I have come across several articles today about a Facebook (online Social Network site) & eBay (online Auction site) collaboration, most notably over at GigaOM. In short you can display your eBay data right on your Facebook profile. This includes items you have won, items you have for sale and broadcasts blogs, favorites and other eBay content to all your friends in Facebook.
It is a simple collaboration across two very popular websites. It is also one heck of a teaming of a social site with an eCommerce site. Having yet another avenue to advertise items for sale and the possibility of using friends lists and social network sites to do so is a can’t miss prospect. I am sure it won’t be long before social network biggie MySpace follows suit with some similar collaboration.
I have dabbled with Facebook but never much cared for its interface. I did jump right in and try out this new feature after reading the news. The setup is easy. Try this link to get started if you have both a Facebook & eBay profile. After moving through a few screens and agreeing to terms and conditions the content pops right up on your profile. It was a little jarring to see the last seven items I won there for all my friends to review. Thankfully there is a feature to toggle who can see your content. If I was a heavy eBay seller I would love the feature of broadcasting my items for sale - who doesn’t like additional, and free avenues for promotion.
For those of you who do sell, and who do maintain social network profiles this is for you. It will be interesting to see what other apps come from this teamup - what other companies can develop plugins to jump into these social sites that people spend so much time visiting.