i have recently become absolutely addicted to ebay! its terrible. but, in my auction search for prince items i realized what a great idea it would be for the org to have some sort of auction section. i know it would have to be for legit items and not bootlegs and stuff. also, i know that there is already a marketplace section but that is not the same. does anyone else share this opinion of mine?

No.

Long long ago, in prince.org 1.0, we actually HAD this feature... a page with the latest prince-related auction items, linked to ebay. It was pretty neat. I know a lot about this stuff because my previous employer is an auction-services company, and I have several friends now working at eBay.

Anyhow, I've been speaking to eBay about this recently. We have a difference of opinion, though. They want me to use the "affiliate" system that has this nasty-looking javascript output list of items, that slows down page loads, and doesn't filter very effectively. I want to use their XML API, and apply my own custom filtering (which gets rid of a LOT more off-topic items). They'd like me to pay to use the API, which I'm not going to do, because this is mostly a benefit for them, monetarily.

Perhaps we'll resolve it soon... but that's the status. And yes eBay is addictive! And yes I'd like to have this feature, but implemented with control, quality, and up to my standards.

ben said:

Stick to your guns!
I've seen some awful sites which have links to ebay. You'd get loads of Prince Charles memorabilia on the homepage!

Plus more adverts = more competition for me = more bids = higher prices for the Prince stuff I want!!