EBay’s desktop AIR application downloaded 1,000,000 times

Tagged as: technology, trends
Posted by: Chris Berk 

 

Last October at the annual Adobe MAX conference, EBay shared a beta version of its new desktop application built using Adobe AIR technology, fittingly called EBay Desktop. Since its 1.0 release in February, the application has been downloaded 1,000,000 times…several times by me to try it out. Once downloaded and installed, I found that the application’s interface was elegant and intuitive and functioned very well on the desktop (outside of the browser). All basic buyer functionality is available through the desktop app – searching/filtering products, bidding, making payments, etc. The desktop app uses your existing EBay account to provide a seamless interaction between the desktop application and the EBay website. While the functionality is robust, it is only for buyers – no selling activity can take place using EBay Desktop.

EBay’s desktop application is definitely a great app. But I kept wondering why it is a desktop application? It makes no use of the capabilities available to it as a desktop app – like access to the file system, printing functions, and other features. Also, the application is essentially disabled if you are not connected to the internet (i.e. offline). This makes sense given that buyers spend their time searching for and buying stuff – both activities that require you to actually connect to EBay. However, most desktop applications are developed to work as effectively offline as when connected. Additionally, every thing that EBay Desktop does, including the look and feel, could have been accomplished inside the browser using the same technologies. So it makes me wonder why this became a desktop application – requiring users to download and install it…1,000,000 times! – instead of just running it as a really cool RIA inside of the browser? While there is plenty of use for a solid desktop app, EBay Desktop seems to be a desktop app because it could be, not because it should be.

Tagged as: technology, trends

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