since it proves that the widget companies have no barrier to entry.
I’m still surprised why Yahoo! doesn’t release a Slide/RockYou widget since its entirely within their capabilities to do so. My only guess is that they’re too friendly with the VC community and don’t want to upset those guys at Sequoia or Kleiner. LOL.
Glad that ebay now have something we have for a year, Auction to Go! Except, MyBidList is 100% FREE and unlimited items listing. http://faqs.mybidlist.com
Using this widget requires the user to know a little bit about HTML editing etc. I wonder if any blog publishing website is going to do a little tighter integration.
Sweet!
This makes me want to go back to selling in ebay again.
this is interesting. i’m wondering what this will do for some of my ebay stores and my affiliate income.
http://www.cheapgreencar.com
@ Trevo (#27)
While I agree with you that TC is about new internet companies AND products and this most definitely belongs here. However, I would be careful about throwing around the word innovative. What eBay has done is cool and useful, but it isn’t new or revolutionary…-Metagg
@ #1 I don’t see how this affects auction ads negatively really. I would bet ebay is locked into a deal with commission junction and they can’t readily leave their agreement. Auction ads is just making commission junction easier to use for providing ebay ads (along with serving up the right ads).
That is a really cool embedded tool actually! We use a lot of these on our Web site here at ListAfterList.com
Check it out…
http://www.ListAfterList.com
and speaking of eBay – check this list out about Why you Can’t Sell Britney Spears’ Half Eaten sandwich on eBay
http://www.list...ll+on+eBay.aspx
@Metagg #32.
Well the same goes for 99% of the companies profiled on this site then. They take the innovation producted by 1% of the companies and mash, spin, hype them into new feature driven “products”.
spinback does the same type of thing, butyou can share spinback widgets and earn money when something sells…….
There is no affiliate commission associated with this widget – it’s just a whole load of free advertising for Ebay !
http://www.netmonetization.com
@Vic: #37.
There is no affiliate commission associated with 99% of the widgets out there either. But at least of all the widgets, eBay has a real business model. LOL
I will sell with eBay more
Great widget!!
eBay widgets are a great way to make a little extra income from your website.
They’re fun and simple to set-up.
Cindy
http://www.lear...boutwidgets.com
avea parça kontör
i think its great idea , well done!!
dizizevki,diziizle,canlidizi
thank you verry good
This looks to me like eBay finally getting into an area that they should have gotten into a long time ago. It’s unclear to me whether it’s worth cheering or not. I hope there is more to their distributed commerce plans than this.
beauty web has-been
So now practically everyone can have an auction site on their own site… that’s nice.. does ebay pay the referring site if someone buys?
tahnks