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Students Embarrass eBay With Firefox Add-On
An anonymous reader sends along a posting from the Grooveking blog on a group of Stanford students who got together to help promote Firefox and ended up releasing a long overdue eBay Toolbar for Firefox before Mozilla and eBay could release their jointly developed extension in Europe. Mozilla's COO said the preemptive release of the eBay Toolbar had ruffled some feathers among European eBay execs. "Besides basic search features, it removes external ads on the site and allows users to see thumbnail pictures on ALL search items, even those sellers didn't pay for. An eBay toolbar has been long overdue... eBay can't be too enthusiastic about this toolbar since it cuts directly into its main sources of revenue: ads and thumbnail fees. But eBay users get a really good deal."
Certainly reinforces the Spread Firefox group's original slogan: Take Back the Web.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Suck it, Ebay. Stop trying to hamstring your sellers. Your costs were exponentially lower when you were born, making more money doesn't entitle you to start charging more money for no real reason.
Why is this such a big deal? It's a lot easier for a bunch of student programmers like this to release a toolbar than it is for eBay.
The problem isn't making the plugin. That's relatively easy. I guarentee is doesn't take eBay very long to make a toolbar for their own site, assuming they have programmers that are a least a bit competent.
No, the problem is testing. If an offical toolbar from eBay causes even the smallest problem, eBay is on the hook. For a bunch of students this isn't a problem.
Just installed it and started typing in their personal information, with absolutely no idea what this plugin was doing with it?
Uh huh. Oh, now you're thinking through the security implications.
It's probably not a particularly clever piece of phishing, but the next one might be.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
That is why Ebay have not finished their own toolbar yet. They were too busy trying to figure out how to code the bar without messing up their revenue streams. Had they have just made the bar functional and user friendly, they might have already finished it. Fortunately for everyone else, the Stanford group was only concerned about a functional, working toolbar.
It was trying to figure out how to load up more ads...?
... but it should be mentioned that they could create it that fast only thanks to breaking 173 Microsoft patents.
839*929
...of a couple of spunky Stanford kids with nothing going for them. And a coach, who believed they had it in them all along...
Or was the problem trying to figure out a way to implement it that increased ad revenues?
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
A couple guys who want to do something they think is cool turned out to be faster at it than a couple corporations trying to do something to monetize what they perceive as something users want.
Let me put on my surprised face.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
They've done more than embarrass eBay. They both released their plugin first, and done it "better" from a customer standpoint by bypassing ads and including all pictures. eBay cannot simply release their plugin now, as informed users are going to pick the one that has a better UI (one without ads and with more pictures). They also cannot simply change their site functionality to break the student plugin, as they'll alienate customers who are using it. Even if they did that quickly to minimise market penetration it would only be a temporary solution, as any changes will likely be worked around quickly. They'd back to the problem of competing with a plugin that has no ads and better functionality.
Sounds kind of like DRM CDs vs. digital format music. You don't have to be a lawyer to figure out if the customer prefers better functionality. Let's hope eBay takes a different approach than the recording industry has. I'm not optimistic.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
These students (and probably several posts appearing in this thread) have just given eBay some free, valuable market research. Pay attention:
1. eBay has great brand awareness. People know about it, and the opinion is generally positive. Hell, it can't be too negative if a bunch of programmer (lazy) students (even lazier) are writing software on their time to access eBay features.
2. Users LOATHE ads. This should be obvious. Is it just me, or are advertisements starting to have a reverse effect? You see an advertisement or commercial spot, and suddenly you're pissed off at the company in question for ramming advertising down your throat and find yourself not wanting to buy whatever they're selling, even if you need it.
3. eBay's "gallery" view stuff hurts the overall user experience. I understand they want to make more money, but the fact that one of the first things these programmers bypassed is the gallery exclusion garbage is very telling. People don't want to click through even 1 or 2 things to see a picture of an item. They want to see it immediately, particularly those who haven't the foggiest about web design, image hosting, or listing fees. That group most likely has no idea why there's so much inconsistency between item listings on eBay, and it's a matter of confusion on an already intimidating (to a new user) website.
It should also tell eBay something about itself. eBay has been around for something like 11 years, Firefox for 5 or 6, and it's been quite popular for the last couple of years (read: other big companies have been producing toolbars for Firefox without much problem). Why did this even have to happen? Get with it eBay...
98.2% positive feedback? What's wrong with that? You do realize that that's less than 4 negatives for 200 transactions? It's so easy to end up with retaliatory negatives from sellers when you use your account for both buying and selling.
Don't be a chickenshit. And for fuck's sake don't leave negative retaliatory feedback when I give you a neutral. The ebay feedback system is so broken that people like you think a single negative and fifty positives is a complete disaster. It definitely needs more granularity.
"Commercial" software (which doesn't necessarily mean that you pay for it, only that some corporation is behind its creation) gives you what the company wants you to have.
Free software gives you what you want to have.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually, I assume that the instant OSS development becomes ubiquitous in the teenage demographic that the OSS community is going to pretty much suck.
It's so easy to end up with retaliatory negatives from sellers when you use your account for both buying and selling.
And I give good feedback when the transaction sucked and I'm a buyer because no seller leaves feedback until the buyer does. It's blackmail. I paid you within 30 seconds of the close of the auction. You should give me feedback then, the transaction is done, as far as you are concerned. But no, I don't get any feedback until I've left feedback. If the damn thing takes 6 weeks to get here, I have the choice of telling the world that the transaction sucked (and I get negative retaliatory feedback when I've done nothing wrong), or I give good feedback or no feedback to protect my own feedback ratio.
eBay purposefully slants such things toward the seller, because those are the people that pay the fees. eBay could come up with all sorts of ways to prevent retaliation. If I'm a buyer, I've paid (verified by my paypal account that eBay saw the payment flow through) then the seller can't give me negative/neutral feedback once I give feedback. If I did something wrong, they'll know it long before the item arrives at my house. To accept my payment and wait to see what I leave for feedback before leaving their own is blackmail and makes the feedback system mostly useless.
Learn to love Alaska
Violation of ToS =! Theft. Say that over and over again until you get that absurd idea out of your head.
If they want to block access from the toolbar (probably impossible since the processing is done on the end-user's computer), let them go ahead. But the end user is under no obligation to stop using said toolbar.
The new feedback system that just went into testing should help eliminate this. The problem is that the transaction is NOT finished when you pay. You could still dispute the credit card charge, or return the package, or file a complaint with the USPS, or any of a hundred other things. The new system *IS* more discrete and categorized, which hopefully means they will let us leave feedback in stages.
Also, I am in favor of not showing either party the feedback that the other user left until they have both left it. That would almost completely eliminate retaliatory feedback.
PS: I am a seller, and I actually do leave positive feedback as soon as the (proper) payment arrives.
If you visit the site with FIREFOX as your browser, it offers to install the toolbar. If you visit the site with EXPLORER as your browser, it offers to install firefox and the toolbar (making the assumption that you don't have firefox already installed.) Just access the plugin site with firefox and you should be okay.
I'll counter your argument from a seller's perspective (I've bought and sold on eBay). I have sold items before where I have left positive feedback immediately after payment was received. Shipped said items well-packed day after payment was received. Still, I was left negative feedback for perceived false advertisement of an item. One other occasion, I refunded a ~$150 payment after a used video card I shipped (was working when it shipped out) was returned defective. Did I get positive feedback? No, I was given a blistering feedback that really shook my belief in the eBay experience. Patience, open communication, and reason are important when buying and selling on eBay, but some folks bring a lot of angst. By and large my experience on eBay has been very positive, especially with reputable sellers who have good feedback (99%+). But I pucker anytime I sell something, because you never know who you're going to have to deal with. My feedback stands at 98.9%, and I have to work harder because of that sub-99% blemish (ship same day payment was received, overpack for protection, answer questions within an hour of receiving them, etc.).
Here's hoping the new feedback system helps everybody.