MachineBlogging: Post to eBay..

Micah Alpern, an interaction designer new to eBay and Silicon Valley, shared this idea at Saturday's Santa Clara Blogger Pizza dinner. Simple, really.

Post to eBay from your weblog.

Micah imagines using the blog author's UI to compose your basic data. Stick in your pictures, your descriptions, etc. There would be a few extra fields needed, elements like eBay ID, product metadata, offer types; three more minutes, tops.

When you post to your blog, you also publish to the eBay API. 

How about using one of your blogs to drive off-eBay traffic to your eBayed products? Good for you, good for eBay.

It takes a long time to add a new product using eBay's normal UI, as much as 40-50 minutes. Huge value in saving users time and simplifying the experience. More products posted more frequently by more people.  

So, that's from blogger to machine. How about eBay writing to the blogosphere? (This is me, not necessarily Micah.)

Are you one of the millions who spend hours every week with blogs, blog newsreaders, and blogging tools? Would you like it if eBay created private feeds for you?

New eBay categories

Confirming items you list for sale - notification

New items in categories you follow

Bids and bidder information for items you are selling

Lists of items you're selling through eBay (an eBayroll?)

lists of items you bid on

From eBay's view, this looks like:

• an auxilliary way to alert customers, sharpening the sense of immediacy and urgency around current transactions
• a 1-to-1 marketing tool to draw customers back
• putting more marketing tools in seller hands, the better to exploit the growing blogosphere

From a blogger's view, custom eBay feeds feel like:

• responsive customer service
• control
• alerts for trading behavior
• triggers for blogging behavior

eBay can do more to leverage the blogosphere, of course.

• Start with permalinks everywhere: every comment, bid, product, seller, buyer, category, etc.
• Eliminate financial friction. eBay charges to connect via XML and their API.  

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6:37:09 PM