Sunday, November 7, 2010

Just a Little Over a Year Ago

August, 2006.  I logged into my eBay account to check on the items I had listed for sale.  As most eBayers are aware, when eBay wants to promote something, they do so at login time.  Usually irritated by these promotional interruptions, I typically click the button that says something like, "Just take me to my originally intended destination, already!" and, having bypassed their roadblock with only minor (if redundant) irritation, I am back on track, busily managing my store or browsing those of others.  This day, however, their promotional message caught my eye, and I followed the link to "find out more" about the eBay Blogs, and, more importantly to me, the competition eBay was holding -- the blogging and guides competition.

To make a long story short, that is when I started blogging.  I was intimidated at first and wrote very different pieces from those I write today.  Let's just say, I had no idea what I was doing, but the WHY I was doing it was clear.... I liked the idea of the competition.  The 10-week competition was broken into five two week periods, with monetary awards being announced at the end of each period.  My early participation won me a "low" monetary prize the first period, which only served to draw me in further.

Before long, I was making "friends" with other bloggers, watching blog fights, blog romances, blog profanity, blog bullies, blog spamming, blog reporting, blog scamming.... let's face it, there was a little bit of EVERYTHING on those blogs.  By the time the competition was over, daily writing had become a way of life for me, and connecting with this on-line group of people who had really very little in common except an eBay account, was, for the most part, entertaining.

For more than three years, this was the extent of my blogging.  Having started out trying to write helpful tidbits for other eBay sellers, I soon realized that most of the folks on those blogs were more seasoned sellers than I and no matter what "helpful" hints I might have, there were always those who had been there, done that, and knew better.... basically, there was no point in posting these types of posts.  And anyway, there was a natural inclination, when sitting before the computer, fingers poised to author a post, to tell a story.... and the stories that came to mind were those true experiences of my life.  So, over the years, that's where my posts evolved.

One of my earliest attempts at the story-telling posts follows:

"Monday, August 21, 2006


Another first husband funny -- true story

My post yesterday about my first husband and his DE accent got me thinking about some other funny episodes.

Every year, we had a big Halloween party for our friends in our local community theater group. (They love to dress up anyway.) We lived in a house in the woods with a 1/4 mile private dirt/gravel road/driveway. My then-husband, James, decided the number of people coming to the party would be more than we could easily accommodate parking-wise. So, he asked the folks at the little church at the end of our dirt road if we could use their parking lot for our guests. They were fine with that and James devised a plan. Our guests would be directed to park in the church parking lot and then he and another of our friends would give them rides on the trailer behind the tractor up to the house. Everyone agreed.

On the evening of the party our friend, Rich, arrived in time to help with the parking/chauffeuring duties. I opened the door to find this 50-something, very heavy, jovial friend of ours dressed as a ballerina...pink tutu and all!

I said, "Rich! What a great costume!" to which he smiled and explained, "James said he wanted Ballet Parking!!!"

I laughed until I cried! James' version of the English language always cracked me up! I could just see him having told Rich he wanted Valet Parking!"


In August or September of 2009, eBay announced they would close the Blogs... Let me tell you, there were naysayers.  They simply could NOT believe eBay would take away this forum that, they contended, gave eBay zillions of hits per day via the search engines.  They simply could NOT believe eBay would determine our "playground" to be less cost effective than they wanted.  They simply could NOT believe eBay was going to close the door on all of those on-line friendships that had developed over the years.  I believed, and went through the painstaking process of copying all of my posts that I determined worthy of "keeping" over to my new blog, a blog I had created on Blogger.  It was a lot of work, but by the "night the blogs went down in eBay,"  my posts were up and published in Blogger.

Maintaining those eBay-born friendships on-line since that time has been a more concerted effort.  There are alternate sites where others post their blogs, and there are the Facebook and MySpace forums, but nothing has the same ""feel" as did those blogs.  I'm not going to say I want the blogs back on eBay -- they definitely had their "issues," but I am happy they brought me to the blogging world.  I enjoy it.  It is an outlet and a chance to just "muse" on an almost daily basis.

October 31, 2009 was the date eBay announced was the be the last day for those blogs.... in true eBay "trick or treat" style, they shut them down a day early...

RIP eBay blogs.... I enjoyed you while you were part of my life!



16 comments:

Sharon said...

Oh Yah, I remember everyone planning on flooding it on the 31st! I knew ebay would pull the stunt they did. After they pulled that stunt (along with all the others - like higher fees and no more money orders etc) I pretty much slowed to a near stop. I sell only when I need cash yesterday - knowing I am gonna lose my behind in fees, and I buy only when it's something I need or I went there bored. I no longer just go to browse every day, I don't know who to trust anymore.

Sorry this got long, I am a little bitter about the whole experience.

I love my blog here, I'm not looking to buy or trying to sell, and you know - money is the root of all evil, LOL!

Happy Sunday!

aswesow said...

The ebay blogs definately were a horse of a different color. When ebay promoted them...I don't think they had envisioned that they'd evolve the way they did. It was fun tho, and interesting, and way too addicting! I remember saenzmom predicting what we'd go on to do with all our time "after the blogs" Wonder if she brought that post over to blogger?

Anonymous said...

imo those blogs died when the profanity and bullying went out of everyone's control... it was a terrific concept, cutting-edge, until it became a liability to associate that horrific out-of-control profanity with the selling platform... they were run for eBay by Live World, which i think still trades on the pinks as the symbol LVWD...

as for eBay's incredible mismanagement of the platform (their blatant lack of loyalty toward sellers), it doesn't escape me that at least in California, someone finally told meg whitman where to stick it... i absolutely loved it that the sellers finally got their say, even if in a strange roundabout way and even if only in the sunshine state...

i will say one thing - - as hateful as they could be, those blogs DID lead to many strong and lasting friendships and also did at least as much good as they did harm...

...take care judy... stay out of the bars (your last post, haha)...

Inger said...

I didn't know anything about those blogs, but I am so glad to have met you on Blogger. You tell some great stories and have some good adventures to talk about too.

Sharon said...

Oh, that is funny, I remember that nekked chicken and the list of predictions! It is still on her blog. I had thought to post a query as to who used to be on the ebay blogs and what names they used. I have found a few... ;-)

I wonder how many remember us?

Judy's Corner said...

Sharon,
Yep, eBay really did slam the sellers, which, they never seemed to understand meant that they were slamming the buyers... for there were very few amongst us sellers who were not also buyers. But "raise the fees, raise the fees, raise the fees" seemed their unrelenting battle cry.

Such a potential for a great platform has really been sucked away and not a whole lot of mom and pop sellers are making decent money on eBay....

Glad to have met those I choose to call friends through those blogs though!

Judy's Corner said...

aswe,

You are correct, they were rather addictive. I know that many, even after they quit commenting and posting, still peaked in to see what was going on... and see who was causing trouble... and cause trouble if they couldn't find someone already wreaking havoc!

How well I recall the battles of the "zero ID's!!"

Judy's Corner said...

Anon....

You obviously were there, because you speak for MANY who sadly watched a great idea turn into something most sane sellers would run from... (I am not exactly sane, I suppose). I too "giggled a little giggle" (as opposed to "smiled a little smile") when Meg got HER NEGATIVE FEEDBACK on election day!!! (Sorry Meg -- NOT!)

Enjoyed the blogs, enjoyed the people I met in real life from them, look forward to meeting more in the future, and am happy I have a place to write today where I don't have to worry about some nutcase leaving ugly, profane comments. (At least so far!)

Judy's Corner said...

Inger,

Meeting people on here is a little more work because there is no "front page" as there was in the eBay blogs... we basically have no idea who is posting what and when... With the front page, you could get a taste of a WIDE variety of bloggers, who you might not naturally find using keywords or something for favorite topics. I find new bloggers to read today by looking at the followers and who "else" they follow....

Nice to have "met" you, though I cannot recall today through whose blog I found you... Sharon's??? I dunno... doesn't really matter! I like to read what you write!

Judy's Corner said...

Sharon,

Ahhh yes, THE LIST.....

Mal had me on Oprah or something, until I bored them to sleep with my LONG WINDED STORIES and they fired me.... something like that... Whatever it was, I figured I'd better stick to the blogs where people could click in and click out if I bored them too sleep!

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

Okay, this has been a fun post! I've enjoyed reading some of the inside scoop of eBay, etc. I was hooked on buying for a couple of years, it was great therapy for me--Now I don't need eBay as therapy, I have blogging and facebook instead! :-))

Deborah Ann said...

I do ebay from time to time, but mostly I love to blog. Enjoyed reading your post...

Judy's Corner said...

Kim,

LOL... I think there were a LOT of people "hooked" on buying on eBay for a while. Even in the blogs, one of the popular things to do was to have "buying games." Basically, people would agree to buy something from one of the others playing the game, and in return, they would get their items included in the buying offers... of course, this did not mean a guaranteed sale for each player and, though I never participated, it looked to me to be a good way to start some of the on-line tiffs that got going in that place. It was pretty crazy. There were quite a cast of characters, and the only way to really describe it is LOUD... no, you couldn't HEAR the noise, but you could sure FEEL it... the commotion!

Anyway, this is a nice blogging environment, and it suit me fine!

Judy's Corner said...

Deborah Ann,

Thanks for reading! I'm not NEARLY as active on eBay as I once was, but I seem to have difficulty walking completely away from it. So I still sell there, although my store which once carried more than 500 listings, tends to hover around 100 these days... I still enjoy the interaction with the buyers, and the sellers from whom I buy.

mixednut555 said...

I miss the eBay blogs but am happy to have found a little niche of my own on this blog forum and on facebook. I found alot of good friends on eBay, a couple I have met in person and I'm sure I will be meeting a few more in the future. Anon..you sound suspiciously familiar. Thanks for a good post Judy. I almost always read your ebay posts and I look forward to your blog each day. Being in a different time zone and marching to a different drummer that the majority of the ebayers, I was hardly ever on ebay blogs in real time so that part I don't miss so much. I was ADDICTED to reading some of the worst of the culprits on ebay. LOL.

WV: masecks

Judy's Corner said...

Kat,
I miss the eBay blogs, truly, only because of the "easy access" to those friendships I made there. Otherwise, they were a great idea, that got really ruined with the inappropriate behavior by some "members" and the inability for eBay to correct the problem.... the redundant profaner was a particular drawback. Still, I am not sad they are gone. I, too, still have friends I "met" there, yet to meet in person... one day, one day. Those I HAVE met have been pretty awesome!

Addicted to reading some of the worst of the culprits? Yeah, a lot of people were, but it got pretty confusing when it became all the rage to delete comments... after-the-fact reading became a real challenge! And then when folks just started deleting their entire posts and sometimes their entire blogs, it was ridiculous!

I recall one time when bj instructed the entire "community" to delete ALL of their posts, except the most current one.... THIS, said she, would correct the "word verification" issue, that she contended was being caused by lack of storage space on the eBay servers.... SOOOO many people went and did just that, which was, of course, ludicrous! But so it went.

Blogging here is quite relaxing... and still entertaining... even without such "big affairs" as the Squirrel-Mule Wedding! LOL!