EBay (EBAY) unveiled some long-promised changes to its e-commerce site on Tuesday. Some of the most vocal eBay sellers are giving the changes tepid applause–but still complain eBay isn’t addressing a more fundamental problem for buyers with the fees it charges.

The company says it will tweak its user interface by adding features such as “Smart FAQs” from buyers to cut down on the number of repeat questions from buyers. Seller Tony Madalone, who runs an eBay t-shirt shop called Vintage Classic Threads, likes the new tools for package-tracking and label-printing that eBay is building into the site. “I always thought that it could be changed to be more user-friendly and allow sellers to be more efficient,” he said.

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Whether you call it “social networking,” “social media,” or “online collaboration” depends on your point of view. In business, the term tends to be “online collaboration,” which suggests complex jobs getting done more efficiently by teams of people wherever they are located. The productivity gains–which are substantial, albeit often hard to measure–have drawn lots of companies into the market. As the market matures, we will see consolidation. And we’re interested in seeing what form this consolidation will take.

Historically, the game was to lock in users and then “sell” to that user base. That may be changing. The game is now all about user adoption, and lock-in is minimal. User interface magic may matter more than balance sheet clout. In this post, we’ll take a look at what features and services make up online collaboration in the enterprise and what will likely drive their consolidation.

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In its first major upgrade ever, Google Blogsearch just relaunched and looks radically different. Instead of the blank page look of Google.com, Blogsearch now looks like Google News (but uglier)–with the hottest topics from the blogosphere aggregated on the front page. Readers can drill down in 11 different categories, including technology, business, sports and entertainment. Google says you can use Blogsearch to see what the world is talking about.

The user interface isn’t nearly as nice as leading tech blog memetracker Techmeme, but the new Blogsearch has some major advantages.

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