posted on May 4, 2001 05:46:00 PM
I just checked out the new "sell your item" page. They stuck the Gawd offal " eBay Picture Services" stuff right on the sell page, and down below where all the "click here to select a picture" boxes (with the 15 cent price tags)are, in small letters it says:
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Or
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Enter the Web Site address of your hosted picture optional
For technically advanced users who host their own pictures instead.
Just how d@mn technically advanced to you have to be to cut and paste a URL?
I'm paying $5.00 a month for 60 megs of webspace, and can post any size or number of pictures I want, keep the pictures online as long as I like, and as long as I don't use it for smut, do about anything I want with MY 60 megs of space. At 15 cents a pop for *small* pictures, plus added fees for "supersizing" (ie. regular sizing) pictures, etc, ebay's picture service isn't worth the money unless you are only posting a very few auctions.
I guess eBay would like to have new sellers THINK you have to be a rocket scientist in order to post pictures any way but ebay picture services.
posted on May 4, 2001 07:54:04 PM
I think eBay wants all sellers to use IPIX. You only get one crappy compressed image for free and have to pay for any other crappy compressed images. I don't think I have ever used just one image in a auction... Another way for eBay to make $$$. I wouldn't be surprised if down the line new sellers will be required to use IPIX.
What amazes me is that I estimate in the last month more that 65% of the auctions I have viewed have IPIX images. (If you can call small dark gray blobs images).
I think initially people used IPIX because it was free, and it is easy. Now I think people use it because it is there and they are used to it.
But what really, really amazes me is that now that sellers are paying for IPIX there hasn't been very loud complaints about the quality of the images and the small size. I know there have been quite a few auctions I have passed on without bidding because of the IPIX images. I couldn't figure out what the hell was in front of me. And... if you use AOL and you don't find your way around the preferences and uncompress the images it is even worse. I hate to think what AOL users are seeing on their screens. Images compressed by IPIX and compressed again by AOL.
But the worst part is actually paying eBay a fee for horrible hosting.
posted on May 5, 2001 12:49:27 AM
The only way to have a thumbnail photo show up to the left of the title bar on your listing page is to upload an image to eBay/IPIX, isn't it? If you put a URL in the "Picture URL" box instead, will the photo show up as a thumbnail at the top left of your listing page?
I've been uploading a photo to eBay/IPIX so the listing will have the thumbnail at the listing page top....and I put the URL for the same photo (hosted elsewhere at full size) in the top of my description so there will be a decent photo in the listing (the terrible IPIX compressed photo is way down at the bottom).
I can't imagine PAYING for poorly-compressed IPIX photos, but I was under the impression that ONLY the first one (the free one) becomes the thumbnail, and nothing else will.
