Shoestring Theory

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“eBay Ink” blog to give access to company innards

March 6, 2008 at 7:04 pm by thetheorist

Forbes Small Business has an exclusive interview with Richard Brewer-Hay, who will launch a new “no-holds-barred” blog for eBay in April called “eBay Ink.”

Unlike eBay’s existing blogs and forums, which focus on more traditional (and sanitized) corporate communications, eBay Ink aims to give readers a peek inside eBay’s internal operations. Brewer-Hay has pledged to write unbiased entries about what he observes as an all-access employee of the $7.7 billion dollar company.

When questioned about the influence eBay would have over him, Brewer-Hay responded:

RBH: My words go straight up onto the blog, unedited.

It’s got to be transparent. There’s got to be an authenticity to it, an honesty to it, otherwise there’s not point in doing it in the first place. I’m going to open up my e-mail to questions from folks. People can comment, too, and comments are going to be open. You’re going to get the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It kind of goes back to what I was saying at the beginning. They hired from outside the organization. I have no prior agenda with any of the execs or people in the company. I’m still in the process of getting to know them. I haven’t met a lot of them yet. That’s a big, important thing.

The other thing is, this is my job. There are no other jobs that I’m doing. Some corporate blogs are just side gigs for existing employees, but I’m doing this 100%, day-to-day.

Brewer-Hay said he buys on eBay and will begin selling now that he is working for them, so he hopefully he actually understands some of what the rest of us do on a regular basis. The interview is mostly background and some descriptions of what he hopes to accomplish.

We’ll see how good this is once it officially launches. I really hope this doesn’t evolve into another PR mouthpiece for eBay and actually shines some light into the corporate offices.

[Link to FSB Interview]

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