Edgeio an eBay killer?
Some have opined that Edgeio may become an eBay killer app, like this blogger:
"I'm still in the process of playing around with Edgeio, but I can guarantee that you that this service will be big. With such influential people like Michael Arrington leading the party, they can't go wrong. People that have signed up are starting to get their invitation codes in their e-mail."
But, eBay has some compelling amounts of marketshare which might be hard to overcome.
What's the likelihood that bloggers and webmasters will adopt Edgeio wholeheartedly, and drop off on visiting eBay? Free is cool, but I'm betting most of the blogosphere doesn't even know Edgeio exists.
I betcha that if Edgeio's biz model begins to look successful, eBay might just buy them out, or else might independently deploy a similar system.
eBay is working on being progressive and developing out their RSS features, so I've no doubt they're keeping an eye on trends like Edgeio.
i'm not a believer, mainly
i'm not a believer, mainly because i think it's the kind of thing google could crush almost overnight, without even thinking about it. consider:
1. edgeio is a technology company.
2. more specifically, edgeio is a media aggregation company.
3. they dont seem to have a clear revenue model, but presumably it's going to be advertising-based. contextual advertising seems to fit well.
google is all three of those, and so is yahoo.
IMHO edgeio is a quintessential example of what's wrong with the vast majority of web 2.0 companies:
1. they went horizontal way too soon; should've started in a niche
2. value proposition is not strong enough and/or not clear enough; i.e. most people dont even know what RSS is -- try explaining this to them. this might not be a big problem if they focused on a tech-friendly niche, but since they went horizontal from the start, it becomes a problem.
bad branding
stupid name.
Think of the adwords opportunities
Get in on the domain typos fast! There's got to be a million of them. Rule number 2 of domain name selection, it's got to sound like it spells and spell like it sounds. edgio? edjio? edgeo?
Fizzle. Read the whole first post, and nowhere does it say what they do - which is ominous. Ebay's an online auction. Craigslist is online classified ads. Nice, short and sweet. As noted, this thing has no clear direction and no compelling reason to visit there. Taking 'blog' and 'classified' and mixing them isn't new, it's just kinda nothing.
IMO, kidmercury's analysis
IMO, kidmercury's analysis is perfect.
What Is Rss? ;)
Kidmercury is right.
Ebay has audience. Most of that audience does not know what RSS is, nor do they publish websites. The minute they do, Ebay will adopt and push those features.
Web 2.0 features do not a business model make.
devil's advocate...
taking the devil's advocate role for just half a second -- one of the charming features of Edgeio is that it's already working with non-RSS blogs -- it doesn't require special coding/knowledge to participate.
Also, they apparently do have a fee/advertising model -- apparently there are free basic listings, but for various upgrade features you can pay a quarter, or something like that.
I generally agree with you guys, though -- the business model looks a bit shaky at the outset, and with lotsa marketshare, it'd be hard to lure folx away from eBay or Craigslist.
No fear for ebay
Conceptually has merit, the implementation stinks.
Tried playing with it a bit and it's slow as hell and that geography selector thingie is a joke.
IMO the only thing this app will kill is itself.
Looks like...
...Craigslist smashed together with tagging and RSS and then threw up in an online auction site UI.
Sorry for the crude visual.
SB