posted on June 10, 2000 07:21:50 PM new
AMY - I am not a member of OAUA but I have to say that you are upset that less than 1/10th of 1% of the eBay community could influence how the whole is treated. - That's how it has always been in human affairs. How many people like Ralf Nader acted against what GM saw as their business to try to get safer cars? Most people just buy the car and never complain.
How many people went down South and marched for civil rights to change what the government saw as it's right to regulate. Very few. How many hundred Spanish came to Central America and overthrew the goverments backed by millions of local people? In little towns how many people does it take to get a new traffic light or a law to force out adult bookstores? Six? A dozen?
Small groups almost always make changes. The crowd usually does not come to their feet in a mass cry for change.
Were the people who worked for civil rights wrong because instead of doing everything
as individuals someone printed pamplets and someone hired buses?
If you think it is a small group who DON'T
like thge banner ads go count and see how many WANT them for whatever reason.
Most people just don't really have a lot of passions for issues. They are too busy with what is important to them. For most eBay is way down the list if they don't make their living there - and few do.
posted on June 24, 2000 02:09:00 PM new
"posted on June 9, 2000 12:48:01 PM
I really like the *idea* of the OAUA, but I am very displeased when in another thread I was informed that the ISSUE is not the rate of click-throughs --- which all studies prove to be infintesimal, but rather that this move showed that eBay was taking a new direction, in favor of corporate retail."
~ ~ ~ ~
I have genuinely assumed that the eBay was taking a *swift* short business ploy of soaking the remaining e-tailers for advertising monies, whilst there still remained any e-tailers left who actually had any monies in their coffers, much less still remaining in their advertising budgets. I thought there was a rather cynical, but brilliant, strategy at work in all this.
posted on June 24, 2000 02:23:09 PM new
Earlier in this messagethread I was interested to read:
dc9a320
posted on June 9, 2000 04:11:37 PM
"Hmm, I had forgotten about the 'close your doors and sell with us' implications of eBay's prior press releases. That puts an even worse spin on what they are doing now."
~ ~ ~
Does anyone have links to any of these prior press releases?
I do remember that the eBay was doing a huge amount of advertising about a year and a half ago, and at that time there were numerous threads in which I participated asking, why eBay ads were targeting potential sellers, as bringing more items for sale would simply decrease the final high bids, and that already there was too much merchandise, in comparison to the sparse bidding population.
posted on June 25, 2000 01:42:43 AM new
I'm not an OAUA member but an inclined to agree with their position on this one. It's common P.R. tactics to try to pose the choice as one between ads and higher fees (i.e. a supposed choice between one negative option or another, even more negative option). But that's premised on believing that that in fact is the situation and the choice, and I'm not buying that. Remember the Wall Street hype about 70% margins in the core business? None of that has changed. If they're in a crunch it's not because they're hiring too many customer service or SafeHarbor people or spending too much on computing equipment and support. Maybe they're overextended in non-core areas (wouldn't be the first time a business has done that), but the core ones are becoming overmilked cash cows.
posted on June 25, 2000 03:34:55 AM new
I agree with toyranch (and I am not taking sides). On this topic of the banner ads (this has probably been done to death in this message section) but does anyone actually click on the banners? are any of the banners ever appealing? NO? I trust the USA today article addresses this? I am about to read it now. Fellow AW users, your views are welcomed...
Web publisher says banners have proved a disaster by Rick Perera, IDG.Net September 21, 2000,
"Advertising on the Internet has been 'an absolute, complete, unmitigated failure,' said Jason McCabe Calacanis, Editor and Chief Executive Officer of Silicon Alley Reporter."
posted on September 24, 2000 04:42:04 PM new"We have to come up with a form of advertising on the Internet that's disruptive," he continued.
Ughh...
Maybe banner ads aren't so bad after all when the alternative is forcing customers to watch a commercial.
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