Posts Tagged ‘ebay’

Classified by any other name

Posted by tom.altman on December 28th, 2009

Along with keeping the day-to-day rolling in webdev this week, my task is to test out a couple of web classified apps.  We’re looking to test drive two methods – one called geodesic and then drop a couple of WordPress themes too.

The hard part will be figuring out how much is “enough” to get us to the next step in the game.  We get a lot of heat in WebDev for not building out entire sites as requested.  The hard part is trying to convince our internal clients they don’t need the Cadillac quite yet and we have a nice Honda ready and waiting.

So this will be a good test for both WebDev and our internal clients to see if we can meet in the middle.

Challenges:

  • Getting a “good enough” solution together.
  • Make-up lost ground to sites like eBay and Craigslist locally.
  • Allow customers to place ads and get more “instant” satisfaction and results.

Suggestions:

  • Love to hear them…please give them now!

Oops! We could not locate your form.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted in Featured Post, marketing, new media, technology, web concepts, wordpress Tags: , , , Comments Off

Left Zune on the Plane – it may be time for the Touch

Posted by tom.altman on May 19th, 2008
Description unavailableImage via Wikipedia

Man sometimes I feel so stupid.  I don;t think I’m going to put anything in that silly seat pocket anymore.  I even thought of it about 2 minutes before I got off the plane.  Then, as I was getting buckled in the next one – i remembered it.  It was left behind.  I called the airlines but you know how that stuff works.

So I figure I need to get the iPod Touch as the replacement.  It will give me a chance to look over the iPohine/Touch SDK and see what exciting things can be done.  I tell you – it will be nice to have wifi and a browser available.  I like the sounds of that too.

So I guess I have to decide whether I need a 16 or 32 – retail is $499 on the 32 Gig iPod Touch – that is really up there.  I guess I will have to see what eBay has to offer.  So if you get on a plane and in 12C you find a Zune, just give it to your kids…I’m going to see a man about a Touch.  :)

Related articles
Posted in future, innovation Tags: , , , , , Comments Off

eBay's Multi-pronged Attack on Craigslist Takes Shape

Posted by tom.altman on August 14th, 2007

Wow – this makes things a little interesting, I saw Kijiji (on a heads up from David S) and was not impressed. But GumTree is a straight up Craigslist clone – WOW.

“When eBay launched their popular overseas classifieds service Kijiji in the United States last month, it seemed sort of an odd move for the company that owns 25% of the leader in the US classifieds space, Craigslist. On a personal level, I wasn’t too impressed.

Kijiji has a hard to pronounce/spell name, an uninviting splash page, and a month later major metros like New York and San Francisco (confusingly labeled as “Bay Area”) have just a handful of listings. But today, eBay is bringing another of its popular international classifieds sites to the US.

Gumtree is the most popular classifieds site in England, and is popular in other European countries and Australia, serving 500,000 new ads every month. eBay today rolled Gumtree out to three US cities, Boston, New York, and Chicago, where it plans to initially market the service to British and Australian ex-pats, according to the New York Times.”

Posted in new media, web concepts Tags: , , , , Comments Off

eBay deals are getting weak.

Posted by tom.altman on July 24th, 2007

So – I need a new cordless telephone…and let me tell you – I am a cheapskate when it comes to consumer electronics. My old unit got a bit too much of last week’s lightning.

So I head off and find a model I like – the Uniden TRU9280-4 (the “-4″ stands for 4 handsets; “-3″ is three and so on.) So I put the search into eBay and find 3 main “auctions” and 20+ hits in the eBay stores section.

But instantly I’m a little miffed – because all 3 of these so called auctions are “Buy it Now” – OK, I love the concept of buy it now…but it was not meant to be used as a fix price auction – that is what the eBay stores are for. So I decide to look over at Amazon – and boom, for almost the same money I can get a brand new model with free shipping.

It just compliments what I have been saying for a while about eBay – the deals are getting harder and harder to find. I still think you can find some stuff there, but it takes more work and more work is not what the consumer is looking for.

This could be a major thing that drives traffic back to the local retailers. With innovations like we saw at the Web 2.0 conference – where intuit is teaming up with and acquiring companies who can take the inventory people are entering into Quickbooks and displaying it online…hyper local is becoming more of a reality. If I can log onto a local retailer’s site and see exactly what they have, now that is information I can use.

Posted in web concepts Tags: , , Comments Off
Twitter Delicious Facebook Stumbleupon