October 12, 2007 | Friday
eBay’s Social Network – Neighborhoods or Ghetto?
By Matt Brocklehurst, Head of Marketing in Marketing
This week eBay launched Neighborhoods which, at last count, constituted some 600 micro-social networks. Each is based around a product, like coffee (this group is so surprisingly vibrant, profiled and vocal it seems to be a plant (no pun intended)) video games (reasonable interaction) or soccer (rubbish! no real surprise as this is exclusive to the US site). eBay reviews, blogs, guides and product search are in the eBay neighborhoods. Members contribute, naturally, with photos, posts, blogs and meet friends.
According to Net Imperative, the eBay motivation, in part at least, is to address the decline in items being listed which, though still a hefty 480 million items last quarter, is down 6% from the first quarter and down 2% from a year. Some say that such a motivation is against the “social networks” ethos. A quick look at the blogosphere has gasps of exasperation “you can’t just create a community by flicking a switch”.
Well, do social networks have to evolve and evolve non-commercially?
I agree that you can’t simply overlay a social network onto any website user-base and expect a community to interact. It was no great surprise to see NMA report what they saw as disappointing membership levels for brands including Dr Martens, Coca Cola and Pedigree.
So will eBay Neighborhoods be desirable or will it be eBay Ghetto? It’s in the balance. eBay has a head-start on most brands. There is a community there and it’s big and multi-faceted. I still feel good bidding, buying and selling and my rating matters to me. And the Neighborhoods do feel good. The layout is nice with some compelling features. Notably the product search results have thumbnailed images almost artistically displayed in a rectangle grid that enlarge with price info on a mouse roll-over.
The concern I have is the isolationist approach. I’m in agreement with Erik of TechCrunch:
“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. …”
In addition, it is restricted to the US. Why not roll out to the UK and other sites? Part of the beauty of social networks is that they can span across borders. How much better then if you could internationally exchange perspectives, tips and content with fellow devotees to your chosen Neigborhood…or would that be Neighbourhood? I guess that might complicate their selling model and therein may lay a problem.
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