Call it micro-classifieds. Paul Rawlings, a developer in the UK, launched Tweebay on Christmas Day, a classifieds listings service for Twitter. You use your Twitter account to buy and sell stuff (perfect for those unwanted holiday gifts). Instead of entering your Twitter password, you simply follow Tweebay on Twitter, and you confirm your bids via direct message (Twitter’s private messaging channel). This method should be used more often to authenticate Twitter accounts, as it does not require people to give out their passwords.
The advantage of selling things on Twitter is that you can alert everyone following you on the service that you have something to sell. Whether or not people will be more willing to buy something from a Twitter friend than from an eBay stranger remains to be seen. But the idea of social classifieds is gaining steam. And there are already ways to sell stuff on Twitter (see iList).
Right now, there is no way to actually pay for items via Tweebay (options are on the way). It simply connects buyers and sellers, and they have to figure out payments (which is less than ideal). Perhaps Rawlings should look at integrating Twitpay, Tipjoy, or Paypal directly. Tweebay took a day to develop using Twitter’s APIs, and is just a side project of Rawlings’ company ScreenReach. If it picks up users, Rawlings says he will develop it further. (He might have to change the name, though—eBay might consider it a violation of its trademark).
Enjoy being sued by ebay, merry Christmas
ok??
Erick, you do see that they are in the line of fire of eBay’s intellectual property trademark lawyers right?
This app will have a different name within 6 weeks.
You don’t think eBay read TC faithfully? lol.
^Sorry Erick, you did see it.
Having seen how eBay will go after even the most unrelated of names for trademark infringement, this name won’t last more than a week or two.
Tweebay has now been re-branded to Tweba.
Check it out tweba.com and follow @tweba
How is it different from twitzu? which you can post all kinds of listings….http://www.twitzu.com
it’s focusing on a niche
twitter is advancing day by day and i see atleast one crunch related to twitter daily,how ever as days pass on they will introduce twitmail,twitbook and what not,everything with “TWIT” LOL
regards
aartha
samsung bluetooth headset for $3
@ http://tinyurl.com/9wcuwd
Tweebay probably isn’t any different from Twitzu, i never really had heard of them. I wrote Tweebay as a way to show how easy the Twitter API is to use and is testiment to an awesome service. I also wanted to make a listing very simple and straight forward. I also wanted to try and create a process where users wouldn’t have to login to an external site with their twitter password which i think Tweebay does quite nicely.
Have Fun
Paul
I think your authentication system using direct message is great, perhaps if this grows some legs you can setup a “pay per bid” system similar to Swoopo and make some coin too
Actually I’m not sure social classifieds are the best venue for reselling gifts, unless your friends totally won’t mind seeing that you didn’t want it. Interesting service though.
Poor execution, bad idea, nothing original, poorly programmed, dreadful design, trademark infringing, keep up the good work with finding all these next-gen web applications Techcrunch, you are doing an awesome job!
Agreed. TC hasn’t been a source of interesting startups in a long time. Pandering to the masses.
lolumad?
This Tweebay reminds me of what Jeremy Bornstein is up to with his Blovi8 service http://blovi8.com/ where you can post twitter like messages into a marketplace (or dating service, or whatever). Blovi8 is more like CraigsList + Twitter, which is a bigger marketplace, rather than just auctions here.
I really feel that this is a great idea, however, if you dont want to be sued by ebay I would suggest a name change immediately before your service grows…it will be easier to make the change now than later.
So why not just link to your eBay auctions?
Thanx for the feedback. When i set out to develop Tweebay i did it to show the awesome Twitter service which i use constantly and how easy it is it use.
Tweebay has bugs, see here: http://img401.i...picture2ie3.png disappointed
Hi Jay,
Sorry about that. I know it’s not perfect as it didn’t take that long to create. Was a show for the Twitter Auth methodology more than anytihng. Should be ok now. There is a Feedback form to feed any errors back. Thanks for looking at the service.
Paul
Hi Paul,
Let’s make history together
… I just setup an auction to sell the rights to my unborn child’s name to the highest bidder! So now TweeBay is right up there with eBay for crazy and wacky auctions as well.
Good luck with TweeBay!
(and yes, this is the same Jay Gould from the now defunct Bolt.com – get over it haha)
Too bad you can’t use it in the US (currency set to british pounds only)
Hi Adam,
Gonna put US and a few other currencies in a release tonight. I didn’t think it would be this popular or people would like it but it seems to be catching on. Any other features or ideas would love to hear.
Paul
couple of things spring to mind
geographically this is nightmare, twitter is worldwide and how do you plan to geo tag response’s updates and posts into the app. ebay name – hmmm expect a call late night by some guys in dark suits and oakley shades.
the name – ffs you didnt even get the name before you started the service man – whats the plan on this one?
not convinced it will work, given you have reliance on a web front end for creating the listing – would be better for ebay to fire out RSS based on key track requests from users.
hey ho – good luck. dt
You may as well start looking for a new name/domain for your company now, because eBay will be on you quickly then you know it. More likely within the next 2-3 weeks, you will probably receive something from eBay’s lawyers.
Twitter’s api looks like limitless. One day, a guy will build a combination site of all api sites and beat twitter. Maybe.
all the hate in these comments suggests that the poopoo heads are jealous that this guy is doing something really cool instead of simply sitting around whining…
does tweebay hav kinks? sure, so what, its brand new… there is something v cool there…
best luck paul!
Thankyou for the nice comment peralman. Tweebay was set out as a project to show how amazing Twitter is and how easy its API is to do something cool with. We know there are kinks in Tweebay, after all it didn’t take too long to write. I wanted to show that also you can create an add on service to twitter and not have to give out passwords, etc to have something that works.
I take feedback openly and hope people like using Tweebay. I only hope Tweebay can show that such services aligned with twitter are possible and can provide benefit.
Paul
Paul do yourself a favor and rebrand this, by naming it something different. Ebay is extremely protective of anything containing it’s name in a domain, and will pursue this guaranteed. Look up the case of PerfumeBay.com for a reference.
Of course you can ignore this, but it’s ignoring the inevitable…
I think it is very good advice and will definately be something to look at. I didn’t envisage it being popular to be honest, was a simple project that people seem to like.
Change the name and you will have a solid site! It would be ashame to see this grow, just to have to change the name. I don’t necessarily agree with eBay’s approach and aggressiveness with domains containing their name. It’s just a fact that should this become very popular, you will be on their radar and be ordered to stop using the domain.
keep the name. Wait for the threatening letters. Let them send 2 or 3 of them. You’ll just keep getting more coverage on TC. Then change it and you’ll get the third article of coverage on TC. In total expect 3 articles from TC for about 2 hours of development work…. Priceless!
Thankyou for the advice, i really do appreciate it all.
Paul
Nice work, Paul.
This is the sort of rapid-development that has true commercial potential, and definite scale.
We own and are in development of handful of revenue-making web sites in the social media and ecommerce arenas.
If you’d like to develop this out further, please connect and let me know. With a little tweaking I believe you have a shot at a decent business play.
Best to you,
Mark Alan Effinger
http://www.ExitPath.com
For this to work well they have to close the loop.
When members see items they want to purchase they need to have the ability to do it.
Users should also have the ability to know when their friends are selling items; and they should also have the ability to resell their friends items.
adelph.us has this now because we thought about ways that we could help our members make and save money before we began to build our application.
I give it the until end of the week and ebay has a C&D sitting in this guys in-box.
personally, I don’t like names that REMIND me of ebay!LOL! If you want all their “auction” business, create a name that focuses more on Twitter, than on ebay, such as “twitter bay” or just plain ‘ol ” The Twitter Auction Cage”
It will be more refreshing to the old ebay users who have a bad taste in their mouths by the ebay “treatment” team!
I agree with Josh, wait until eBay sends the cease and desist letters and get more publicity out of the current name.
It looks like Paul has shuttered the original TweeBay.com service. I’ve sent him a tweet and email to see if there’s any rescue attempt.
In other news, http://micro.ilist.com appears to be taking this spot. Pretty well done (not too dissimilar to TweeBay).
Paul is still hard at it. His LinkedIn shows ScreenReach and 2 other projects still happening: http://www.link.../in/screenreach
Tweebay has now been re-branded to Tweba.
Check it out tweba.com and follow @tweba
Thanks
Rob
Thanx for the feedback. When i set out to develop Tweebay i did it to show the awesome Twitter service which i use constantly and how easy it is it use.
Looks like Tweebay shut down. Check out http://taweet.com – A good idea would be to schedule all of your eBay auctions on Taweet to cross-promote them back to Twitter.