Almost everyone has tried using eBay to buy or sell something (at least once). But the online auction site has recently seen its usage drop as alternate shopping options pop up.

So eBay is trying something new to attract and keep loyal consumers.

Welcome to eBay Neighborhoods, launching this week with a simple proposition: Birds of a feather flock together.

For instance, there's an iPhones Neighborhood ready to go, where users can share photos of their futuristic communicators, check out real-world reviews, or just express their love for Apple's first mobile phone.

Oh, and there's also a clever matrix display highlighting 30 of the more than 14,000 iPhones and accessory goodies that are available for sale on (where else?) eBay. Hover your mouse over a "tile" in the matrix and an enlarged image pops up, along with a brief description of the item and its current price. Click the photo for an even larger picture and further details.

Other eBay neighborhoods target Coffee Lovers (the most popular when I last checked) and the universe that is Star Wars merchandise and memorabilia.

There are 600 of these eBay Neighborhoods waiting for you to join in. While you apparently can't start your own Neighborhood, you can suggest one.

We've talked a lot recently about a growing shift in the way you can buy music online.

The music download craze exploded, of course, with Napster's now-discredited model of free song sharing way back in 1999.

Then, in 2001, Apple led the way with iTunes' copy protected music model, where you can legally buy songs, but the software controls their usage.

Today, digital music free of copy protection is becoming more widely available for sale.

Wal-Mart cracked the door open a few months ago when it started selling a selection of MP3 songs.

Now online giant Amazon.com is muscling in with what it's calling the world's biggest selection of MP3 titles—more than two million tracks from 180,000 artists.

That's still just a fraction of the six million songs you'll find on iTunes. Apple says by the end of this year, more than half of them will be available in "plus" versions, sans copy protection—but they're priced at $1.29 each, and delivered in Apple's proprietary AAC format which is foreign to most portable music players that aren't Apple's own iPod brand.

Amazon has priced its MP3 songs—in a format suitable for playback on virtually any portable player—at just 89 cents for most titles, $8.99 for most albums, undercutting Wal-Mart's pricing model of 94 cents per MP3 song.

That all leads up to a simple question: Why isn't all online music offered in the universal MP3 format that was popularized by Napster?

While it would make things easier for you and me, not all record companies are sold on the concept that consumers will keep their downloads to themselves.

I think, however, that once it becomes clear there is money to be made (especially in view of declining CD sales), the trend toward music downloads free of copy protection is inevitable.

Blogging gives anyone the ability to publish thoughts to a worldwide audience. There are a number of Web sites designed to make it easy to do.

But now, bloggers on the go have an option for posting their musings from just about anywhere using the services of Utterz.

Dial a number to phone in your thoughts to Utterz, which will save it as an audio file. Then e-mail photos or video clips separately from your cell phone or computer.

Utterz automagically links up all these elements into a single blog posting, and will even relay the post to a more traditional blog.

It's all free for bloggers; Utterz says it makes money by cutting deals with cell phone companies who are keen to see increased usage of their services.

Watch Computer Corner every week on News 8 Midday at noon, or online any time.

E-mail askwalt@wfaa.com