...This eBay formatted version of our Blog will be ending soon and then deleted! That's because eBay has opted to close their eBay Blog Platform by sticking the following header notice at the top of the eBay Blog Front Page, as well as at each individual eBayer's blog and blog posts. You can't see the notice easily at the eBay version of our Blog because of the placement of our blog banner with our pics. The notice runs across our banner. Here is the header notice: eBay Blogs platform will be retired after 10/31/2009. Read more. When the 'Read more' link is opened, the reader will find the following: Goodbye eBay Blogs After October 31, 2009, we will be discontinuing eBay Blogs. While eBay Blogs provided useful and interesting information, we have decided to focus our efforts on what matters most to our members: making eBay the best place to buy and sell on the Web. We appreciate all the great articles that were published on eBay Blogs, and we'd like to thank these eBay member/bloggers for their contributions to the eBay Community. If you have created an eBay Blog, we encourage you to print out or save your blog entries before we close this section of our site. Remember, after October 31, 2009, these pages will no longer be available on the web.
I held off commenting here for a week after the 'notice' was first being 'seen' sometimes at the top of our eBay Blog. My first initial reaction would be understable to anyone else that has spent hours and hours posting blogs here on this platform... but I'm just not going to go there 'in print' even a week later! After all, with over 3,000 archived blog posts there was no way I could have gone back and 'saved' each one of them and bring over to a new blog format, even being given approx 50 days to do so... Which is great that I had the foresight to open up our Own Blog back in February 2007, when eBay changed the orignal blogging format in their first major rennovation. That rennovation came after first setting up the eBay blogs in June 2006. That experience told me that I had to be in control of my own Blog, because the eBay Blogging Platform was not 'ours', but 'theirs'. Those who have since looked at our earliest blogs here will see that the eBay blogging 'format' was changed at that time, thus distorting the look and images of the majority of our oldest archived blog posts that were more than a few text paragraphs when I was learning my way here. Well, I've just got this to say: I enjoyed the opportunity that eBay gave us to blog here. The first post was a simple blog post, on June 7th 2006 about seeing the X-Men film the day before. It was here that I first started learning the blogging process. I thank eBay for that, AND the $100 that I won for just blogging during the earliest period when they had the Grand Opening Blogging Contest for the eBay Blogs. I also quickly learned that with no guidelines set in place, that the 'blogging' that went on here at this platform was a 'different' kind of 'blogging', after researching what blogging was all about. Yes, there was 'blogging', and then there were other activities that went on here. We had the 'Chinese Spammers' that came in and posted their spam notes to visit their non-eBay stores on our blogs when we were asleep, which led to our personally closing down the 'comments option' when we weren't on blogging. Yeah, that's the main reason why! There's still old spamming comments on our older posts... it was a pain to go in and delete them especially when we weren't notified of a commenter's comment! I also found that although there were eBay Chat Rooms, and eBay Discussion Boards, and later on eBay Neighborhoods, that the eBay Blogs quickly turned into at times what could be considered a 'free-for-all rough and tumble' chat room. Yet what does eBay 'officially' say above when announcing they are closing this platform? "We appreciate all the great articles that were published on eBay Blogs... I think that eBay is being 'kind' in saying that sentence. Take a look at the blog posts that were posted on this platform. The vast majority are NOT articles, but instead were the cousins of 'tweets' etc. Nothing wrong in posting those notes elsewhere, but this was supposed to be a 'blogging platform'. That wasn't what this eBay Blog platform turned out to be in my opinion. Then again, what were the guidelines from eBay as to what the blogs were meant to be...? What about 'spam' posts that are posted all the time at the eBay Blogs? I was and am still fine with that, even if several are nothing more than posted with a title of 'Spam' and then a widget showing that eBayer's items for sale. Why anyone that is not a friend of that blogger would bother looking at a blog post titled 'Spam' is beyond my way of thinking, but hey, isn't showing off our eBay items part of the reason we were blogging here? However, I'm surprised that eBay hasn't closed this platform prior to this notice, what with so much of the activities here on the eBay Blogs requiring 'policing' by eBay staff. Too many and too often the 'blogs' would run rampant with charges and counter-charges against other bloggers, etc. No wonder eBay took off several (most / all ?) of the links directing eBay users and possible viewers to the eBay Blogs back in April of 2009! The eBay Blogs haven't had visibility on eBay itself since then. If it wasn't for the thouands of blog posts visible on search engines directing new people to find our posts, this format of our Blog would withered away long before now... I've seen too many eBayers leave this 'blogging' platform because of the activities of others. I hung in there, because this version of our Blog kept getting viewed every day by hundreds and at times thousands of other folks on the internet looking for information that our archived blog posts had. Our 3,000+ eBay formatted blog posts rank highly in several search engines, but soon those links will show something other than our Blog posts... (we don't know what... but it will be something that eBay will direct what could have been our possible customer to somewhere else within eBay. Or at least you would think so... because there are going to be continued visitors that see our 'blogs' in search engines until those get cycled out). I've also seen other eBayers who would come in, post a few 'blogs', stir up the waters, and then delete their posts, or even their entire 'blog' and start over again doing the same thing. Again, I'm not surprised at the official closing of the eBay Blog Platform after actions like these... However, and I don't mean to comment on this last, but I wanted to save something good for the end of this post... I've enjoyed making friends with those of you that have been forthright and caring / sharing individuals over the 39 months the eBay Blog platform has been around. You know who you are, and Yes, I've already 'friended' several of you over at my Facebook Network over the past few months. (Even though my personal FB Network is basically centering on persons working in or interested in Comics and other Pop Culture networking, not eBaying.) So yeah, I've been reading some of the wall posts since September 10th when eBay first started showing part of the announcement at the top of the eBay Blog Front Page, and realize that many of you will miss all the comraderie that has been built up over the months. I too will miss many of you, although I haven't stopped in as much here at the eBay version of our Blog lately, and quite honestly haven't added my comments to too many eBay Blog posts lately of others, because of time factors. Anyways, in closing, I want to give Thanks again to all of YOU reading our current and archived blog posts! We do and will continue to blog daily on comic book creators, comic book reviews, and other pop culture news and events including some TV shows and theatrical films, even if it is elswhere!While You are here today... Please check out our new listings of comics, graphic novels, Comic Con exclusives and more pop culture items for sale in our online eBay Featured Store that most of our blogs are based on! It's due to sales at this online store that keep us going with the ability to post blogs like the one you have read here today! And No, our eBay Store is Not Closing... just our eBay Blog! I have been saying in recent blogs posted at this eBay version of our Blog, that: "We appreciate your wanting to read our Blog, no matter which format it is published in, either at eBay that has several of our blog posts, or at our own domain name that has them all". But now, I want You blog readers that are reading this eBay version of our Blog to find us elsewhere on the web, now that eBay has opted to close the eBay version of Our Blog and thousands of others who had eBay Blogs. We will still be blogging there at our own Blog as we have since February 2007... and yeah, I for one will miss this eBay blogging platform, no matter how the 'blogs' platform ended... There's always 'Good' in things, no matter how things look at times. If nothing else, this experience has to emphasize the old saying: "Don't put your all your eggs in one basket"! ~ Michael @ ComicBookCollectorsBlog.com
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