I’ve never twittered and never sold or bought on eBay. To me the technology and the hassle of the latter are daunting. I came across a franchise chain, iSold It, which solves the fact that I’m eBay-challenged.
Drop off your item at an iSold It store and they handle auctioning it on eBay and sending it to the lucky buyer. They take a cut of the proceeds and send you a check for the rest.
It’s not worth it for a low-value piece of, to quote Weird Al Yankovic, “the kind of stuff you’d throw away,” but worthwhile for a higher-value item. EBay is a business made possible by the internet, and iSold It is a business made possible by eBay. Technological change generates cascades of related businesses and creates jobs and services previously unimagined. How many other examples are there of a new technology that generates a new business than in turn creates yet another type of new business that feeds into it?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I’m pretty sure you can get paid to ghost-write tweets for celebs.
So this is really an example of new business generating traffic for old business (internet driving traffic to strip malls). The best I can think of is Netflix and its intense symbiosis with the USPS.
In my experience the advent of netflix and online shopping has generated a big spike in interest for mailboxes etc. type shops that offer secure mail pickup and easy shipping.
iSold It <- Ebay <- The Internet <- Al Gore
Buying and selling on EBAY might have been less hastle than buying two suits at Mens Warehouse.
I kind of look at this from the opposite angle. That is, if it’s worth the hassle of contacting these folks, isn’t it then worth the hassle of dealing with eBay yourself?
That’s the type of store Katherine Keener has in the movie 40 Year Old Virgin.
Who would have known that a plot device from The 40 Year Old Virgin would become reality (the female love interest had a start-up business called “I Sell Your Stuff on Ebay” that was made fun of repeatedly throughout the movie).
There are some people who should consider digital cameras a “facebook app”