| June 05, 2007 |
 eBay on the Desktop: News from eBay Live |
| By: Ina Steiner |
| Tue June 5 2007 17:56:46 |
Each year during eBay's annual conference, the company likes to make splashy announcements (health care insurance for PowerSellers, ProStores web-hosting, and last year - blogs and wikis). This year, eBay CEO Meg Whitman will deliver the keynote on June 14th; joining her will be Bill Cobb (eBay North America) and Rajiv Dutta (PayPal). (Does anyone else think it unlikely US Postmaster General Jack Potter will make a guest appearance this year as he did twice previously?)
My predictions for this year's announcements:
1) eBay will announce an application in which users can access eBay from the desktop (think something along the lines of iTunes for eBay).
2) eBay will talk up eBay Micro, aka eBay To Go, a widget recently released that allows members to post their eBay content, including listings, on other websites.
eBay on the Desktop: The San Dimas Project
It's no secret eBay's been working on a desktop application code-named San Dimas and built on Adobe Apollo. Adobe showed off San Dimas at the DEMO conference, and the presentation gives you a good idea of how powerful this application is. (Really, watch it - it's not boring.)
I believe eBay will announce San Dimas at the eBay Developer's conference immediately preceding eBay Live on June 11 - 13 and where Adobe's Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch is slated to keynote along with eBay's John Donahoe.
eBay To Go Widget
Why not let users plaster eBay listings all over the Web, from Facebook to blogs to personal and commercial websites? That's basically what the To Go widget allows anyone to do. Not allowing publishers to participate in eBay's affiliate program is a serious drawback to the tool, however.
eBay wants to be everywhere buyers are, including on their own desktop. Here's another example of what can be done - if you belong to FaceBook, checkout the Terapeak application that lets FaceBook users search eBay without ever leaving the site.
eBay is focused on the finding experience and the buying experience. Sellers may be underwhelmed, but it will be good to the degree it helps buyers shop for their items.
While these initiatives are interesting, here's the announcement I would really like to see at eBay Live (but am not expecting):
eBay will offer 24/7 phone support with access to customer service representatives who can help solve your problems quickly and to your satisfaction, so you can get back to buying and selling on eBay!
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