Social Blogging

Filed under: search engines, social networking, reputation

Jookster mashes up web archiving, social networking, and ranked searching to provide a new service that I think has some interesting things going with it. After signing up for a Jookster profile and installing the Firefox tool-bar, users have access to personalized searches and instant web archiving. Clicking on the Jook This button in the tool-bar instantly archives a copy of the page you are visiting and indexes it for search. You can go back at your convenience and search through all the pages you have jooked. The cool thing about Jookster however is not the fact that it can archive and index content, Yahoo MyWeb 2.0 has been doing this for ages. The cool aspect of Jookster is the social aspect. Adding buddies with similar interests expands your search results to include things jooked by them, and their buddies, and their buddies buddies, etc. You can specify how many degrees of separation you want to search. The search results are ranked by how many degrees the person who jooked a page is away from you. This feature brings in a concept that has been much talked about at the Supernova conference this week; the fact that outside of the web, we use trusted contacts so look for information, and judge the quality information based on the what you think of your friends. Jookster brings this idea to the web, and I think it could be the start of something big. Imaging searching for information on the ecosystem of the amazon rain forest and being able to see that a biologist you know had jooked a result; wouldn't that immediately reassure you that the information there would be good stuff?

I think Jookster is a great idea, and even if it turns out that it is one of the many startups that will go belly up in this boom, I'm confident that the underlying ideas it embraces will be something that we are using for years to come.

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Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: search engines, social networking, reputation

Jookster mashes up web archiving, social networking, and ranked searching to provide a new service that I think has some interesting things going with it. After signing up for a Jookster profile and installing the Firefox tool-bar, users have access to personalized searches and instant web archiving. Clicking on the Jook This button in the tool-bar instantly archives a copy of the page you are visiting and indexes it for search. You can go back at your convenience and search through all the pages you have jooked. The cool thing about Jookster however is not the fact that it can archive and index content, Yahoo MyWeb 2.0 has been doing this for ages. The cool aspect of Jookster is the social aspect. Adding buddies with similar interests expands your search results to include things jooked by them, and their buddies, and their buddies buddies, etc. You can specify how many degrees of separation you want to search. The search results are ranked by how many degrees the person who jooked a page is away from you. This feature brings in a concept that has been much talked about at the Supernova conference this week; the fact that outside of the web, we use trusted contacts so look for information, and judge the quality information based on the what you think of your friends. Jookster brings this idea to the web, and I think it could be the start of something big. Imaging searching for information on the ecosystem of the amazon rain forest and being able to see that a biologist you know had jooked a result; wouldn't that immediately reassure you that the information there would be good stuff?

I think Jookster is a great idea, and even if it turns out that it is one of the many startups that will go belly up in this boom, I'm confident that the underlying ideas it embraces will be something that we are using for years to come.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: search engines, social networking, reputation

Jookster mashes up web archiving, social networking, and ranked searching to provide a new service that I think has some interesting things going with it. After signing up for a Jookster profile and installing the Firefox tool-bar, users have access to personalized searches and instant web archiving. Clicking on the Jook This button in the tool-bar instantly archives a copy of the page you are visiting and indexes it for search. You can go back at your convenience and search through all the pages you have jooked. The cool thing about Jookster however is not the fact that it can archive and index content, Yahoo MyWeb 2.0 has been doing this for ages. The cool aspect of Jookster is the social aspect. Adding buddies with similar interests expands your search results to include things jooked by them, and their buddies, and their buddies buddies, etc. You can specify how many degrees of separation you want to search. The search results are ranked by how many degrees the person who jooked a page is away from you. This feature brings in a concept that has been much talked about at the Supernova conference this week; the fact that outside of the web, we use trusted contacts so look for information, and judge the quality information based on the what you think of your friends. Jookster brings this idea to the web, and I think it could be the start of something big. Imaging searching for information on the ecosystem of the amazon rain forest and being able to see that a biologist you know had jooked a result; wouldn't that immediately reassure you that the information there would be good stuff?

I think Jookster is a great idea, and even if it turns out that it is one of the many startups that will go belly up in this boom, I'm confident that the underlying ideas it embraces will be something that we are using for years to come.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Rupert Murdoch and Billy Bragg: you have to wonder how these guys got in bed in the first place. It's a notion that'll induce Scanners-esque head explosions and I wouldn't spend much more time it, as the avowed socialist Bragg has taken his toothbrush and, we presume, did not let the door hit him on the way out of avowed capitalist Murdoch's crib.
Irked by terms of service that apparently gave MySpace "a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute" his music, British songwriter Billy Bragg pulled his music from the social networking site.
Bragg's MySpace.com page offers this explanation: "SORRY THERE'S NO MUSIC," because "once an artist posts up any content (including songs), it then belongs to My Space (AKA Rupert Murdoch) and they can do what they want with it, throughout the world without paying the artist."
As Publishing 2.0 notes, the falling out is a harsh reminder of the lengths MySpace will go to compensate for not owning any of the content (read: the underlying value upon which much of the enterprise depends) posted on its sites and of MySpace's still-showing Web 1.0 roots.
Naturally, MySpace chalks this all up to a bit of sloppy lawyering.
"Because the legalese has caused some confusion, we are at work revising it to make it very clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist's work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends," Berman says. "Obviously, we don't own their music or do anything with it that they don't want."
Whew. Well, I'm relieved; how about you? As we all know, when someone dismisses the tiny print in a contract as "legalese," that part is immediately invalidated, right?

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---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Rupert Murdoch and Billy Bragg: you have to wonder how these guys got in bed in the first place. It's a notion that'll induce Scanners-esque head explosions and I wouldn't spend much more time it, as the avowed socialist Bragg has taken his toothbrush and, we presume, did not let the door hit him on the way out of avowed capitalist Murdoch's crib.
Irked by terms of service that apparently gave MySpace "a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute" his music, British songwriter Billy Bragg pulled his music from the social networking site.
Bragg's MySpace.com page offers this explanation: "SORRY THERE'S NO MUSIC," because "once an artist posts up any content (including songs), it then belongs to My Space (AKA Rupert Murdoch) and they can do what they want with it, throughout the world without paying the artist."
As Publishing 2.0 notes, the falling out is a harsh reminder of the lengths MySpace will go to compensate for not owning any of the content (read: the underlying value upon which much of the enterprise depends) posted on its sites and of MySpace's still-showing Web 1.0 roots.
Naturally, MySpace chalks this all up to a bit of sloppy lawyering.
"Because the legalese has caused some confusion, we are at work revising it to make it very clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist's work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends," Berman says. "Obviously, we don't own their music or do anything with it that they don't want."
Whew. Well, I'm relieved; how about you? As we all know, when someone dismisses the tiny print in a contract as "legalese," that part is immediately invalidated, right?

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Rupert Murdoch and Billy Bragg: you have to wonder how these guys got in bed in the first place. It's a notion that'll induce Scanners-esque head explosions and I wouldn't spend much more time it, as the avowed socialist Bragg has taken his toothbrush and, we presume, did not let the door hit him on the way out of avowed capitalist Murdoch's crib.
Irked by terms of service that apparently gave MySpace "a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute" his music, British songwriter Billy Bragg pulled his music from the social networking site.
Bragg's MySpace.com page offers this explanation: "SORRY THERE'S NO MUSIC," because "once an artist posts up any content (including songs), it then belongs to My Space (AKA Rupert Murdoch) and they can do what they want with it, throughout the world without paying the artist."
As Publishing 2.0 notes, the falling out is a harsh reminder of the lengths MySpace will go to compensate for not owning any of the content (read: the underlying value upon which much of the enterprise depends) posted on its sites and of MySpace's still-showing Web 1.0 roots.
Naturally, MySpace chalks this all up to a bit of sloppy lawyering.
"Because the legalese has caused some confusion, we are at work revising it to make it very clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist's work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends," Berman says. "Obviously, we don't own their music or do anything with it that they don't want."
Whew. Well, I'm relieved; how about you? As we all know, when someone dismisses the tiny print in a contract as "legalese," that part is immediately invalidated, right?

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: mapping, mashups

MySociety.org, a British tech nonprofit project that builds and showcases new tools for civic good, has released a beautiful series of maps illustrating various transportation data sets around England.  See, for example, this sample map showing whether public transport (bus, light rail best is in red) or a private automobile (blue) will get you faster from the Cambridge station to any other part of the country.  (Cambridge is in the bottom right hand corner, nearish London.)  The project has created many other maps as well, illustrating a variety of data.

This is interesting, of course, primarily as a proof of concept.  I'm sure it was time consuming and expensive to create, but that won't always be the case.  If organizations like public transportation agencies expose their data via APIs then I can imagine that displays like this will only be a matter of processing power, which is only a matter of time.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to see a map like this for any trip you were planning?  "I'm at 44th and Killingsworth in Portland, and I'd like to go to 15th and Belmont.  If I'm willing to be dropped off within a few blocks, would it be faster to go by light rail or car?  How long is it likely to take me to get to a particular spot?  That particular place I'm headed isn't a public transportation dead zone, is it?"  Oh the questions you could answer!  This is just one of many maps  MySociety has published,  which is a good thing in light of Margaret Thatcher's famous (attributed) quote - "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."

Found via WorldChanging

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---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: mapping, mashups

MySociety.org, a British tech nonprofit project that builds and showcases new tools for civic good, has released a beautiful series of maps illustrating various transportation data sets around England.  See, for example, this sample map showing whether public transport (bus, light rail best is in red) or a private automobile (blue) will get you faster from the Cambridge station to any other part of the country.  (Cambridge is in the bottom right hand corner, nearish London.)  The project has created many other maps as well, illustrating a variety of data.

This is interesting, of course, primarily as a proof of concept.  I'm sure it was time consuming and expensive to create, but that won't always be the case.  If organizations like public transportation agencies expose their data via APIs then I can imagine that displays like this will only be a matter of processing power, which is only a matter of time.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to see a map like this for any trip you were planning?  "I'm at 44th and Killingsworth in Portland, and I'd like to go to 15th and Belmont.  If I'm willing to be dropped off within a few blocks, would it be faster to go by light rail or car?  How long is it likely to take me to get to a particular spot?  That particular place I'm headed isn't a public transportation dead zone, is it?"  Oh the questions you could answer!  This is just one of many maps  MySociety has published,  which is a good thing in light of Margaret Thatcher's famous (attributed) quote - "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."

Found via WorldChanging

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: mapping, mashups

MySociety.org, a British tech nonprofit project that builds and showcases new tools for civic good, has released a beautiful series of maps illustrating various transportation data sets around England.  See, for example, this sample map showing whether public transport (bus, light rail best is in red) or a private automobile (blue) will get you faster from the Cambridge station to any other part of the country.  (Cambridge is in the bottom right hand corner, nearish London.)  The project has created many other maps as well, illustrating a variety of data.

This is interesting, of course, primarily as a proof of concept.  I'm sure it was time consuming and expensive to create, but that won't always be the case.  If organizations like public transportation agencies expose their data via APIs then I can imagine that displays like this will only be a matter of processing power, which is only a matter of time.  Wouldn't it be great to be able to see a map like this for any trip you were planning?  "I'm at 44th and Killingsworth in Portland, and I'd like to go to 15th and Belmont.  If I'm willing to be dropped off within a few blocks, would it be faster to go by light rail or car?  How long is it likely to take me to get to a particular spot?  That particular place I'm headed isn't a public transportation dead zone, is it?"  Oh the questions you could answer!  This is just one of many maps  MySociety has published,  which is a good thing in light of Margaret Thatcher's famous (attributed) quote - "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."

Found via WorldChanging

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---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: companies, web 2.0

"I like your roundups of eHub!" says Emily Chang in an email.  All the more reason to keep doing the darned things.  Emily Chang's eHub is a great resource for learning about new or newly highlighted Web 2.0 services and products, but it can be overwhelming.  In the spirit of helpfulness, I've now done a number of weekly summaries of my favorite items on eHub.  The following is the most recent in the series.  No substitute for reading eHub itself, of course, these summaries are just my favorites on the weeks I find time to do a write up.

Listed in order of my excitement this time instead of chronologically:

Social-Mail
Happy day!  Send emails to an RSS feed.  I feel far more comfortable using this tool, a Big in Japan offering, than I do using my previous stand by, mail2rss.org.  Mail2rss.org has worked well for me so far, but the fact that it's remained in "extreme  alpha" mode since I found it makes me very glad to find an alternative.  I use these tools all the time to create feeds for organizations that don't offer them (many in the nonprofit sector, for example.)

Byoms (build your own mobile search)
Not highlighted directly on eHub, but the product of a company that was (Kozuro).  Custom search via IM with support for natural language queries, search sharing and RSS feeds.  Not sure how all of these will work together yet, but those are some of my favorite features for anything - so I'll be watching closely for the June 5th public beta release.  The company says you'll preselect certain sources you want to be able to search, then you can use IM to query those sources on your computer or mobile device.  Sounds pretty cool to me.

Netvibes ecosystem
Makes ajax homepage modules easy to share.  Netvibes is one of the most popular Ajax homepages, which are themselves very poor ways to read anything more than a few RSS feeds with few items in each one (in my opinion).  But it may be one of the most realistic ways to hope for further RSS adoption, and the ecosystem's sharing does help make tangible the portability of feeds. There's an API that's being used to develop new modules, a Word Press plug-in - the announcement of the ecosystem got a lot of coverage throughout the blogosphere.

Farecast
In private beta, this system will use historical data to allow users to predict future airfare offerings.  Have to wonder if another larger vendor will buy this one out, I'm sure that's the idea.  Probably one of the best examples, in fact, of a technology built to flip.  Landing page visual design at least looks totally hip.

Big Blue Saw
You may have read some of the articles around lately about low cost rapid fabrication from CAD files.  Big Blue Saw is an Atlanta based service that offers just such an affordable service.  I've read about this type of thing being the future of manufacturing in the developing world, for now this service is getting press in Make Magazine at least. 

Spinvox
Turns voice mail into text messages or email.  Sounds great, presuming that it works well.  Discussion at MobileCrunch points to two likely problems:  long voicemail messages and the difficulty of trusting a translation to text of the important subtleties in spoken language (like the world "not").  Not having tested this myself, I don't know whether the text messages I get are going to tell me what the names of the callers are as well as my phone's recognition of contacts.  That would be very important.


That's this week's highlights from eHub according to yours truly.  Don't forget to check out the whole site for hours of fun.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: companies, web 2.0

"I like your roundups of eHub!" says Emily Chang in an email.  All the more reason to keep doing the darned things.  Emily Chang's eHub is a great resource for learning about new or newly highlighted Web 2.0 services and products, but it can be overwhelming.  In the spirit of helpfulness, I've now done a number of weekly summaries of my favorite items on eHub.  The following is the most recent in the series.  No substitute for reading eHub itself, of course, these summaries are just my favorites on the weeks I find time to do a write up.

Listed in order of my excitement this time instead of chronologically:

Social-Mail
Happy day!  Send emails to an RSS feed.  I feel far more comfortable using this tool, a Big in Japan offering, than I do using my previous stand by, mail2rss.org.  Mail2rss.org has worked well for me so far, but the fact that it's remained in "extreme  alpha" mode since I found it makes me very glad to find an alternative.  I use these tools all the time to create feeds for organizations that don't offer them (many in the nonprofit sector, for example.)

Byoms (build your own mobile search)
Not highlighted directly on eHub, but the product of a company that was (Kozuro).  Custom search via IM with support for natural language queries, search sharing and RSS feeds.  Not sure how all of these will work together yet, but those are some of my favorite features for anything - so I'll be watching closely for the June 5th public beta release.  The company says you'll preselect certain sources you want to be able to search, then you can use IM to query those sources on your computer or mobile device.  Sounds pretty cool to me.

Netvibes ecosystem
Makes ajax homepage modules easy to share.  Netvibes is one of the most popular Ajax homepages, which are themselves very poor ways to read anything more than a few RSS feeds with few items in each one (in my opinion).  But it may be one of the most realistic ways to hope for further RSS adoption, and the ecosystem's sharing does help make tangible the portability of feeds. There's an API that's being used to develop new modules, a Word Press plug-in - the announcement of the ecosystem got a lot of coverage throughout the blogosphere.

Farecast
In private beta, this system will use historical data to allow users to predict future airfare offerings.  Have to wonder if another larger vendor will buy this one out, I'm sure that's the idea.  Probably one of the best examples, in fact, of a technology built to flip.  Landing page visual design at least looks totally hip.

Big Blue Saw
You may have read some of the articles around lately about low cost rapid fabrication from CAD files.  Big Blue Saw is an Atlanta based service that offers just such an affordable service.  I've read about this type of thing being the future of manufacturing in the developing world, for now this service is getting press in Make Magazine at least. 

Spinvox
Turns voice mail into text messages or email.  Sounds great, presuming that it works well.  Discussion at MobileCrunch points to two likely problems:  long voicemail messages and the difficulty of trusting a translation to text of the important subtleties in spoken language (like the world "not").  Not having tested this myself, I don't know whether the text messages I get are going to tell me what the names of the callers are as well as my phone's recognition of contacts.  That would be very important.


That's this week's highlights from eHub according to yours truly.  Don't forget to check out the whole site for hours of fun.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: companies, web 2.0

"I like your roundups of eHub!" says Emily Chang in an email.  All the more reason to keep doing the darned things.  Emily Chang's eHub is a great resource for learning about new or newly highlighted Web 2.0 services and products, but it can be overwhelming.  In the spirit of helpfulness, I've now done a number of weekly summaries of my favorite items on eHub.  The following is the most recent in the series.  No substitute for reading eHub itself, of course, these summaries are just my favorites on the weeks I find time to do a write up.

Listed in order of my excitement this time instead of chronologically:

Social-Mail
Happy day!  Send emails to an RSS feed.  I feel far more comfortable using this tool, a Big in Japan offering, than I do using my previous stand by, mail2rss.org.  Mail2rss.org has worked well for me so far, but the fact that it's remained in "extreme  alpha" mode since I found it makes me very glad to find an alternative.  I use these tools all the time to create feeds for organizations that don't offer them (many in the nonprofit sector, for example.)

Byoms (build your own mobile search)
Not highlighted directly on eHub, but the product of a company that was (Kozuro).  Custom search via IM with support for natural language queries, search sharing and RSS feeds.  Not sure how all of these will work together yet, but those are some of my favorite features for anything - so I'll be watching closely for the June 5th public beta release.  The company says you'll preselect certain sources you want to be able to search, then you can use IM to query those sources on your computer or mobile device.  Sounds pretty cool to me.

Netvibes ecosystem
Makes ajax homepage modules easy to share.  Netvibes is one of the most popular Ajax homepages, which are themselves very poor ways to read anything more than a few RSS feeds with few items in each one (in my opinion).  But it may be one of the most realistic ways to hope for further RSS adoption, and the ecosystem's sharing does help make tangible the portability of feeds. There's an API that's being used to develop new modules, a Word Press plug-in - the announcement of the ecosystem got a lot of coverage throughout the blogosphere.

Farecast
In private beta, this system will use historical data to allow users to predict future airfare offerings.  Have to wonder if another larger vendor will buy this one out, I'm sure that's the idea.  Probably one of the best examples, in fact, of a technology built to flip.  Landing page visual design at least looks totally hip.

Big Blue Saw
You may have read some of the articles around lately about low cost rapid fabrication from CAD files.  Big Blue Saw is an Atlanta based service that offers just such an affordable service.  I've read about this type of thing being the future of manufacturing in the developing world, for now this service is getting press in Make Magazine at least. 

Spinvox
Turns voice mail into text messages or email.  Sounds great, presuming that it works well.  Discussion at MobileCrunch points to two likely problems:  long voicemail messages and the difficulty of trusting a translation to text of the important subtleties in spoken language (like the world "not").  Not having tested this myself, I don't know whether the text messages I get are going to tell me what the names of the callers are as well as my phone's recognition of contacts.  That would be very important.


That's this week's highlights from eHub according to yours truly.  Don't forget to check out the whole site for hours of fun.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: companies, e-commerce

Steve Rubel discovers coverage and then goes in depth on eBay plans to incorporate blogs and wikis in their service offerings.  It looks like an impressive implementation, but I have a few questions about it.

• First, if people wanted more in depth discussion - wouldn't the product descriptions and the buyer/seller feedback be less mass produced than they are now?  "Great customer!  Would sell to again for sure!" over and over again.  What percentage of the auction pages are mass produced by huge eBay store owners?
• Given that this will be a pure commercial space it seems like the promised land for comment spammers.  Will eBay be able to fight spam in a way that doesn't shut down discussion but works for users?
• Not sure that these mediums are the best suited for this context.  It seems like kind of an awkward application of two very hip, exciting tools.
• Tag support makes sense if implemented in conjunction with pre-selected categories and full text search.  Given the nature of this particular market, though, I wonder if this will be the space where we really see tag spam emerge in a big way for the first time.
• Internationalization of discourse will be an interesting mess to watch, I'm guessing.  Most businesses large enough to do a lot of international business mitigate language and cultural differences by hiring specialists to help with these issues.  Micro-businesses will not have these resources and I'll be curious to see how many miscommunications, previously silent prejudices and other communication issues emerge.
• Business blogging often helps build relationships between companies and their customers.  How much loyalty do you feel to any particular eBay store?  I'm guessing not very much.  Thumbs up, thumbs down on reputation may be enough reputation/communication system for the vast majority of eBay users.
  

I'm not sure how much adoption these tools are going to see.  Blogging takes time and energy.  I'm not sure that people will find that investment worthwhile when sprucing up product pages and optimizing for search is already doable.  Does conversation drive commerce, as Rubel says?  Or in this case are we dealing with an intention economy - where people come to eBay intending to purchase something and only need help finding the best option at the best price?   I've never been too clear on how great an option it was to be able to call a seller on Skype, so I'm not sure how great an idea this is.  I've only been ripped of on eBay once, though, so perhaps I don't understand other peoples' need for communication. 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: companies, e-commerce

Steve Rubel discovers coverage and then goes in depth on eBay plans to incorporate blogs and wikis in their service offerings.  It looks like an impressive implementation, but I have a few questions about it.

• First, if people wanted more in depth discussion - wouldn't the product descriptions and the buyer/seller feedback be less mass produced than they are now?  "Great customer!  Would sell to again for sure!" over and over again.  What percentage of the auction pages are mass produced by huge eBay store owners?
• Given that this will be a pure commercial space it seems like the promised land for comment spammers.  Will eBay be able to fight spam in a way that doesn't shut down discussion but works for users?
• Not sure that these mediums are the best suited for this context.  It seems like kind of an awkward application of two very hip, exciting tools.
• Tag support makes sense if implemented in conjunction with pre-selected categories and full text search.  Given the nature of this particular market, though, I wonder if this will be the space where we really see tag spam emerge in a big way for the first time.
• Internationalization of discourse will be an interesting mess to watch, I'm guessing.  Most businesses large enough to do a lot of international business mitigate language and cultural differences by hiring specialists to help with these issues.  Micro-businesses will not have these resources and I'll be curious to see how many miscommunications, previously silent prejudices and other communication issues emerge.
• Business blogging often helps build relationships between companies and their customers.  How much loyalty do you feel to any particular eBay store?  I'm guessing not very much.  Thumbs up, thumbs down on reputation may be enough reputation/communication system for the vast majority of eBay users.
  

I'm not sure how much adoption these tools are going to see.  Blogging takes time and energy.  I'm not sure that people will find that investment worthwhile when sprucing up product pages and optimizing for search is already doable.  Does conversation drive commerce, as Rubel says?  Or in this case are we dealing with an intention economy - where people come to eBay intending to purchase something and only need help finding the best option at the best price?   I've never been too clear on how great an option it was to be able to call a seller on Skype, so I'm not sure how great an idea this is.  I've only been ripped of on eBay once, though, so perhaps I don't understand other peoples' need for communication. 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: companies, e-commerce

Steve Rubel discovers coverage and then goes in depth on eBay plans to incorporate blogs and wikis in their service offerings.  It looks like an impressive implementation, but I have a few questions about it.

• First, if people wanted more in depth discussion - wouldn't the product descriptions and the buyer/seller feedback be less mass produced than they are now?  "Great customer!  Would sell to again for sure!" over and over again.  What percentage of the auction pages are mass produced by huge eBay store owners?
• Given that this will be a pure commercial space it seems like the promised land for comment spammers.  Will eBay be able to fight spam in a way that doesn't shut down discussion but works for users?
• Not sure that these mediums are the best suited for this context.  It seems like kind of an awkward application of two very hip, exciting tools.
• Tag support makes sense if implemented in conjunction with pre-selected categories and full text search.  Given the nature of this particular market, though, I wonder if this will be the space where we really see tag spam emerge in a big way for the first time.
• Internationalization of discourse will be an interesting mess to watch, I'm guessing.  Most businesses large enough to do a lot of international business mitigate language and cultural differences by hiring specialists to help with these issues.  Micro-businesses will not have these resources and I'll be curious to see how many miscommunications, previously silent prejudices and other communication issues emerge.
• Business blogging often helps build relationships between companies and their customers.  How much loyalty do you feel to any particular eBay store?  I'm guessing not very much.  Thumbs up, thumbs down on reputation may be enough reputation/communication system for the vast majority of eBay users.
  

I'm not sure how much adoption these tools are going to see.  Blogging takes time and energy.  I'm not sure that people will find that investment worthwhile when sprucing up product pages and optimizing for search is already doable.  Does conversation drive commerce, as Rubel says?  Or in this case are we dealing with an intention economy - where people come to eBay intending to purchase something and only need help finding the best option at the best price?   I've never been too clear on how great an option it was to be able to call a seller on Skype, so I'm not sure how great an idea this is.  I've only been ripped of on eBay once, though, so perhaps I don't understand other peoples' need for communication. 

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