eBay's 'Idea Garden'

The Internet provides opportunities for collaboration and input of information that is so great. One of the trends in web 2.o is characterized by an emphasis on collaboration. Although this process is not yet dominant in the country, many applications have emerged, both international and local, that support this collaborative process.

For local applications, one of them is Scraplr that I've ever seen discuss on DailySocial, for the latest international applications are Gmail Buzz, as well as several other applications that allow collaborative work processes in one place that support productivity.

For many companies, crowd source or 'throwing' and getting feedback from users or the general public provides various benefits that are sometimes invaluable, although of course the crowd source program will definitely be adjusted to the company's needs. For example Starbucks with myStarbucks ideaher and Google with her Google labs.

And now, one of the largest online marketplace sites on the eBay internet, is launching Garden by eBay. As written by VentureBeat who quotes bits blogs from the NY Times, that Garden by eBay is one strategy to find out user responses before an application is launched to the public.

With a very large number of items, and fanatical users, and around 90 million active users, anything that changes from the eBay service will always get a response, still as written NY Times, a facility like this lab will accommodate various tools that can be used on eBay but have not yet been rolled out to the public. Users can choose to use certain features, rate them and or give criticism to the eBay team, later like some crowd source systems, the features that users like will be used on the main eBay site.

EBay itself through the Garden by eBay page explains that this 'idea garden' is an opportunity for users to participate in the development carried out on their site, and provide greater experimentation to users because they take part in determining what features they want to see. and will be implemented on the eBay site.

EBay also promises that suggestions and criticisms will be directly conveyed to the team that builds these features so eBay also expects that users to provide honest suggestions.

Later there will be two types of gardening methods in this eBay-style Garden, Seeds and Plants, Seeds for features that can be tried for use with the opt-in system while Plants for features that cannot be used or have not 'passed the test'.

For now, there is one feature that is included in the seeds category, namely Streamlined Search which is a feature that helps users to more easily use the search feature, both in terms of the view and the browsing experience.

As for the features that fall into the Plants category, there is a feature called Diamond Ring Designer which is one of eBay's ways to provide an interactive experience in customizing the perfect diamond ring.

For local users who often use eBay, you can visit the eBay-style garden and start trying out the features here this link.

One thing is for sure, crowd source is one way that can be used as a tool for web service providers or startups, including local to get input before launching a new product, although it must be realized that sometimes there are also many opinions that are not in accordance with what is expected to be present. through this system.

What is your opinion? Are you a startup, if so, are you interested in creating your own lab? Or you have other opinions for this new eBay program, don't hesitate to share your opinion in the comments column.