Bill Watt’s Blog

As much as I love and crave physical world interactions I do have most of my day to day connections via the web, email, IM, twitter, facebook, and on and on. Unlike many people I actually love that. It isn’t that I’m replacing people with virtual connections but instead that I’m extending ability to interact with folks using all these tools. The interesting thing is how many new relationships this has opened up. People I would never have known I know follow through twitter. I interact with celebrities and presidential candidates in ways my grandfather would never believe. And staying in touch or reconnecting with people from my childhood is now as close as a super poke (or tossing a cow at them!).

Anyway- I posted earlier about watching Teri Garr on Dave Letterman and how amazing she is. When I got home tonight I found a very nice email waiting for me from a woman who had seen my blog post appear in a Google Alert for brain aneurysms. She thanked me for posting because she doesn’t get a chance to watch Letterman often (neither would I if it weren’t for DVR’s) and let me know she had added the clip to her blog for others to see. Check out her post about the Teri Garr interview.

I would encourage you to check out Heidi’s blog(s).

I’m assuming we’ve all had the experience where people find out we work at a place, belong to a club, or know something about something and as soon as people find out they start to associate you with the experience they had with the thing. Working for eBay turned out to be the single biggest generator of those experiences I ever had. We’d be at Starbucks and people would see the work badge and want to talk about a problem they had on eBay. Going to a wedding in Pittsburgh, PA I ended up having a round table with users about their experiences on the site. (Starting to see why Alice thinks all I do is work?)

So, it isn’t a big shock when I open up the laptop this morning to find this IM:

[09:56] friend: i had possibly the worst experience i’ve ever had trying to do something online yesterday
[09:56] friend: trying to sell something on ebay
[09:56] friend: i hold you personally responsible
[09:56] friend: i would like those hours of my life back please

Which is a pretty funny version of what I hear all the time. So, as funny as that is on a personal level it is pretty annoying considering eBay has been doing this for so long.

And here’s the real issue… as eBay moves to compete more directly with Amazon (based on all the news I’m reading this is the direction they’re heading… good luck with that) the seller experience is going to matter and the buyer experience can’t stay the way it is either. There have been posts and discussions for the last couple years about this (see this interview with Andre) but I think the world has changed quite a bit since then. We’re Web 2.0 now and customization by vertical or by experience is likely quite a bit easier than it was in 2004.

I shop eBay when I want a deal. I shop Amazon when I want something of higher quality, when I’m looking for a suggestion or thoughtful product comparison, or want the thing immediately. eBay is still for the bargain hunter while Amazon has done a better job of providing me the best retail experience without needing to talk to people.

Also, if you were to believe Ryan Spoon then Amazon became the 2nd coming as soon as they figure out how to get him his razors and toilet paper.