To discuss interview opportunities, please contact:

Millie Lee

Corporate Communications

eBay, Inc.

2145 Hamilton Avenue

San Jose, CA 95125

The email contained a phone number as well as email contact info. Well, as was the case last year for eBay Live 2007 we submitted NUMEROUS requests via email, and at least 2 voice mails indicating our interest in interviewing eBay management.

As you probably guessed, we did not receive any response to our requests. So, for 2 years ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business was shut out of any opportunity to interview ebay management. Now, I really did not like being shunned the first year, and was more than a little miffed when we did not even receive a No Opportunity Available response.

Why would a company such as eBay make such an offer and then not respond to the requests?

When ebay & Beyond: Basics To Business arrived Thursday morning to begin setting up for our broadcasts, we were told by security at the vendor entrance that we would need to be ESCORTED by eBay staff to be allowed into the event. So off Sparky and I went, back to the Public Relations Office and Millie Lee advised us after some discussion (apparently) with higher ups, that we would be assigned an escort (Chris, who was fantastic by the way) who would accompany us. So we had a shadow, following us as we set up our broadcasting equipment, and then sat in the background while we made our first broadcast.

It apparently became clear that we would not be trying to overthrow eBay with our broadcasts, and Chris, though available to us, did not feel the need to shadow us the entire time.

I saw one situation where a vendor requested to bring in a videographer to video the vendors booth and that request was denied.

Except for the cell phone videos taken clandestinely during some of the break-out sessions, and authorized eBay videographers, we did not see news media taping on the Exhibit floor as we have in past years.

It is our perception that eBay was concerned over possible unrest amongst the members attending the event and worked very hard to restrict access to media on all fronts. While this may not have been the case, one of the oldest marketing sayings hold true here,,,,,, Perception is everything!

I do want to say that we were invited to attend a "bloggers meeting" attended by the likes of Randy Smythe, author of MyBlogUtopia and Chris Dawson and Sue Bailey from the UK's very own TameBay. This was attended by eBay staffers including Richard Brewer-Hay author of the eBayInk blog , Usher Liberman, eBay spokesperson as well as Brian Burke and Dinesh Lathi among others. The meeting was informative on a few issues, but lacked any real breaking news that the general seller could look forward to. I want to thank Richard for inviting us and all the panel members for sharing. It was one of the few bright spots from an interview standpoint with eBay.

We will discuss this issue and much more this week on ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business so be sure to listen live every Saturday morning from 10 AM to Noon EDT by logging onto www.basicstobusiness.com.