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eBay launches embeddable listing widgets

Good grief - eBay is actually doing something useful. Today, as covered by TechCrunch (I copied their widget, btw), eBay has released embeddable flash widgets. Anyone can widget any auction, and any widget you see can be easily cloned for embedding in your own site (as I did with the one on TC, it was about a 5 second process).

The widgets, are slick, useful, and easy. The are created through togo.ebay.com, and can take a variety of formats (single items, search results, slideshows). The process is very straightforward, with the exception of the fact that you need to manually enter an Item ID.

That Item ID part is the big opportunity that eBay is missing with this: IMHO it would just make sense to embed the creation tool in each listing page so that anyone can promote any listing without the need to copy and paste Item ID’s between eBay sites. A single click, in-listing widget creation tool would get much more utilization. Hopefully this is in the cards.

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