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April 26, 2007
eBay Selling: New eBay Ruling Allows Video Links From Your Auctions
On April 16th, eBay announced they would now allow sellers to link to videos that promote their auction listings. They've got some examples for us to see:
Buy Pete's Awesome Martin Guitar
Trevor's Dancing Saturn Car
Copy Room Stapler
Vintage Lego Men
You Will Love G4
Buy Abbey's Bike
Some of these are quite fuuny - I especially like Pete's guitar and the copy room stapler.
Note: you CAN'T embed your videos in your auctions - which I've been doing for quite some time now! Darn it! I'll have to quit doing that, apparently, which I'm not pleased about. Videos have to be in Flash format and eBay has selected these sites as their hosting partners: YouTube, Google, MySpace, Microsoft, and AOL.
The Rules For Linking To Videos
Here are eBay's video rules:
* Links to a video in the listing provided they comply with the following requirements:
o The video must conform to all eBay policies, including but not limited to:
+ The seller must be the owner of the underlying rights, including intellectual property rights, or authorized to distribute it by the owners of such rights.
+ The video may not solicit unsafe payment methods such as Western Union.
o The video may not include software that harms or interferes with the viewer’s machine (for example, a virus or spyware), uses it for malicious or unauthorized purposes, or violates the buyer’s privacy.
o The video must deliver the content in flash animation format and be hosted by a site that takes strong measures to provide safe content that does not contain malware. To attempt to safeguard eBay members, sellers may only link to the following websites to host video: YouTube, MySpace, Google, AOL and Microsoft.
Non-permitted links include, but are not limited to:
* Links to websites or pages that offer to trade, sell or purchase goods or services outside of eBay. This applies whether it is a static URL or an active link.
* Links to sites that solicit eBay User IDs, passwords or email addresses from buyers
* Links that encourage buyers to place their eBay bids through a site other than eBay
* Links or other connections to live chat systems
* Links to subscribe to newsletters or mailing lists hosted outside-of-eBay
Videos & Reality 101
With these new linking rules, eBay is simply acknowledging a reality on the Internet - video is here and is not ever leaving. The future of Net sales lies, at least partly, with video. Righ now, video is a novelty - sort of. Soon, though, videos will be expected and sites without them will be behind in the Net selling game. This applies to eBay, too. How soon will this happen? We're seeing the first stirrings now, with such developments as eBay video linking and sites like Free IQ.
How do YOU learn about video? The best way I know is with the guidance of Jim Edwards and Mike Stewart. Thanks to them, we have videos all over out sites and plan on making many, many more.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at April 26, 2007 2:50 PM
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