Each week we will try and highlight one of the new Preview Panels to give a better understanding of the features.

Click here to read about how to customize your own Preview Panels.

We wanted to start with the Ebay Preview Panel which is one new option that we are REALLY excited about. We know that a lot of you in our AOL community are also eBay users and so we built a preview panel designed especially for you. When you add the eBay Preview Panel, you get an area right on the portal to be able to not only search for items in eBay, but also track specific items right from the AOL.com page! This gives you the ability to access eBay listings directly from the AOL.com site without having to navigate away or open multiple windows. I know news stories, ads, and other shopping items usually jog my memory of things I might want to search eBay for, so this gives a really easy way to do that right from the AOL.com page.

When you add the eBay Preview Panel, the default view when you put your mouse over the eBay icon will show a search view.

If you type in a search term ("Boston Red Socks" for example – sorry Yankee fans...) into the eBay search box, the results will show directly in the panel with the items whose auctions are finishing soonest listed at the top. If you hold your mouse pointer over any of the items in the search results, you will see a preview of the item including an image (where provided by the seller), number of bids, current price, and the buy-it-now price.

If you click on any specific item from the search results, you will see a more detailed description of the item including how much time is left, reserve info, and other details.

From here, you can do go back to your search results or start a new search over from the beginning. At this time, you aren't able to bid on items directly from the eBay Preview Panel, but if you click on the item from the detail page in the panel, it will take you directly to the eBay site to bid or do other eBay actions.

The really cool feature we added is the ability to track an eBay item on your AOL.com page. If you do a search within the eBay preview panel and then click on an individual item, you will see an option to "Track this item on AOL". When you click this, your computer will remember what you are tracking within the eBay Preview Panel. So you can go off and surf the net, check email, do some work, pay some bills, and when you come back to the AOL.com site and put your mouse over the eBay icon in the Preview Panels, you will see your tracked item updated with the most current info and also have the ability to search for other things.

It's really useful to keep an eye on something your bidding on without having to spend time to navigate all over the Internet!! If you decide you no longer want to track a specific item, just simply click "Clear item" and then you can search for and track something else.

Try it out now at AOL.com and let us know what you think. We look forward to your feedback!!!

Sanjay
Sr Product Manager
AOL.com