REVIEW: Free mobile Web site outbids downloadable eBay Mobile app

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Yay or Nay, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week we’ll review a new wireless application or service from the user’s point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works and what doesn’t in the mobile content industry. If you wish to submit your application or service for review, please contact us at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.
Application: eBay Mobile app and Web site
Running on: LG Venus on Verizon Wireless and Sanyo M1 on Sprint Nextel
Yay: Both the eBay Mobile app and Web site provide quick and simple access to eBay listings as well as eBay account information.
Nay: There appears to be little reason to pay $4 per month for the eBay Mobile application when the eBay Mobile Web site is available for free.
We say: For serious, addicted eBayers, the $4 per month mobile application might be worth the investment. However, for the rest of us normal folks, the eBay Mobile Web site is just fine.
Online auction service eBay offers two methods of mobile access: a mobile Web site and a downloadable application. I accessed the mobile Web site through Sanyo’s M1 phone, and I downloaded the $4 per month eBay Mobile application via Verizon Wireless’ Get it Now service on the LG Venus.
Both the mobile Web site, available at http://m.ebay.com/, and the downloadable application gave me access to the core features of eBay’s service. I could search for items and view images and descriptions of the search results. I could bid for specific items, and I could track my buying and selling activity through my eBay account.
Indeed, the two different methods of access returned virtually identical information, although the mobile Web site performed slightly slower than the application. There appeared to be only one feature available on the eBay Mobile application that was not available via the company’s mobile Web site: A “price check” feature that provided the maximum, median and minimum prices for a given search term.
Additionally, it appeared that text message alerts-messages that warn bidders if they’ve been out-bid-are free to users of the downloadable eBay Mobile application, but cost 25 cents per auction item for mobile Web surfers. However, since mobile Web users access the site for free (aside from the standard carrier data-access charges) they would have to sign up for alerts on 16 separate auction items to equal the $4 per month cost of the downloadable application.
Thus, the $4 per month charge for the eBay Mobile application is not practical since the eBay Mobile Web site provides much of the same information at no cost. (Carriers’ data-access charges play into both scenarios, and are therefore discounted.)