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eBay seeks community, launches blogs, profiles
The Indian arm of the global auction site formally launches blogs and profile web pages in a push to add community tools for its two million users
Online auction website eBay India has strengthened its community by adding two new features – eBay Blogs for putting up postings and eBay My World, enabling users to create their personal profile pages. eBay has about two million registered users in India and hopes to attract more, including ‘window shoppers’, with these new offerings.
According to Deepa Thomas, manager of corporate communications at eBay India, the blogs and profile pages will be aimed especially at sellers. For example, a gems seller has created a blog about the planetary effect of gems. A toy manufacturer has created a blog about topics of interest to children. Buyers and window-shoppers, too, are creating blogs on more personal subjects like poetry and travel.
eBay Blog |
eBay My World |
My World is more of a social networking feature and will place all information about a member’s activities on the site on a profile page. This information will only be accessible to registered users. “We hope this will facilitate interaction between trading partners that will amount to better understanding, higher satisfaction and greater transparency and connection within the eBay community,” said Rajan Mehra, country manager, eBay India, in a statement.
eBay has been working on these services in India since the beginning of 2007 and launched them informally in March 2007. In the US, eBay Blogs was launched in June 2006 and eBay My World followed soon after in October 2006. These services are now being rolled out simultaneously in its international markets, including 10 Asian countries. eBay has other community features such as eBay Wiki and Reviews & Guides, which have not been launched yet in India.
eBay also offers SMS reminders, but sees the mobile phone only as a “complementary medium”, according to Thomas, and there are no immediate plans to introduce auctioning on mobiles.
Clearly, eBay India wants to build portal-like qualities on its famous auction website. And there’s more on the cards. The market buzz is that it plans to introduce display advertising on the site. Watch this space!
© 2007 agencyfaqs!