SUBAT

Campaign»Topics

• 

  message

  

  Lee Miller started this discussion on Mar 31, 2008

  Hey, I’m still here.

  Been working on an aggregator using Yahoo Pipes. Not ideal, but it could get the job done. Here’s the Pipes homepage if you’re curious: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

  Katrina: “Just who is going to run this and who is going to pay for it all.?”

  Depends. If it can be totally automated, no one need run it. Just a few moderators would have access in case something needs to be tweaked or someone has an issue.

  “I am primarily a buyer, but i do like to sell the odd item i no longer need. Where does it suggest i can benefit from this. What about the occasional seller.”

  I’m an occasional seller too. You’d benefit by being involved in a true community, like Ebay was before it went IPO in 1998. You’d benefit by having options yet getting massive exposure via aggregation….if an auction site you utilize goes to crap, you can use another one in the network. Unlike Ebay, where you’re totally at the mercy of the CEO and the shareholders he/she is beholden to. You’d further benefit by not losing 10 – 20% of your sale to Ebay, who really do nothing other than hosting your images and data. I’ve sold things at consignment shops that walk away with less than Ebay does in some cases, and they do all the work for you. Ebay does pretty much nada for sellers, you do all the work when it comes down to it.

  I don’t want to get into the politics of it all, autocracy, oligarchy, democracy, whatever. I would just quote Lincoln “A house divided cannot stand”.

  
• 

  

  Anonymous replied on Apr 2, 2008

  Hi Lee — Pipes is exactly what I was thinking a couple weeks ago. (Actually Google has a beta version too but it’s still closed.) I can’t say I’ve made much progress yet but I think Pipes is worth a try, especially with some tweaking. There’s also some non-mashup portal news. Jul told me she tried to e-mail you thru the Point mail system a couple times now but couldn’t get you. If you see this, e-mail me directly, OK? Either to the main SUBAT mail or my Yahoo one…it’s hard to get e-mail addresses to show up here in Textile when there are underscores (which produce italics!) but main SUBAT mail = subat underscore forever at yahoo dot com, or mine is cc underscore for underscore subat at yahoo dot com. Even just as a stopgap measure I think the Pipes method has definite possibilities.
  Thanks!
  Colleen
  PS —That’s totally true about consignment shops doing all the work of selling and taking less than ebay does, I’ve done it too, and even giving stuff over to realworld auctioneers can be a better deal for the seller than ebay these days, especially once disgusting Paypal comes into it. Ebay has been ripping us off for years now and I think it’s because not enough people even know anymore that 20% commission usually buys you someone to sell the things for you…and that means they clean it up, photograph it, put it in a preview, put it in a shop, advertise it, actually sell it, process the payment, and just send you a check. The whole point of ebay was that there was practically no commission at all and you dealt directly with other individuals just like you…nobody was a store, most sellers were also buyers, and it was interesting because it had a quality of penpals about it or something, you never knew who you’d meet, all e-mail was direct, and there was trust because you were dealing direct with other regular people, totally unlike what ebay management has made it now, the whole cutthroat e-walmart model. It was something new and good then, something that belonged to the people who created it and used it, and something worth saving. I feel ebay management is wrecking what we made as a group and it’s wrong what they’re doing. These arrogant consultants like Donahoe weren’t around in the early days of ebay and have no idea what that system was originally about. We have to take it back from them because if we don’t, they’re really going to destroy it this time…they’re halfway there already. If next month marks the death of equal feedback, who can imagine what it will be like by May, 2009?!