Wiki's and blogs for E-Bay

IT World reports that EBay is beefing up community-building capabilities on its online auction site to include support for blogs, a new wiki for members to share information and new types of alerts for users to stay on top of sales, the company announced on Wednesday.

The eBay Wiki will let anyone post and edit articles on topics of interest to eBay users. The site, www.ebaywiki.com, looks a lot like a blog, including the capability for visitors to post comments about articles. But unlike a blog, anyone can alter the content of existing posts.

Visitors can browse headlines based on categories including eBay policies, seller tools and specialty sites. Many of the articles posted on the site so far are how-to type articles that might help users learn about how eBay works. JotSpot Inc., a Wiki technology and hosting company, powers the eBay Wiki.

In addition to the wiki, eBay is also now hosting blogs for users. EBay enthusiasts can create blogs that will appear on the blogs.ebay.com Web site. Bloggers can post photos, allow others to comment on their postings and enable RSS (Really Simple Syndication).

The blog site is arranged in two columns: one lists all of the latest postings across all of the blogs and the other links to individual blogs by title. So far, many of the bloggers appear to be written by eBay sellers hoping to draw attention to items for sale.