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eBay has embraced "social commerce" by adding blogs and wikis to its member offerings. EBay sellers can set up a blog at their eBay storefront or contribute to the eBay community wiki.

The company is expected to talk more about the additions to its services at the upcoming eBay Live conference in Las Vegas June 13-15.

"eBay Blogs will enable sellers to more efficiently market their products," says Steve Rubel. "eBay Wikis meanwhile collect fact-based articles written and maintained by eBay Community members."

A blog to go along with an seller's list could be a great way to give more information about products, their histories, and success stories. The blogs are free and will have URLs reading http://blogs.ebay.com/userID. eBay blogs will have tagging capabilities as well to enhance the search results on the site.

The eBay Wiki could be a useful tool for building seller credibility. As the author of a knowledgeable product author, buyers may come to recognize a seller as an expert.

Is this beginning of a more robust ecommerce social network? Rubel seems to think so:

"Conversation drives commerce so integrating blogs, wikis and tags into the eBay toolkit is a natural extension to their core platform, which has long included discussion boards. I would not be surprised to see the company take this a step further and build eBay into a giant social network that lets like-minded buyers and sellers find each other."

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