eBay just launched more than 600 micro-social networks on its site called eBay Neighborhoods. Each one is organized around a different product, like coffee, iPhones, Eames furniture, Seinfeld memorabilia, or Ford Mustangs. Content from across eBay—including eBay blogs, guides, reviews, and product search—is pulled into each eBay neighborhood and packaged into widget-like modules. Members can join whatever neighborhoods they like, and add to discussion boards there, post photos, invite friends, and meet other people who share the same consumer obsessions.
Visually, the neighborhood pages are an improvement from the bare-bones utility I normally associate with eBay. The product search, for instance, is a rectangular grid of thumbnail images that enlarge when scrolled over, and reveal product and price information without requiring a click-through to another page.
Each neighborhood acts as a socially-mediated shopping guide that drills down into a very specific product category. eBay members can join as many neighborhoods as they like or even suggest new ones. It’s a smart way to surface content created by eBay shoppers (because I’m not sure how many people are reading those eBay blogs).
After its recent Skype blowup, it’s good to see eBay focusing on what it knows best: shopping.
Still, what these neighborhoods are lacking is access to the outside world. What would really be smart would be if eBay allowed anyone to easily take any module on a neighborhood page—the reviews, the visual product search, the discussions, or the eBay blog posts—and embed them on other Web pages like Facebook, MySpace, or their blogs. People who are really into modern furniture might put that particular product-search module on their blog, for instance, just because it surfaces cool-looking Eames chairs and retro clocks available on eBay Making such widgets available would help draw more traffic into these shopping neighborhoods. And if eBay tied them into its affiliate-fee program that pays for each referral that results in a sale, you’d have these widgets all over the place.
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What a great move. This is up there with the adwords move.
Men, shopping together …..
I don’t go there.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
This really is a great move on so many fronts…I have to agree with Erick though, would be great to see some widgets come out of this. Then people could identify themselves across the web as being part of a product driven community. Finding and recruiting others along the way will be a tremendous benefit for eBay. Not only that but think about the brand metrics eBay can collect — similar to HotorNot’s foray into brand-centric social networking, eBay can now collect a multitude of data on shoppers preferences, a brand’s penetration within a certain demographic, etc.
Brilliant!
sure great idea…share the “deal” you find…with people who are the most interested in that deal.
If anything, it’s taken them too long to launch something like this, but I have to agree it looks completely non-eBay-like, in other words, nice
Seems like everybody is into social networking these days
looks only so and so, at best…
but since it’s ebay doing it - so and so means alot - to say the least
Great move by eBay. I still wish i could insert my social graph in a neighborhood, but it’s still a nice new addition to the site.
At first “before I saw it, I thought wow… that’s Lame” but after seeing it, I’m very impressed. This will be a nice way for people to dive deeper into the vertical. Example: I just bought an older turbo Porsche, there is a passionate community around these cars, and this might be a way to ask questions and get feedback beyond the normal auction experience. I’m sure this will be a home run for eBay and congratulations to the team responsible.
wow, i actually know that guy in the picture. i was his RA in college!
The world seems to be going “ga-ga” over social networks…but my personal feeling is that very soon the customers are going to demand a little more than “just networks”, I think “legal content + networking” is a potent combination…
Scribd seems to be doing something on those lines, however i am not too sure how they are taking care of the copyright issues… any idea what scribd’s revenue model could be????
An Inconvenient Truth arrives on DVD November 21, 2006 from Paramount Home Entertainment Participant Productions chairman and CEO Jeff Skoll who used to be with eBay says, “Equally important has been the incredible response to the film’s social action campaign, which has inspired people across the country to take individual action and make a difference in their own communities. It was a privilege working with Mr. Gore. He is a man of integrity unlike Georgie Porgie who I can say with liberal freedom is a conservative idiot.
” I am an emotionally retarded nutter. I have been really lucky in life. I have had it easy. I knew early on that I did not want to work hard. My dad got cancer as a result of too much hard work. Therefore ever since I was 14 I decided to take it easy. That is why I hooked up with Pierre a few years later. I worked for three days each week at eBay for three years. In the first year I worked for six hours each day. In
the second year I worked for five hours on the days I bothered to show up. In the third year i worked for four hours for three days each week. The result was that I was able to cash out with two billion.
“I pity the poor suckers in the old economy who sweat under a suit and tie trying to eke out a living. They are trapped inside four walls with such restrictions you would not believe. No chat during office hours. Chat only on personal time. Only 50k each month. Only eight weeks of paid vacation time. That is really lousy. They have to work the whole day. I sleep for three hours in the afternoon and feel that it is hard work. What attracted me to eBay was that the billions would pour in without hard work. The application had all the sex appeal of a college term paper.
“I am the first stupid man to become a billionaire because of idiots. I absolutely love stupid eBayers. There are lots of idiots who drive the price of items up to ridiculous levels. It is because of them that I got two billion. eBay is seen by many as a game. Idiots come along and up a bid until they’re actually paying more for the item than if they went to a store and bought it. I totally get it.
“EBay’s customers are either stupid like me and my dad or so wealthy like me that they don’t bother to do even a rudimentary price check.However sometimes it is a scam by people to drive up bids on their own auctions. I can see how people would just do that to get the victory to inflate their self-esteem bubble like me and Pierre. Either that or they don’t want to put in time or effort to be CAGs like me and Pierre.
“One of the cool things about eBay is that people don’t list their shipping fees up front and stick you with it at the end. One idiot paid $14 to have an mp3 player shipped to him. The guy even sent it to the wrong address. One way to skim people off their hard earned money is to price items so that the cost plus shipping is double that of the retail price. That way you do not have to work hard for money like suckers in the old economy..There are scammers like me and Pierre and then there are idiots. The scammers are those who create a new, clean, account with zero rating and bid to send the price up.
“Then you have the general nutcase. Once a cunt bought software, then when she had problems she sent an email demanding someone respond in 10 minutes even after she had been given links to the refund policy at least twice, once after she purchased on the confirmation screen, and again in the confirmation email plus it was available before she purchased for her to read at anytime. That is the thing about eBay clients. A lot of them are not normal human beings. I thank God for that.
” I am a huge cinephile. I watch four films a week. The films that I now co-produce are not expensive. People who are the opposite of me make them. They are passionate about what their work. For me job satisfaction is a bad word like motherf…”.
I can’t help but think alll of the comments posted here are by eBay employees. Great move? Seriously? I’m laughing here. What a joke.
@9…or you can go to a porsche forum, and talk to thousands of actual enthusiasts, and read years of postings, FAQs, walk throughs etc.
I’ve asked SO many ebay employees why they weren’t developing useful social tools that had any relevance to shopping.
and FINALLY, eBay has done something about it.
** applauds **
It’s a clever move, the iPhone neighbourhood for example would increase the competition for complimentary products to items like bluetooth headsets etc. Being able to discuss the best products would of course lead people to buying the said device. More Sales + More Listings = Profit!
The blogs that are associated with some neighbourhoods are full of spam and it doesn’t look like there is a UK version:
http://neighborhoods.ebay.co.uk/ (Not Found)
We had to see this coming…
Amazon is doing something like this too — tags, discussion boards, wikis, sharing etc, in addition to their normal reviews. It seems everybody is trying to follow everybody else and soon every site on the Web will be a carbon copy of every other site.
I believe web 2.0 is getting matured or near to maturity and the crowd can enjoy the features. Great move by ebay at the right time.
http://blogkatt.blogspot.com
I don’t get the neighborhood in this!? It’s more like common interests between user, and helps eBay to drive User Generated Content and expands the scope of it’s shopping portal activities, right?
But this is a good opportunity to introduce StoreXperience:
StoreXperience simplifies the whole shopping experience. We help you find and purchase what you are looking for. By combining the best of two traditionally separate worlds, StoreXperience delivers the power of the Internet with the satisfaction of traditional shopping. This means rich information accessible from your mobile when and where you need it most - when you are in the store.
What makes StoreXperience special is that it works with brands and stores to offer you a deal you can’t refuse while you are at the shopping center. You not only leave the store with your purchase, but you know you got a good price. You get immediate gratification and know you can always return to the store for further assistance.
Our vision is to leverage new technologies, including mobile phones, to develop a sense of local community in the area of shopping, and build tailored relationships between consumers and local stores and malls. Our goal is to transform in-store shopping into a rewarding new experience by helping consumers find and buy the right products, at the right price, with the right level of service in their preferred stores or neighborhoods (this time, real neighborhoods ;)).
By combining the power of the Internet with the satisfaction of traditional shopping, we foster the local economy, enhance the relationship between consumers and retail stores, and avoid unnecessary product shipping. StoreXperience gives the consumer compelling reasons to shop at the local stores.
StoreXperience helps you purchase products that match personal interests and preferences while providing strong financial incentives. With StoreXperience in the palm of your hand while you shop, you are able to answer three simple questions: does this item meet my needs ? What are my other options ? What is a fair deal ? Enjoy a new shopping experience that delivers the power of the Internet in the palm of your hand.
So.. visit http://www.storexperience.com and give us your feedback!
nice spam PH, well done… Come on folks, stay on point.
They beat us to it, great news! Did you all know that Amazon already has some social networking features. It’s not about social networking to shop together, by the way, women do that, and expect us men to as well! We are launching these store blogs for Jewelry and Clothing, @ http://www.MyTypes.com
Shopping is a social activity, what’s taking them so long, is my point! As someone said a few months ago, blogging is driving internet content, and blogs are at the center of social networks. Go Social shopping!
I’m skeptical. As Matt pointed out, many neighborhoods are going to get overrun by sellers “marketing” their products, dissing the competition, and generally filling the neighborhood with noise.
The ebay message boards have always been mostly useless — newbies posting the same questions and complaints over and over, along with amateurish marketing, and on-topic conversations that last maybe 3 or 4 posts per thread. Ebay “blogs” and “guides” aren’t any better: A guy who sells phone accessories on ebay for a living wrote a consumer guide to phone accessories — Wow, why wouldn’t I trust that? Jeez.
Unless ebay has some secret recipe for elevating the quality of conversation, I don’t see neighborhoods accomplishing much. Right now, the discussion topics in some of those neighborhoods are so lame (”What’s your favorite Seinfeld quote?” “Love My iPhone!”) that they look planted.
(Keep in mind, I am a fairly regular ebay user, looking for things I collect, and I even participate in collector webforums, but not on ebay, because the signal:noise ratio on ebay is too low.)
Fair points in #23. I agree, there is a lot of redundancy on the discussion boards these days. In my opinion though, eBay Blogs are gaining traction. A couple of my posts have been picked up by journalists, which proves they are getting read by an audience. But in blogs too, there is plenty of noise in the pack. eBay Groups are all but dead as well since they were updated a few months back to their new look which was rejected by the fair majority- over time, Neighborhoods will most likely put them out of commision for good.
> I can’t help but think alll of the comments posted here are by eBay employees. Great move? Seriously? I’m laughing here. What a joke.
I’m pretty sure no one who posted so far is an eBay employee - of course now by posting I’ve broken that streak. Damn.
Alan Lewis
Product Manager, eBay Desktop
There are already several social shopping sites out there so why not add 600 more! Only time will tell if these Neighborhoods evolve into more than just a bunch of sellers hawking their wares.
Visit http://www.newlifeauctions.com to learn how to start an eBay business.
this is such a wonderful idea from ebay.
Our white-labeled social networking product is named WebCrossing Neighbors…….HMM