Nice point contrasting eBay's spin about their outage, hard data, and the absence of seemingly obvious questions on the part of the media.
AuctionBytes on eBay spin:
Monday Morning Quarterback: eBay's Spin on Search Outage
By: David Steiner Mon Nov 23 2009 14:17:06"The unanticipated technical issue resulted from a surge in live listings as sellers ramp up for the holiday season. EBay currently has more than 200 million live listings, 33 percent more than at this time a year ago. The company said the technical issue, once identified, was easily fixed."
-- eBay
AuctionBytes asks good questions:
Why would eBay go with this response, which is so quantifiable? It's the type of stuff that makes sports talk shows so popular on Mondays - because 20/20 hindsight is always the clearest.
Never mind that on Medved and PowerSellersUnite auction counts, there is barely a blip in the number of listings that came in over the past few days. But, 2 weeks before the supposed surge to 200 million listings, eBay was already stating it had close to 200 million live product listings. (See this eBay press release.)
Evidently, much of the mainstream press was willing to accept eBay's answer at face value, instead of asking some relevant questions like:
• "How many listings came in on the weekend that caused the outage?"
• "Isn't eBay's platform robust enough to handle a surge in traffic and/or listings?"
• "It's November 21 - why are sellers still "ramping up" for the holiday season?"
• "You claimed 200 million listings in early November, it's still at 200 million - where's the surge?" [Read more]
posted by: gqpartner
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