Thank yo so much for the comment! We wouldnt be where we are without you!

-ShoeMetro

At first, I thought you were referring to the fact that at least 3 competing watch counters have surfaced in the last few months. Now I’m thinking it must have been my “about me” page.

I wish we had started some of these projects sooner. I think the guys at Sellathon hit the sweet spot. All that information from the location and referrer will soon be gone. It looks like only the item number will remain. I hope Auctiva got their money’s worth.

Our watch counter was a 2-week turn. It may not be pretty right now, but it’s functional. It differs from you and Jake in that it’s inserted/updated automatically. You can still control the placement by preinserting an empty shell. The watch count is available for all listing types for the entire life of the listing. As I expected, most people don’t bother to remove ended items from their watch list.

What do I really think of eBay? It’s a chaotic sprawling mess that will eventually implode. I will continue to sell, but all future listings will be completely autogenerated based on whatever eBay supports that day. I’m surprised you could find enough good listings to build the badge. I haven’t touched our eBay store in almost a year. I decided that I wasn’t going to invest any more time in eBay-centric tools. I’ve been busy building the perfect backend system. We should be ready to roll with the new fixed-price core.

The internet is a small world with lots of people who don’t get enough sleep…

Sellathon hit the sweet spot? I agree they entered the market at the right time, but they had to do their hit counter the hard way by tracking the hits and the referring URLs on their own servers. That’s an expensive solution. Eventually they got tired and sold their small 3-4 person business to Auctiva.

Now that “round tripping” is prohibited, the clever 3rd party solutions like Sellathon will no longer be developed – except, of course for us 3 watch counter folks!

I’m an optimist. The eBay ecosystem will morph into something really good. We’ll be ready for it!

Michelle

The new view-item page is now live at sandbox.ebay.com. Look what I found in the source:

‘You’re the first person to watch this item. Don’t let it get away!’

‘person is watching this item. Place a bid and improve your chances to buy this item.’

‘people are watching this item. Place a bid and beat them to buy this item!’

I wonder what that’s for?

–David

Well, we’ll just have to build a better watch counter!

I had a feeling eBay had a watch counter in the works based on their reaction at my one-on-one technical session at the Dev Conf.

Michelle