Ebay Creates “Neighborhoods”
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | October 10, 2007 | Share This
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Auction giant eBay has added “Neighborhoods,” or social networks organized around product and interest categories (eg., jewelry, foodies, iPhones), to its site in what appears to be a huge overhaul of the once-bare user interface. Each neighborhood functions as a hub for reviews, guides, user blog posts, a discussion board, and photos of related products you can buy on eBay.
The new functionality feels like a Facebook group on steroids, though unlike most Facebook groups, Ebay’s neighborhoods are actually quite useful. I think they’ve done a really good job with this redesign, though Eric Schonfeld of TechCrunch makes a good point about what’s missing:
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.
Topics: Social Media, eBay |