Watch with eBay, Or Don’t

With the release of the latest eBay for iPad app, the company introduced the new “Watch with eBay” feature, which allows users to browse and buy eBay items related to the shows they’re currently watching on their TV. Does this sound ridiculous? It is. So far, Watch with eBay has failed to turn up any results that I couldn’t get just by searching for the title or lead cast members of the TV program I’m watching. For example:

Watching the movie Elf on USA turned up 43,117 items, mostly Will Ferrell movies and SNL compilations, an absurd number of creepy elf toys and figurines, a Buddy the elf costume, a greater number of generic red and green Christmas elf costumes, and a lot of Elf on the Shelf paraphernalia.

Miss Congeniality gave me a disappointing set of results – a wide selection of movies with either Michael Caine or Sandra Bullock, some of them in Greek and most of them obscure and dated. There was one Miss Congeniality press kit, far, far down the page.

Watching Stargate Atlantis was slightly more fruitful; eBay showed me DVD box sets, official costumes, signed photographs, collector’s cards, and jewelry designed like a stargate.

There was nothing in the results I couldn’t find with a few creative, or even not-so-creative, search terms. Watch with eBay offered a refined search for keywords like Elf, Will Ferrell, Sandra Bullock, or Michael Caine, as well as criteria like item condition, price range, or time limit. Entering Miss Congentiality into eBay’s search window, however, gave me more interesting results than Watch with eBay, and searching for other shows or related actors on eBay’s regular site turned up exactly the same, if not better, items.

If you’re interested in watching a commercial about the “Watch with eBay” feature that is almost as bad as the product it advertises, check here. If you’re still interested in the Watch with eBay feature, it’s available as part of the latest update of eBay’s iPad app.

Watch with eBay is a feature to sell you things you don’t need and things you probably never would have thought about, cared about, or wanted if Watch with eBay hadn’t “found” them for you. It’s the worst friend you could ever take shopping, encouraging you to buy all the things you want now but will regret later, when you realize they’re completely useless. It plays to our worst impulse-purchase and need-to-have-it instincts and could potentially come with the dirty and slightly shameful feeling that accompanies the worst hangovers. A fan of any show or sports team, a viewer enamored of a piece of clothing worn on TV, anyone with even the remotest idea of what they want, would be better Googling or searching in eBay for what they want.