 |
|
|
  | |
. | |
T A B L E__T A L K Is this the winter of Bill's discontent? Follow the Microsoft trial and post your predictions in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk ___________________ Search barnesandnoble.com for
great technology book bargains
R E C E N T L Y The unbearable realness of virtual being Floppy with your Frappuccino? Let's Get This Straight There goes the neighborhood The telephone toll - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE - - - - - - - - - -
|
|
_____ADDICTED TO eBAY The auction site is the perfect place for Web users ____to get back in touch with the world of things and stuff. BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK | I admire people who don't accumulate possessions, but on some level I also distrust them. I just like things, especially old things, which to me have a sort of talismanic quality. I love the secret unspoken histories of vintage clothing, old toys and once-cheap costume jewelry -- my favorite pieces are made of Bakelite, a certain kind of plastic that had its heyday in the Depression and now fetches outlandish prices. Even if I wanted to be the kind of person who has no more than a bedroll and two feet worth of paperback books, I could never be, if only because my upbringing reinforced the somewhat warped idea that Things Are Good. My mother has always loved things, and began toting me at a tender age to antique shows and flea markets. Today she's 75, and her house is a wondrous (if sometimes frightening) jumble of ephemera, all of which somehow speaks to her: A small, framed picture of my late father shares space on the console TV with a stuffed mouse wearing pants and a three-foot-high Infant of Prague that's overdressed even for the Greenwich Village Halloween parade. Her tableaux are like a kind of visual poetry that says something of who she is, and it's a means of expression that, for better or worse, she's passed on to me. And so I blame my mother, who's never used a computer in her life, for my eBay fixation. In the old days, you used to have to actually venture into a shop looking for Russel Wright dinnerware or a souvenir of Paris charm bracelet -- two things that a person like me absolutely needs to feather her nest, if not to define herself. Now all I have to do is run a quick search on eBay, the explosively popular online auction site, to turn up a list of more "things" than even I could possibly want, offered for sale by people from all over the country and even the world. I'll be the first to admit it's a bit of a sickness, and there are probably lots of others like me. eBay matches up buyers and sellers electronically (it makes its money by charging sellers a fee to list their goods and by collecting a commission of up to 5 percent of completed sales) and every week features reams of listings for everything from software to apparel autographed by celebrities to special underwear designed to prevent yeast infections (no kidding). The service currently claims approximately 1.2 million registered users, and about 5 million visitors come to the site every month. (Six months ago, the number of registered users was 850,000; a year ago, 340,000.) eBay has received a blizzard of press in the past few months, particularly after its impressive initial public offering last September (the stock opened its first day of trading at $18 and closed at around $47). But for all the hoopla surrounding the site -- and for all the fears that it's becoming so popular that it's soon going to become unwieldy to use -- eBay spokespeople like Jennifer Chu are unwaveringly cheerful in their characterization of eBay as a community, albeit one that's poised to make a lot of money for itself. "It's true that once it does get bigger, maybe the world of who you know on eBay becomes bigger as well, and those close relationships you established with just a few people may be harder to find," Chu says. But eBay does provide bulletin boards where people can swap information on, say, Beanie Babies or sports memorabilia (two popular eBay attractions). "Knowing where the resources are is key to making your experience on eBay as 'community' or as 'small' as you like," Chu says. Personally, though, as much as I've enjoyed some of the interactions I've had with vintage-goods dealers across the country, I think of eBay less as a warm, fuzzy community than as an organism, a wily creature with an unfathomable number of muscular tentacles -- and there seems to be a new one reaching out to grab me practically every week. In my first three months as an eBay user, I increased my Bakelite bracelet collection by more than a third. For years, I'd practically given up on buying the stuff, since it's too expensive and difficult to find in my part of the country; but even though eBay attracts buyers of all stripes, many of them with pockets much deeper than mine, I still managed to snag a surprising number of beautiful pieces without -- totally -- breaking the bank. N E X T_ P A G E .|. Telling friends is like turning them on to junk -- the first hit is free! - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Arts & Entertainment | Books | Comics | Life | News | People
Politics | Sex | Tech & Business | Audio
The Free Software Project | The Movie Page
Letters | Columnists | Salon Plus
Copyright © 2000 Salon.com All rights reserved.
