Random Rants on the Evil Ebay Empire

New phishing lures on Ebay

2005-12-10T15:38:00.000-08:00

Those clever evil phishers are at it again, with yet another new heinous technique to try to pry personal information out of users, this time using auctions themselves, filled with illegal java script, to redirect users.:

Scammers have found a new way to try to trick eBay members into giving them their personal information. The new technique effectively hijacks links on
listing or search results pages, taking people to an official-looking eBay log-in page that is actually phony.

In one example the Mercury News viewed this week, several listings were added to eBay's ``Totally bizarre'' category, a section intended for offbeat items, with the title ``Movie!With me and Laura!My best friend!Sexy show!1$''

When eBay users clicked on the listing titles, their Web browser was immediately redirected to the fraudulent log-in page. Making matters worse, the phony page appears to download a virus onto users' computers.

EBay said the people behind the scam appeared to have added malicious JavaScript code to their listings that redirected people off eBay's site. EBay allows members to include some types of JavaScript in their listings for things such as interactive photo albums or tools to help buyers calculate shipping charges.

Phishers attack Ebay using new technique - Mercury News

British Telecom Skype Backlash

2005-12-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

British Telecom is apparently fighting back against Ebay's Skype, by lowering its prices:

U.K. carrier will use VoIP leader’s weapons to undercut the upstart: price and simplicity.December 9, 2005It had to happen, but to date, the backlash from traditional telecommunications carriers over the proliferation of VoIP application providers piggy-backing on their networks and competing with them has been very low-key.
But “Operation Backlash” may have begun in London with BT Group’s nnouncement that it is slashing its prices for voice services in half and offering free calls to 30 different countries during the holiday season.

In a surprising move, BT, the largest carrier in the United Kingdom, mentioned Skype by name in its announcement. The company said that international calls made from PCs to regular telephones are already cheaper with its BT Communicator than “with rivals such as Skype.”
To further drive home the point that the carrier is targeting Skype and other similar
services, BT said it will introduce an enhanced voice over Internet offering in the spring that will be available globally and feature its enhanced sound quality.
BT Begins Skype Backlash - Red Herring

Famed Hollywood sign sells on Ebay for over $450,000

2005-12-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

As we noted in an earlier post, the famous original Hollywood sign was put up for sale on Ebay. The ending price: $450,400 by an anonymous bidder:

"The original Hollywood sign, a Tinseltown landmark that overlooked Los Angeles for more than five decades, has sold for more than 450,000 US in an online auction.

Entrepreneur Dan Bliss, who bought the sign two years ago, said the
10-day auction ended Tuesday night at $450,400 US. "I'm pleased with the final amount," Bliss told the Associated Press. The 35-year-old, who refused to reveal how much he had paid for the sign, had already sold pieces of it in frames and as jewellery.

"I've thoroughly enjoyed owning it and I think someone would really enjoy having the opportunity to have that claim to fame."

Original Hollywood sign sells on Ebay - cbc.ca
Famed Hollywood" sign for sale on Ebay; starting bids $300K - Random Rants on the Evil Ebay Empire

Ebay's Skype now has more competition: from Yahoo

2005-12-07T05:46:00.000-08:00

Yahoo is adding a Skype-like service to its Yahoo Instant Messenger, jumping into the competitive fray with Skype. While we love Skype, each additional competitor makes it only more evident that Ebay overpaid for the company:

Yahoo Inc. is entering a suddenly crowded field, offering Skype-like capabilities through its instant-messaging service that will let people dial regular phone numbers using their computers or receive calls from conventional phones.

The company has not set a firm date for the availability of the new paid features to the mostly free Yahoo Messenger service but indicated the launch was imminent.

Yahoo's addition of computer-to-phone capabilities follows a similar retooling of the rival AOL Instant Messenger service from Time Warner Inc. in October. It also comes just as Skype is revamping its popular service with video calling, a feature that's been available through Yahoo Messenger for several years, though only for
computer-to-computer calls.

In a similar vein, Sony Corp. introduced a free Internet-based phone service last month with an emphasis on visual calling that the company hopes will fuel sales of its video equipment. Yahoo's new "Phone Out" option enables users to call regular and mobile phones for one cent per minute in the United States and two cents a minute to about 30 other countries, including calls to Argentina, Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea.

On the flip side, users can sign up for a traditional phone number to receive unlimited calls to their computers from anywhere for a monthly fee of $3 or an annual payment of about $30.
Yahoo adds Skype-like ability to IM service - AP via Mercury News

Wow! Even Ebay itself gets tricked by phishing emails!

2005-12-06T11:35:00.000-08:00

How utterly embarrassing for Ebay:

A sophisticated phishing attack has proved to be so successful, it has tricked eBay Inc.'s own fraud investigations team into endorsing it as legitimate, according to an independent security consultant who reported the attack to eBay.

In late November, Richi Jennings received a fraudulent e-mail message containing the subject line "Christmas is Coming on ebay.co.uk." Offering him "great tips for successful Christmas selling," the message directed him to the Web site Ebaychristmas.net, which then asked Jennings to enter his eBay username and password, as well as the name and password for his e-mail account.

Jennings, who writes the IT BlogWatch column for Computerworld, reported the site to eBay on Nov. 25, and four days later he got a note back from the company's investigations team claiming that the e-mail message was, in fact, "an official e-mail message sent to you on behalf of eBay."

Jennings was dumbfounded. He immediately wrote back to eBay pointing out that the Web site being used was clearly fraudulent, but his e-mail went unanswered.

On Monday, an eBay spokeswoman confirmed that the e-mail message was indeed part of a fraud, but she could not explain why it had initially been identified as legitimate. "I don't know the answer to that," said spokeswoman Amanda Pires. "I'm assuming right now it was just an error."

Ebay Tricked by Phony Email - Computerworld

Ebay: "Alibaba on a mission"

2005-12-04T18:46:00.000-08:00

Marketwatch story - "Alibaba on a mission":

Consumer-to-consumer e-commerce company Alibaba, of which Yahoo Inc assumed 40% ownership in August, will continue to consolidate control of YahooChina's search, portal and other assets in the coming weeks. Alibaba is also focusing on expanding the market share of its core e-commerce business, anchored by the popular Taobao auction site.

Taobao does not currently charge customers to list or buy items through its e-commerce platform, while its primary competitor, eBay's (EBAY: Eachnet unit charges fees to users. Taobao has taken advantage of its fee-free status, attacking eBay's previously unassailable market share. Insiders assert that a surprising portion of eBay users, in fact, frequently complete e-commerce transactions using Taobao and its associated e-payment platform AliPay after initially locating products for sale on eBay.

Gearing up for a battleThis substantial bonus for Taobao is likely to fade as eBay's long and somewhat tortured integration of Eachnet begins to show fruit in areas such as website usability, marketing sophistication and strategic execution. Taobao's Alibaba, meanwhile, is still adjusting to a new suit of second-hand clothes. Alibaba has reportedly established a substantial in-house research and development group to guide technology creation and application, which presumably will focus on usability and search tools in the short term, with an eye to chip away at eBay's technological advantage.

There are many potentially profitable directions in which YahooChina's new masters can take the group, and several valuable properties that it can leverage for growth: business-to-business e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba, the recently face-lifted Yahoo.cn portal, a bolstered search capability and the rapidly growing Taobao, which has developed into a powerful brand for Alibaba and a solid base for future growth, but at a substantial cost.
Full Story

Citigroup ups Ebay estimates; no target change

2005-12-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney upped his Ebay estimates in a note dated 12/4. Here's an excerpt:

Based on our proprietary eBay listings count,positive macro datapoints, and channel checks, we are raising our December quarter estimates and believe EBAY is setting up for a clean Beat & Raise quarter. Our estimates increase from $1,285MM revenue/$0.22 proforma EPS to $1,305MM/$0.23. The Street is at $1,282MM/$0.22.

At eBay, fundies are strong and getting stronger. We believe eBay will exit Q4 with accelerating growth in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), listings,and organic revenue, with operating margins expanding Y/Y.

We Reit the Buy and our $49 PT. We believe the stock can continue to work from here off of strong fundies (acceleration/expansion) and upwards earnings revisions. We continue to believe our out-year estimates are conservative: 1) we are modeling very limited margin expansion, and 2) we remain skeptical on Skype (modeling below guidance), so a surprise here is likely to be positive.

Huntsville Jail up for auction on Ebay

2005-12-03T16:07:00.000-08:00

Historic Randolph County Jail, Huntsville, MOA home, law offices, a B&B…What’s your dream?
Item number: 4423307727
From the auction:

It looks like a stately home on a tree lined street in a Mid-America small town…
Huntsville, MO USA.In reality this historic 1910 building, until June of
2005, was the Randolph County Jail.
Until about 1989 the jail not only
housed the county criminals from drunks to thieves but it was also called home
by the county sheriff and his family. It was a kinder gentler time when the
front portion of the building was just like any other home. A living room,
fireplaces,
kitchen and bedrooms, homework and family dinners for the
Sheriff and his entire
family.

The difference began at a steel door.
Beyond the bars in the back portion of the building where the Sheriff brought
arrested offenders to be fingerprinted and booked to begin their journey through
the justice system.

A big difference back then was that the Sheriff’s
wife usually prepared delicious, home cooked meals for the prisoners. Probably
better food than they were receiving on the outside.
The idyllic situation
was not Mayberry, but it was definitely small town America. Times changed and
Sheriffs were no longer willing or able to live in the county jail, a new kind
of criminal was on the scene.

In June of 2000 there was an attempted
jail break and a jailer and a deputy sheriff were murdered. This tragedy spurred
the citizens of Randolph County to construct a new $7,500,000 jail and judicial
facility in Huntsville which was completed in June of 2005.

The historic
building has 4,396 sq. ft. above ground and it has a full basement. Asking price
$32,500

That is only $7.39 a sq.ft. for the 4,396 sq.ft.(approximate)
above ground. 10 rooms in resident area of the building.

22 bunks in the
jail area.

Randolph County Missouri
• Population 24,663
• Huntsvile Population 1,200.
• Located in North Central Missouri half-way between Kansas City and St. Louis.
• Moberly is 6 miles east of
Huntsville and is the primary shopping
area.
• Moberly Area Community College-Home to the National Champion Greyhounds
basket ball team.
• Moberly Regional Medical Center.
• A beautiful 400+ acre park between Moberly and Huntsville.
• Hunting-Deer, Turkey, small game
• Fishing-Nearby
lakes, Bass,
Crappie-Rivers-Catfish
• University of Missouri is located 35 miles south in Columbia, MO. Only a
30+ minute drive on four-lane highway.

For more information contact:Jim Myles, Randolph County
Presiding
Commissioneremail: jmyles@mywebpal.comSend me an email with
your name, address, city, state and zip code. We
will send you a packet
with full legal description, disclosures and area
demographics.

Ebay's Jeffrey Jordan Exercises / Sells 110,000 shares

2005-12-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

FILER: JORDAN JEFFREY DTITLE: Officer
DATE TRANSACTION SHARES PRICE VALUE
12/1/05 Exercise 110,000 $15.17 $1,668,436
12/1/05 Sale 110,000 $45.33 $4,985,893

It's getting hot on the Ebay discussion boards

2005-12-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

Seller hostility is reaching a boiling point over on the Ebay Stores board. Ebay had promised months ago to make no changes to the site during the holiday season, yet they continue to introduce change after disruptive change. The latest tinkering has sellers almost over the edge. Ebay has introduced a 'feature' where they're telling buyers what the estimated shipping time is for their purchases depending on the shipping option. The ebay boardies call these new 'features' "glitchancements" since history has proven that every feature introduction is glitch laden.

Do sellers need this? Ebay is getting an earful from them, telling them in post after post an emphatic "NO - STAY OUT OF OUR BUSINESS". Ebay claims that they are only using the timeframes that the US Post Office, UPS, etc claim on their sites, which is only half true. They neglect to indicate that items may not be shipped immediately by the seller, as most aren't, and also fail to mention that those time frames are not applicable to the holiday season, which is clearly noted on the shipper sites but glaringly missing from Ebay's estimate. As a result, sellers are bracing themselves for major problems from buyers from this new glitchancement, given what they believe is only interference in their business from Ebay.

Can you spell STUPID?

Find the Ebay Stores thread here, and see the hostility for yourself.

Ebay COO Exercises / Sells 90,000 shares

2005-12-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

FILER: WEBB MAYNARD G JRTITLE: Chief Operating Officer
DATE TRANSACTION SHARES PRICE VALUE
11/29/05 Exercise 90,000 $14.51 $1,306,125
11/29/05 Sale 90,000 $45.02 $4,051,467

"Big Ebay Users Shun Skype"

2005-12-01T06:35:00.000-08:00

According to an article on TheStreet.com, big Ebay sellers won't be adopting Skype anytime soon:

"Skype doesn't give me a capability that I already don't have," says Jonathan Garriss, executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, a group of about 900 high-volume eBay sellers. "It's not something that is going to change the way that the eBay sellers in our group are going to run the business."

Garriss, who says his information comes from informal conversations with members, says many high-volume eBay users won't sign up for Skype because they prefer to communicate with customers via email. eBay stresses that the acquisition serves purposes beyond matching users of its Web sites, but the sellers' comments underscore the challenges eBay faces in integrating the phone service with the rest of its operations.

Lingering concerns about eBay's growth prospects and the hefty price tag for Skype -- $2.5 billion plus earnouts that could push the tab as high as $4 billion -- have hammered eBay this year. Its shares have dropped 20% even as rivals Google (GOOG:Nasdaq) and Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq) have soared.
Big eBay Users Shun Skype - TheStreet.com

Skype set to release version 2.0

2005-11-30T21:27:00.000-08:00

Skype is set to release version 2.0 of its software with substantially enhanced functionality:

Skype Technologies, the Luxemburg company famous for its free Internet telephone calls, today launches an update that brings us closer to an elusive technological dream — the videophone.

The new Skype 2.0 software provides the ability to see as well as hear computer-to-computer callers — provided both parties have webcams.

Video chats, as part of instant messaging services such as one sponsored by Yahoo, have been around for years, but they offer only postage stamp-sized, jerky, pixilated video that looks as if it was transmitted from Jupiter during a sunspot eruption. These seem to be mostly popular among the cybersex crowd, but I'm not sure how they can see anything well enough to get excited.

With the Skype 2.0 update, the picture is far clearer, larger and more stable. So much so, this may be the long-awaited application that brings video telephony to the masses, especially now that webcams can be bought for as little as $30.
Story Link

Ebay's traffic is the leader of the pack

2005-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

Ebay's "Cyber Monday" drew almost twice more visitors than Amazon.com, its nearest competitor:

Nielsen//NetRatings, which tracks traffic to more than 100 retail Web sites, said eBay had 11.7 million unique visitors and Amazon 5.6 million on "Cyber Monday," when Internet shopping gets a boost as Americans return to work in force after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and "Black Friday," the traditional start to the shopping season in stores.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) was third with 3.1 million, Target Inc. (TGT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) fourth with 2.2 million, Overstock.com Inc. (OSTK.O: Quote, Profile, Research) fifth at 1.93 million and Dell Inc. (DELL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) sixth with 1.88 million.
Reuters Link

RBC Capital Markets ups Ebay estimates and target

2005-11-30T06:33:00.000-08:00

RBC Capital Markets investment research analyst Jordan Rohan raised his estimates and target for Ebay. His target was upped to $49 from $45. Excerpts from the report follow:

Net: Raising target to $49 from $45 as we roll forward valuation touse 2007 estimates vs. prior blend of 2006 and 2007. Update ofproprietary keyword pricing survey suggests in-line marketing spendfor the time being. Estimates go up as we make adjustments forstronger-than-anticipated listings trends and offset slightly byforeign exchange rates. Maintain Outperform rating.
-- Proprietary Keyword Pricing Survey: Update on our sample of over 110 keywords suggests that eBay's search marketing intensity has remained under control and actually below the peaks seen in 3Q05 for average bid prices and coverage. 4Q05 average max bid of $0.35 and coverage of 79% is down materially from normalized rates of $0.48 and 84% during 3Q05. This is consistent with management's prior comments on increased marketing efficiency.
-- Accentuated Seasonality as Listings Trend Ahead: We have raised our 4Q05 listings estimate to 526mm vs. prior 519mm, which suggests 15% sequential growth vs. prior 13%. Our 4Q05 estimates go to revenue $1.327b, EBITDA $553mm, and EPS $0.23 vs. prior $1.312b, $547mm, and $0.23. Our listings checks currently show that eBay is tracking ahead by 25% vs. 3Q05 levels. Our new estimate assumes that eBay will not run any more promotions for the balance of the quarter.
-- Increasing Target to $49 from $45: We have rolled forward our valuation to incorporate 2007 estimates only, as opposed to using a blend of 2006 and 2007. Our valuation multiples are at 35x earnings, 20x EBITDA, and 3.5% FCF yield.

Sounds like Ebay and Google Base will face competition from Microsoft

2005-11-29T19:12:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's MSN is apparently testing their own classified listing service, code named "Fremont", that sounds much like Google Base. Sounds like there will be even more competition for Ebay as additional listing options become available.

The service, code-named Fremont, has been in internal testing at Microsoft for about a week and a half, Garry Wiseman, MSN product unit manager, told CNET News.com in an interview. He said he could not say when it would be available publicly.

"Basically, it will be a free listing service, with a bunch of twists to make it very unique, such as integration with social networks, in particular integration with MSN Messenger," he said.

Ads relevant to the listing will appear alongside the search results, he added. Fremont will allow people posting a list to make it searchable globally on the main MSN search site as well as a standalone Web site. Users will also be able to specify that it be viewable only by people in the poster's MSN Messenger buddy list, in their MSN Spaces network, or in a specific domain name e-mail group or, such as e-mails that end in "Microsoft.com," Wiseman said.

Full Story

Shopping.com traffic spikes on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

2005-11-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

Ebay's Shopping.com reported in a press release that traffic increased substantially on Black Friday and the newly dubbed Cyber Monday.

Shopping.com, a leading onlinecomparison shopping service, reported a 30 percent increase in year over yeartraffic on Black Friday and a 37 percent increase in year over year traffic onCyber Monday. More than 2.8 million unique shoppers visited the site onFriday, November 25 and more than 3.4 million unique shoppers visited the siteMonday, November 28.

"Cyber Monday is an early indicator of what we can expect from onlineholiday shopping, both the volume of shoppers and what they're looking tobuy," said Lorrie Norrington, CEO of Shopping.com. "This year, moremainstream consumers than ever before are using the Internet to find, compareand buy their gifts and that's reflected in increased traffic and the types ofproducts bought and sold." ....

2005 Hot Products Based on Black Friday and Cyber Monday consumer demand at Shopping.com,the hottest products for holiday 2005 include:

-- Apple iPod Nano
-- Canon PowerShot A510 Digital Camera
-- Casio Triple Sensor Pathfinder Watch
-- Dyson DCO7 Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner
-- Garmin Global Positioning System (GPS) Receiver
-- Humax T800 TiVo Video Recorder (80-hour)
-- LeapFrog Leapster Children's Multimedia Learning System
-- Leather Hobo Handbag
-- Microsoft Xbox 360 Console
-- Panasonic 42 inch HDTV Plasma TV
Press Release

Ebay's Skype selects Henry Gomez as general manager of Skype North America

2005-11-28T13:33:00.000-08:00

Skype selected Henry Gomez to serve as general manager of Skype North America. He will report to Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom, and "will be responsible for all areas of the company's strategy and business in North America, including marketing, public relations, business development, product integration, and government relations."

Press Release

Bear Stearns conference call on Google Base & it's Ebay impact

2005-11-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

We just listened to the conference call sponsored by Bear Stearns equity research analyst Rob Peck on Google Base and its potential impact on Ebay. With him was Scott Wingo, of Channel Advisor,which recently announced that it would support Google Base uploads for its customers, many of whom are sellers on Ebay.

The call lasted an hour. Scott Wingo did a presentation for around 15 minutes, explaining how Google Base works, and then Rob Peck asked him questions. Finally, it was opened to the participants to ask questions.

What was clear from the call is that there are still many unanswered questions about GBase, which is currently unorganized in its beta release state. However, it seems like it has the potential of being disruptive to Ebay's business if some organization is put in place.

There is a replay of the call available at 877-519-4471 pass code 6760100.

Ebay Issues Statement on Supreme Court Decision to hear patent case

2005-11-28T11:30:00.000-08:00

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov 28, 2005 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The United States SupremeCourt has agreed to hear eBay's (Nasdaq:EBAY) appeal of an appellate rulingwhich overruled a trial court decision not to grant an injunction in theMercExchange v. eBay case. At issue in the case is whether district courts havethe discretion to decline to issue injunctions in appropriate circumstances.
eBay is gratified that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this important case.We have believed all along that MercExchange -- which does not practice its ownpatents and only exists to sue others -- should not be entitled to aninjunction. eBay is looking forward to presenting its case to the Supreme Court.
This ruling is the latest in a series of recent developments for eBay in itscase against MercExchange. In March, the US Court of Appeals issued a rulingthat invalidated one of MercExchange's patents, and as a result, threw out allrelated damages. In early 2005, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office initiallyrejected all the claims of MercExchange's two remaining patents in the case.
Link

US Supreme Court agrees to hear Ebay's patent suit

2005-11-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

According to DJ news, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Ebay's patent suitagainst MercExchange:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review apatent fight between eBay Inc. (EBAY) and a patent holding company oversales and purchasing methods used by the online auction company.
EBay in 2003 lost a patent infringement lawsuit brought by MercExchange LLCof Great Falls, Va., a patent holding entity owned by Thomas Woolston, thatresulted in a $35 million judgment against eBay and related companies.Subsequent court rulings have reduced the judgment to $25 million.
The appeal before the Supreme Court deals with whether the U.S. DistrictCourt that handled the dispute should have issued a permanent injunctionagainst eBay. The standard for issuing injunctions in disputes betweencorporations and businesses that make their money by holding patents hasbeen the source of friction in patent litigation.

Merrill Lynch Google Update "Maintain Neutral With Anxiety"

2005-11-27T22:08:00.000-08:00

Merrill Lynch's equity research analyst Lauren Rich Fine issued an update early Monday morning on Google. An excerpt follows:

"Maintain Neutral with Anxiety"

Risk/Reward Leaning More Towards Risk

On a short term basis, given Q4 Internet ad momentum and a history of upward estimate revisions for GOOG, we believe the shares seem appropriately, to somewhat aggressively, valued. On a longer term basis, the onus is on GOOG to develop revenue streams beyond search. The shares are likely to be increasingly sentiment driven; GOOG is starting to attract more negative publicity as it has become incredibly dominant online and has started to encroach on other companies' businesses. In our view, this heightens the risk in the shares. This is not a stock for those with a weak stomach.

Almost Time for a Breakout New Revenue Stream

Another day, another announcement. The press is rife with reports regarding new Google products & services. While GOOG is patient in nurturing its ideas,Google Base would seem to have interesting transaction potential, which could be enough to satisfy those of us that are concerned about their dependence on search. If not Google Base, there appears to be others in the pipeline. The current valuation seems to presume a new revenue stream; soon would be good.

Wow! One in Six Americans sell on the Web

2005-11-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

One in Six Americans currently sell on the web in some capacity. That's a pretty stunning statistic! We confess to be among those sellers.

Story is here.

The Age: "Google Covers all Bases"

2005-11-27T06:20:00.000-08:00

"Google Covers All Bases" from The Age in Australia dated November 28, 2005.

Full Story

Bear Stearns conference call on Google Base and its impact on Ebay

2005-11-27T06:09:00.000-08:00

Broker Bear Stearns equity research group is sponsoring a conference call on November 28, 2005 on Google Base and its impact on Ebay. It's at 2pm EST. If you have an account with Bear, you might want to give your salesman a call to find out how to participate.

Paypal coupon codes for Ebay purchases

2005-11-27T05:41:00.000-08:00

Attention Ebay shoppers! Techbargains.com has a link for coupon codes for Ebay purchases paid for with Paypal. They expire 11/30 according to the site. If you're making an Ebay purchase, paying with Paypal, and want to try to save a few shekels, this might help you. The link is here.

Google got the cover of Business Week; is that the kiss of death for the stock?

2005-11-26T23:25:00.000-08:00

Business Week's cover story for the December 5 issue is on Google. It's a great article (which you can find here) but the only problem is, that when a stock that's flying high makes the cover of the major magazines like Business Week, it tends to be the kiss of death for the rally and mark a top for the stock. Stay tuned.

Interview with Skype's Niklas Zennström

2005-11-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting Sunday Times UK interview dated November 27, 2005 with Niklas Zennström, one of Skype's co-founders. He talks about the competition from phone companies and selling his VOIP company to Ebay.
Full interview is here.

Amazon.com joining Ebay as presenter at CSFB Technology Conference

2005-11-26T18:10:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com will be speaking at the Credit Suisse First Boston Technology Conference on December 1, 2005 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Ebay's Meg Whitman will also be speaking on December 1 as noted in a prior post.

Black Friday retail sales mixed

2005-11-26T11:18:00.000-08:00

While not reporting specifically on Black Friday sales, Wal-Mart said that they expected November sales to come in 4.3% higher than last year, within the 3-5% range they had predicted earlier. Best sellers included computers, dolls, portable DVD players and video games.

Credit card issuer Visa noted a nice jump in sales made on its cards on Black Friday with sales up approximately 14% from last year, topping $3.9 billion.

ShopperTrak RCT Corp, which tracks sales at over 45,000 retail stores, said that sales were relatively flat vs 2004 numbers for Black Friday, and were down 0.9% to $8 billion.

"Although the Black Friday number is a bit flat, this may be misleading as we're comparing this to a very strong 2004 performance," said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist and director of research for the International Council of Shopping Centers, in a statement.

Meanwhile, internet shoppers may not be waiting until Cyber Monday to shop according to online comparison shopping site PriceGrabber.com. Their traffic was up 77% over last year's Black Friday.

Ebay mood music to shop by on Cyber Monday

2005-11-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

In honor of Cyber Monday, the term the press has manufactured for the first Monday after Thanksgiving, which is supposed to be the kick off of the Christmas shopping season for internet retailers, we thought we'd help put all of you prospective Ebay shoppers, itching to point and click your way to bargains on the site, in the mood with some Ebay music to shop by. So here's the link to Weird Al Yankovic's fun ditty "Ebay", issued in May 2003 on his CD "Poodle Hat" and sung live at 2003's Ebay Live. Happy shopping!

"Ebay" by Weird Al for your holiday shopping and listening pleasure!

XBox 360 prices sky high, but how many of the sales are real?

2005-11-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

We just took a look at some of the prices for the XBox 360's and they're off the charts. The question is, how many of these deals will actually get done? Some buyers might be real, but many of them seem like they're not. And what about the sellers?

Some examples:

Microsoft Xbox 360 - Game console WOW Free Reduce your taxes and help people and play Xbox 360!

Item number: 8236964698 ---- This auction, with 95% listed as going to charity, sold for a whopping $1 million with a "Buy It Now". The buyer was kordarius662 with zero feedback, and a member since October 21. Probably low odds on this one going through.

Microsoft XBox 360 Premium Bundle Package W/ Hard DriveFREE Thanksgiving Day Delivery (see description)
Item number: 8236544512 ---- This auction sold for $10,000 with a "Buy It Now" to dansfv also a zero feedback bidder.

**** XBOX 360 Premium Bundle **** WILL SHIP NEXT DAY
Item number: 8236168580 ---- This auction sold for $9,100 after 47 bids to someone with the charming ID xbox360licksballs -- you guessed it, also a zero feedback bidder (enrolled since November 22)

Microsoft Xbox 360 - Game console Premium BUNDLE NEWFree FEDEX Overnight IMMEDIATE SHIPPING On Hand!!!!
Item number: 8236829963 ---- This auction sold for $5,995 with a "Buy It Now" to kordarius662 who also bought the one above for $1 million.

XBOX 360 premium All 13 Games 4 wireless Free Ship New!Personally delivered to you in 12 hours of auction end!
Item number: 8236588023 ---- This auction sold for $5,999 with 19 bids to susan_villareals05, also with zero feedback, and also no longer a registered user on Ebay.

There are many more just like this, with questionable bidders. This also leads us to wonder how many of the sellers are real. Some dishonest sellers have been known to sell legitimate merchandise to get a respecable number of positive feedbacks, with their goal to have generated enough so that they can pull off a scam. Given that it was known that the Xbox 360 would be huge and in limited supply, might some of the sellers be well planned fraudsters as well?

It just feels like alot of these sales will end badly.

Google looking to open offices in NC?

2005-11-25T15:43:00.000-08:00

Google may be opening up shop in North Carolina, where it's reportedly looking for office space. What's it for? That's anyone's guess.

Hot holiday items on Ebay

2005-11-25T06:30:00.000-08:00

Hot products on Ebay can be found in a report they just released entitled "eBay Black Friday Special Report: Hot Selling Toys and Top Female Celebrity Fragrances" Find it here.

Amazon.com announces their top selling holiday products since November 1

2005-11-25T06:02:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com announced a list of the top selling holiday products on their site by total unit sales in various categories from November 1 to November 22. Find the list here.

Shopping comparison sites benefitting from search engine traffic increase

2005-11-24T20:36:00.000-08:00

It sounds like the shopping comparison sites are getting a big boost from the search engines this year as customers focus on getting the best prices. No doubt Ebay is getting its fair share of this rise with its recent purchase of shopping.com. From an internetnews.com story:

Price will be an issue for shoppers. According to Internet traffic monitor Hitwise, in the week ending Nov. 19, Google and Yahoo sent 25 percent more visits to the 10 leading shopping comparison sites than they did last year.

Those two search services combined accounted for 11.3 percent and 12.8 percent of the total traffic to shopping and classifieds Web sites.

Google using Time Warner Telecom for "Click-to-Call"?

2005-11-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

We found this tidbit in a zdnet blog regarding Google. Garret Rodgers posts on his blog that in a search of ARIN numbers (the American Registry of Internet Numbers) he noticed a block of Time Warner Telecom IP addresses assigned to Google on November 22. He speculates from this that perhaps Time Warner Telecom (among others) might be the undisclosed provider of VOIP for Google's Click-to-Call.

Wanna know how Google's new Click-to-Call service works?

2005-11-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

Google continues to extend its tenticles in more and more directions. In its latest venture, announced on 11/23/05, Google will test a new 'Click-to-Call' service where you can speak to any of its advertisers displaying a little phone icon by their ad. It's a dialup service -- they provide space for your telephone number, which they say they won't share (although the call does go through a 3rd party - see "Uses" below), and shortly after you enter it, you receive a call back on your telephone. It sounds like Google is getting a jump on Ebay which is said to have purchased Skype, for among other reasons, to let it's sellers communicate with their customers via their auction ads. If this test proves successful, you have to wonder where this is going next.

Here are the FAQ's that Google lists on its site regarding the new service:

1. What's the phone icon on Google search results? How does it work?

We're testing a new product that gives you a free and fast way to speak directly to the advertiser you found on a Google search results page – over the phone.
Here's how it works: When you click the phone icon, you can enter your phone number. Once you click 'Connect For Free,' Google calls the number you provided. When you pick up, you hear ringing on the other end as Google connects you to the other party.
We won't share your telephone number with anyone, including the advertiser. When you're connected with the advertiser, your number is blocked so the advertiser can't see it. In addition, we'll delete the number from our servers after a short period of time.
2. Am I charged to connect to an advertiser?

No. Google foots the bill for all calls - local and long-distance. However, if we call a mobile phone number, you may incur airtime fees depending on the mobile phone plan. Check your mobile phone provider for details.
3. Is this just a way for Google to track me?

No. We take your privacy very seriously. Google does not share your telephone number with anyone (without your consent), including the advertiser. When you're connected with the advertiser, your number is blocked. The advertiser can't see your phone number.
In addition, we retain your information (including your phone number, date, time, and call length) only temporarily. It will be deleted from our servers after a period reasonably necessary to operate, audit, and evaluate the service.
Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
4. Whose caller ID do I see when connected?
The advertiser's number appears on your caller ID when Google connects you. This way, you can save the merchant's number for future call-backs.

If you click on "Learn more about our Privacy Policy" you find under "Uses":

Each time you use Google Click-to-Call, the phone number you provide will be transmitted to Google's servers so that we can provide you with the service. It will be deleted from our servers after a period reasonably necessary to operate, audit, and evaluate the service.
The phone number you provide will also be securely stored in in an encrypted “cookie” on your computer so that you can easily re-use Google Click-to-Call and other Google services, such as our mobile services.
Connectivity for Google Click-to-Call is provided by a third party vendor, subject to this privacy notice and agreement of confidentiality. Neither Google nor our vendor will sell, rent or otherwise share your personal information with any third parties except in the limited circumstances described in this notice and the Google Privacy Policy

Ebay's Paypal Europe was asked to remove British National Party access to the site

2005-11-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

Tory MP Ben Wallace has apparently asked Paypal Europe to cut off the British National Party's (BNP) access to Paypal's services according to The Register. He believes their "extremist views" are violating Paypal's accepable use policy which states: "You may not use Paypal in the purchase or sale of items or support of organizations that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance." A Paypal spokesman stated that they had no evidence that BNP was in violation, but would "review the situation" if they were provided evidence. Last year, according to The Register, the BBC aired an undercover documentary on the BNP after which 2 UK banks, Barclays and HSBC, closed their accounts.

It makes us kind of wonder what Barclays and HSBC saw that Paypal isn't seeing and if Paypal's standards are somehow more lax than other financial institutions.

Amazon wins the appeal in its 1-click patent case against IXPL Holdings

2005-11-24T05:33:00.000-08:00

Amazon can breathe a sigh of relief over its 1-click technology used for purchases on its site. The US Court of appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the 9/24/04 decision of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia where they granted summary judgement in favor of Amazon in IPXL's patent infringement suit against the company. In a decision issued on 11/21/2005 the Appeals Court found that there was no basis to reverse the lower court's decision regarding the validity of the patent, but they did reverse the lower court's prior decision awarding attorney's fees to Amazon. It seems like that's a pretty small price for Amazon to pay.

The court decision can be found here.

Google fixes filter problem causing porn flood on Google Base

2005-11-23T19:25:00.000-08:00

A problem with a filter on Google Base apparently unleashed a flood of unwanted porn on the site on Tuesday, November 22. Google was able to quickly fix the problem. However, Ebay users have noticed that many items they've added to the site are also now gone. Wonder if the problems are related...

From a zdnet.com story

"Yesterday evening, we became aware of a problem with the Google Base SafeSearch feature and we acted quickly to resolve the issue," Google spokesman Nate Tyler said via an e-mail on Wednesday. He said the filter feature was broken for "some period of time," but declined to further specify.

Ebay UK 10p listing promotion

2005-11-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

Ebay is doling out those promotions fast and furious. The latest one is for UK sellers, who are getting a 10p listing day on 11/24:

"Make some extra cash for Christmas!List items in any category on Thursday 24th November using the Auction-style, Auction-with-Buy It Now or Buy It Now formats and pay only a 10p insertion fee. "

Silicon Valley brain drain as Google ignites hiring frenzy

2005-11-22T21:04:00.000-08:00

Google could hurt Ebay in more ways than by providing new competition via Google Base. Now they're engaging in a hiring frenzy in Silicon Valley, where they're luring prospective hires from the likes Ebay, Microsoft, etc. with rich multi million dollar packages including lucrative restricted stock (which they call 'Google Stock Units'). In one case, mentioned in an article in the WSJ on 11/23, a prospective hire from Ebay was offered a six figure salary plus restricted stock, then valued at several million dollars over a several year distribution period. Ebay countered with cash incentives so that he would stay. That's sure not gonna help Ebay's margins.

Sounds like Ebay and other tech companies will have to pay up to hold on to its programmers, because not only has the tech sector recovered causing everyone to hire again, but Google is on the prowl with rich packages and opportunities which will exacerbate the problem.

WSJ Story

Buyers on Ebay beware: Xbox 360's may not be the real thing

2005-11-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

ABC local news issued a cautionary story this evening, the first day that Microsoft's Xbox 360 became available. They noted that buyers need to beware if they're making their purchases on Ebay where bidding has been frenzied; some boxes are being offered on a 'Buy It Now' basis for several thousand dollars. Some of the boxes on Ebay might not be the new models, but might instead be preproduction models or in some cases, even models that don't even exist. In addition, some packages come with more than the console, so you need to compare apples to apples.

Here's a search of "Microsoft xbox 360 console". It brought up nearly 8,900 results.

Buyer beware.

Babies offered for sale on Ebay's Eachnet was 'a joke'

2005-11-22T18:21:00.000-08:00

On October 13, someone listed babies for sale on Ebay's Chinese Eachnet site. Turns out it was a bad joke. Some joke. The man responsible was detained for 7 days.

Full Story

Smartmoney article: Google Gone Wild

2005-11-22T17:45:00.000-08:00

Smart Money's James B. Stewart put out an article on their website this evening where he urges caution on soaring shares of Google. He also talks about Ebay and Yahoo which he apparently recommended on Oct 25. Ebay, he says, "is a less obvious beneficiary of the Internet advertising frenzy, but Yahoo is ideally positioned." As of course is Google.

We agree with his Ebay comment.

You can find the story here.

Ebay auction: The Official Pink Slap T-shirt

2005-11-22T13:48:00.000-08:00

If you're a seller on Ebay and have ever participated in any of the message boards over there you may have met up with some of the Ebay board moderators, called 'the pinks' (for the pink colored stripe that appears in their posts). The uber paranoid pinks often remove posts that they consider offensive or not in the best interest of the Ebay community. They seem to have broad latitude and sometimes overzealously remove posts for the flimsiest of reasons. When a member's post is removed, they get a nastygram in their email from Ebay, which is known as a "Pink Slap". You'll even get pink slapped for commenting on the boards that you've been pink slapped. However, being pink slapped has become more of a badge of honor than anything else to the slappee. You're no one if you've never been pink slapped!

Now an enterprising seller has created an official T-Shirt. It's listed on Ebay, and bids are already up to $53. The text of the ad is below. Seeing how Ebay doesn't really have a very good sense of humor about this kind of stuff (even though it wisely doesn't mention Ebay or contain anything that vaguely looks like a listing violation), we figured we better post it since the auction might just mysteriously disappear.

PINK SLAP SLAPPED New Limited Edition T-Shirt #0001
Item number: 8354436814

Have you ever been unfairly "pink-slapped"for a post you made on an online chat board?
Ever been punished by a faceless online corporate entitybecause it incompetently applied its rules to you in error?
Ever felt like a "pink pariah"?
Well, then, THIS is the shirt for you!
Bid now and YOU could win the first numbered shirt -- #0001 -- of thistotally new, never-before-seen limited edition.Screen-printed with the authentic logo of theOfficial Order of the Pink Slap (OOPS!) Club™and personally signed by the artist, this shirt comes witha free lifetime membership in the Club andan ornate membership certificate suitable for framing!
Act now! This edition is limited to 50 shirts!
The winner may choose from the following sizes:Large, Xtra Large, or XXtra Large.
This is a Gildan pre-shrunk 100%-cotton shirt with taped neck and double-stitched collar and hems.It is generously cut, and the mid-weight fabric will soften and thicken with repeated washings.
Measurements are given in length (from shoulder seam at collar to bottom of hem)and width (from armhole to armhole across the chest).
Large: 30" (76 cm), 22" (56 cm).Xtra Large: 31" (79 cm), 24" (61 cm).XXtra Large: 32" (81 cm), 26" (66 cm).

National Zoo Panda Tickets turning up on Ebay

2005-11-22T07:15:00.000-08:00

13,000 free tickets to see the the new baby panda, Tai Shan, at Washington D.C.'s national zoo were given out on the zoo's website on Monday morning. Now they're turning up on auction sites like Ebay with asking prices in the $75-100 per ticket range. However, the tickets will have the original ticket holders' names printed on them and the zoo will apparently be checking ID's to make sure that the user is the original owner and turning those away that aren't.

So Ebay buyers beware. Your tickets may be worthless.

There were 5 auctions live on Ebay when we posted this note although who knows if they'll be pulled.

Full Story

Yahoo downgraded by Susquehanna Financial

2005-11-22T06:47:00.000-08:00

Susquehanna Financial's Marianne Wolk downgraded Ebay competitor Yahoo to Neutral this morning. She said in her note:

We are reducing our rating on YHOO as the lion's share of its valuation gap relative to peers has closed and several potential sources of upside to earningshave been moderated or postponed. Yahoo! has delayed major technology upgradesto its search auction that we had hoped would add significantly to 2006 earnings and invested $1.5 bln of its cash balances into longer-term opportunities thatmay not add materially to our 2006 forecasts.

The $1.5 billion referred to above was used by Yahoo to invest in Ebay's arch rival in China, Alibaba.com.

Ebay US 50% off Listing day on Nov 22

2005-11-21T17:17:00.000-08:00

Ebay US is having another one day listing promotion on Nov 22, 2005. Fixed price listings on the US site will be 50% off. Pretty unusual, given that Ebay just had a $0.10 fixed price listing day on Nov. 8 -- they don't have listing promotions all that often, and it's highly unusual to have a 2nd listing discount day so soon after another one. Should we be reading something into this? Most of the analysts on the street have been suggesting that Ebay is gonna beat expectations this quarter. Is Ebay falling behind, or buying some insurance?

The announcement

UBS equity analyst ups 12 month Google target from $430 to $500

2005-11-21T11:15:00.000-08:00

UBS equity analyst Benjamin Schachter just upped his eps estimates and target on Google. While upping the estimates and target, he cautioned investors from thinking that everything that the company touches will turn to gold, as some products have not caught on. The 12 month target went from $430 to $500:

Excerpts from the note:

* Raising estimates and target based on CURRENT products: Google is a paradigm changing company, and we believe in its long-term ability to leverage its infrastructure and talent in innovative ways. While we are raising estimates and increasing our PT to $500, it is based solely on its CURRENT products and trends. Even if most of its future products fail, the underlying fundamentals of its current offerings are solid....

* Valuation: Buy 2; increasing 12-month PT to $500 from $430: On the back of our forecast changes our PT rises to $500, which implies 42X EPS, 50X FCF and 25X EV/EBITDA on '07 estimates. This is in line with historical multiples.

Coldplay sets up it's own auctions so that it's fans don't get ripped off

2005-11-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

UK band Coldplay is striking back and taking action against scalpers who sell their concert tickets on auction sites like Ebay (see Ebay auctions here) and scalper sites at hugely inflated prices. They've set up their own auction site in conjunction with Ticketmaster to auction off tickets on their own, with a portion of the proceeds going to charity.

Story

Chinese Banks to improve security in their online payments

2005-11-21T08:39:00.000-08:00

Shanghaidaily.com is reporting that 25 Chinese banks have signed an agreement with the China Financial Certification authority to launch "digital certificate" sevices with improved encryption. The banks, competing with Paypal for their slices of the Chinese online payment pie, include the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China.

Story

Ebay speaking at Credit Suisse First Boston Annual Tech Conference

2005-11-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

Break out the pom poms. Ebay's fearless leader Meg Whitman will speak at the Credit Suisse First Boston Annual Technology Conference at the Phoenician in Scottsdale (love that place!) on December 1 at 8AM MT time. Mark your calendars! Details are here.

Gilley's sign seen in Urban Cowbow up for sale on Ebay

2005-11-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

The original sign from Gilley's Club, the Texas bar seen in Urban Cowboy (starring John Travolta), is up for sale on Ebay. Bidding starts at $500 for the approximately 16 x 30 foot sign, although there's a reserve. The auction ends on November 30, 2005.

ORIGINAL GILLEY'S (URBAN COWBOY) SIGN (NOT PORCELAIN)
Item number: 7368166703

Merrill Lynch Weekly Ebay auction listing update

2005-11-21T06:46:00.000-08:00

Merrill Lynch Investment Analyst Justin Post issued his Weekly Ebay auction listing update. Here's an excerpt:

Weekly listings fell 13% w/w following week 6 promotion - 4Q remains ontrack. QTD, U.S. and International core listings are up 18% and 27% y/y,respectively, slightly ahead of our 16% and 26% growth estimates for 4Q. Storelistings increased over 4% w/w and total QTD listings on eBay are up 31% y/y,tracking ahead of the 28% listings growth in our 4Q model (520 mn listings).

U.S. core listings fell 22% w/w. Following a listings promotion last weekthat added roughly 3.5 mn incremental listings, U.S. listings fell 4.2 mn w/wto 14.7 mn (down 22.3% w/w). QTD, U.S. listings are at 109 mn (up 18% QTD),ahead of our estimate for 16% y/y growth.

German listings down 8% w/w to 7.5 mn. QTD total core German listingsreached 51.6 mn this week, up nearly 8% versus 4Q04, tracking in-line/slightlyahead of our estimate for 7% y/y 4Q growth.
U.K. listings fell 19% w/w, but remain ahead of 4Q estimates. QTD totalcore U.K. listings reached 39 mn, up 74% versus 4Q04 (vs. ML 4Q est. of up53%).

France and Rest of Europe up 9% w/w to 2.5 mn. Strong listings inBelgium (+72% w/w) and the Netherlands (+42% w/w), following a 2 day e0.05insertion fee promotion, helped offset some of the international decline inGermany and the U.K. Rest of World listings are tracking ahead of expectations(up 37% y/y vs. our estimate of 30% y/y).

Store listings up 4% w/w to 48.6 mn. U.S. store listings increased 4.7%to 38.5 mn this week (up 149% y/y) and international store listings exceeded 10mn for the first time (up 3.0% w/w). We estimate 5.3 mn new store listingsthis week and that total store listings are up nearly 29% q/q in 4Q, trackingahead of our 21% q/q growth estimate.

Skype downloads at 207 mn. Average daily downloads accelerated to roughly710k per day this week pushing Skype cumulative downloads to over 207 mn.

Maintain Buy rating. We remain optimistic on core business trends headinginto the holiday season, and based on strong QTD listings counts, we believethere is potential for positive 4Q earnings revisions in December.

Price Objective Basis and Risk
Our 12-month price objective for eBay is $48 based on 38x our 2007 EPS estimateof $1.26 (EPS does not include options expense). A 38x multiple price target isbelow eBay's 3-year average 2-year forward multiple of 48x and would representa 1.09x P/E/G, which is a discount to average ranges for premium stocks in thetechnology sector.

Paypal completes purchase of Verisign gateway business

2005-11-21T06:18:00.000-08:00

Ebay's press release regarding the acquisition completion said that it wouldn't impact the guidance that it had already given.

Press Release

Ebay Canada $0.10 Listing day on 11/21/05

2005-11-20T23:39:00.000-08:00

Ebay is giving Canadian sellers a $0.10 listing day on November 21. The announcement is here.

ComScore's latets data ranks Google #1 in search

2005-11-20T23:16:00.000-08:00

According to ComScore's latest data, Google was the #1 search engine in October with 89.9 million unique viewers. Yahoo was #2 with 68 million, MSN Search #3 with 49.7 million, Ask Jeeves #4 with 43.7 million and AOL Search rounding out the top 5 with 36.1 million.

Story

NYT article on Google Base -- Good for consumers, bad for newspapers

2005-11-20T20:54:00.000-08:00

The NY Times recaps the last week's introduction of Google's new Google Base, which they say will be good for consumers, bad for new papers. Having launched a feed filled with items, and seeing them on the net, we'd tend to agree. Here's an excerpt and the link to the story:

The scariest development for the newspaper industry was the announcement (on that same Wednesday) that Google, the search engine company that wants to be the wallpaper of the future, was going live with Google Base, a user-generated database in which people can upload any old thing they feel like. Could be a poem about their cat, or their aunt's recipe for cod fritters with corn relish.
Or, more ominously for the newspaper industry, people could start uploading advertisements to sell their '97 Toyota Corolla. Craigslist kicked off the trend, giving readers a free alternative to the local classified section. If Google Base accelerates the process, the journalism-school debates over anonymous sourcing and declining audience may end up seeming quaint.
Google Base reverses the polarity on the company's consumer model. Instead of simply sending automated crawlers out across the Web in search of relevant answers to search queries, Google has invited its huge constituency of users to send and tag information that will be organized and displayed in relevant categories, all of which sounds like a large toe into the water of the classified advertising business, estimated to be worth about $100 billion a year.

Full Story

Morgan Stanley investment research analyst Mary Meeker comments on Ebay

2005-11-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

Morgan Stanley's Mary Meeker put out comments on Ebay on 11/18. Excerpts follow:

eBay listings continue to track nicely above our full quarter estimate. CQ3QTD listings (as of 11/15/05) were tracking up 37% Y/Y nicely above our fullquarter estimate of 32% Y/Y, implying a solid outlook for CQ4. Note, CQ4 is aback-end-loaded quarter as listings tend to accelerate through November andDecember due to the Holiday shopping season.

Solid growth across the board. Our QTD tracking estimate for US listings isup 27% Y/Y, vs. our full quarter estimate of 21% Y/Y; Our Internationaltracking estimate is up 47% Y/Y, vs. our 43% Y/Y estimate. eBay Storeslistings remain strong, up 151% Y/Y QTD vs. our estimate of 155%.

Reiterate Overweight-V on eBay. Our Industry view remains Attractive. Wemaintain that investors still underestimate the impact the Internet will havein changing business process and consumer behavior on a global basis. Wecontinue to believe that, at the margin, online is gaining share from offline,that this will occur for some time to come, and should benefit the Internet leaders. As noted in table on page 30, we continue to believe that eBay maysupport accelerating rates of revenue growth in mid-2006. In addition, ashighlighted on page 29, we continue to believe eBay's valuation, based on DCF,is compelling.

Google Base might get easier to use (because it's not just yet)

2005-11-20T16:25:00.000-08:00

This weekend we uploaded some items to Google Base in batch via an RSS feed. It took quite some time to figure out, there were a bunch of error messages along the way and when it was finally uploaded some 10 hours later (the site says it should take about an hour or so) there were still some errors that we had to fix manually. It's not yet a transparent, easy process. So while the end product looked pretty good with the time consuming tweaking, it was kind of a pita. And having to go through the process every time we need to launch an update is not an appealing thought. We suspect that over time it's bound to get easier and more transparent. Here's something that indicates that might happen sooner rather than later. Here's to hoping!

Grokking Google Base? Read Burnham and Pincus
Worth the time:
I suspect that Google will soon announce a program whereby people can register their "Base compliant" RSS feeds with Google base. Google will then poll these feeds regularly just like any other RSS reader. Publishers can either create brand new Base-compliant feeds or with a bit of XSLT/XML Schema of their own they can just transpose their own content into a Base compliant feed. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised if there are several software programs available for download in a couple months that do just that. Soon, every publisher on the planet will be able to have a highly automated, highly structured feed directly into Google base.

Full Post

Google Base was apparently launched with a Security Hole

2005-11-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

Fortunately, it's been fixed.

Google Base launched with security hole
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
21/11/2005 08:00:46
Google has patched a security problem with its Google Base that allowed attackers to steal sensitive information from users of the new content-hosting service.
The problem, which was patched within hours of its discovery earlier this week, allowed attackers to steal cookies and other information from Google Base users and also gave attackers a way to embed fraudulent forms within Google Base Web pages. This type of problem, called a cross-site scripting vulnerability, has also cropped up in Google's search service and in Yahoo's mapping product.

Full Story

BusinessWeek: "Psst! Wanna Hack Into Paypal?"

2005-11-20T13:13:00.000-08:00

BusinessWeek's November 28, 2005 edition contains a story entitled "Psst! Wanna Hack Into Paypal?" It's on chat rooms, and talks about how scammers are using chat rooms as "a clever new way to dodge crime fighters." They go into little monitored chat rooms and message boards to hawk stolen ID's, credit card numbers and software containing malicious code to hack accounts. Their thinking is that they'll fly under the radar screens of the authorities. Hopefully not for long.

War of words continues: "Overstock CEO Never Delivers, Say Analysts"

2005-11-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

The sniping continues in the war of words between Gradient Analytics and David Rocker in one corner, and Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com in the other. Here's a NY Post story fanning the flames:

OVERSTOCK CEO NEVER DELIVERS, SAY ANALYSTS

By RODDY BOYD
November 20, 2005 -- Independent research shop Gradient Analytics and hedge fund Rocker Partners said they bet against embattled Overstock.com not because of a conspiracy but because the CEO of the embattled Web retailer had never delivered on any of his promises.
"We looked at [Byrne's] record," said Rocker in court papers. "We can't find where he has delivered on anything — not one thing — he has promised, either operationally or financially. He hates that we point that out, so he sued us."

Full Story

Just days after Ebay plants a stake in Korea, Google plants its own

2005-11-20T06:38:00.000-08:00

Just days after Ebay announced that it was setting up a regional office in South Korea, Google has announced that it's setting up shop there as well.

Google Sets Eye on KoreaSearch for CEO for Expanded Operations Under Way
By Cho Jin-seoStaff Reporter
Google co-founders Sergey Brin, left, and Larry Page are seen at company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., in this 2004 file photo. The online search engine leader is expected to establish Google Korea in a few months.Google, the world¡'s No.1 Internet search engine company is preparing to expand its business in Korea, hiring a regional chief for its new affiliate company which is expected to open in Seoul within a few months.
The U.S. Internet giant, which leads the global search engine market with a market capitalization of $112.7 billion, has been interviewing candidates for the CEO of Google Korea, said the company¡¯s public relations agent in South Korea said last week. Though the company refused to reveal details of the candidates, the agent said that the interviews are being held at its headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Full Story

Xboxes, iPods, Star Wars Dolls Jingle, Jingle on eBay

2005-11-18T17:37:00.000-08:00

According to Ebay's new Marketplace Research Service, the hot sellers this holiday season are XBox 360's, Apple iPod Nanos, Star Wars action figures, American Girl items and decorative collectibles.

Story Link

Careful, that Tiffany necklace you bought on Ebay might be fake

2005-11-18T17:13:00.000-08:00

Yet another story about fake Tiffany jewelry sold on Ebay. Buyer Beware!

Full Story Link

ABC News
Are You Getting Tiffany's or Tinsel on EBay?
Experts Say Think Before You Click When Buying Jewelry Online
Nov. 18, 2005 — - Sue Paul has simple tastes, but she does like to shop. And like 80 million other Americans, she just loves EBay.
Paul said she generally makes low-cost purchases. "I stick with the small stuff, with a dish here or a cup there," she said.
Then Paul decided to try something different. Her daughter loved a Tiffany bracelet she had bought her over the summer, and Paul began looking for a sterling silver necklace to match it. Sure enough, EBay had one -- at least that's what the ad said.
EBay is the nation's biggest online auction site. Like regular auctions, whoever is willing to pay the highest price online when the auction closes, gets to buy the item.
Poised to get her daughter a Tiffany necklace, the low price made Paul even more excited to make the purchase. "It was like a third of what it was going for at the time, and I could knock her socks off," she said.
When the necklace came in the mail, her daughter's socks may have come off, but they would soon be back on. Paul said the necklace was slightly off-color, and she said the clasps were not as solid as you'd expect from the renowned high-end jeweler. Even the famous blue Tiffany pouch had a cheap feeling to it, she said.
We then brought her necklace to Tiffany's expert, who confirmed it was a fake. And it's not the only one. In fact, so many EBay sellers are pushing counterfeit Tiffany jewelry, that Tiffany is now suing EBay. The lawsuit came after the retailer's researchers found that almost three-fourths of all Tiffany jewelry sold on the EBay are knockoffs
"20/20" bought 16 new pieces from five different sellers (including the one who sold Paul her necklace) who advertised the items as Tiffany jewelry on EBay.
When we brought our purchases to Tiffany's experts, they told us only one of the items was authentic.
Of course you can legitimately sell used Tiffany on EBay, but jewelry expert Antoinette Matlins says that's it. You're not going to find new Tiffany items on the site, because there's no Tiffany discount retailer out there.
"The only people who can sell Tiffany jewelry is Tiffany," Matlins said.
Since Tiffany says Paul's bracelet was fake, we went to Indiana to try to track down Kevin Morris, the man who sold it to her under the Southbeachbodyjewerly name. Morris had a For Sale sign up on his house, and did not answer his door. He also wouldn't respond to our calls and letters, requesting an interview.

Famed "Hollywood" sign for sale on Ebay; starting bids $300K

2005-11-18T15:21:00.000-08:00

Up for sale on Ebay -- the famed "Hollywood" sign! Bidding starts at $300,000 for preapproved bidders and ends Nov 26, 2005.

THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN
This is your chance to own a World-Famous landmark
Item number: 5637020011

Here's an excerpt from the listing:
Yes, it's true. The HOLLYWOOD sign is for sale.
I'm selling the original HOLLYWOOD sign, which was built in 1923. This is THE World-Famous sign. You've seen it in hundreds of films, TV programs, commercials and every other form of media.
The HOLLYWOOD sign is an AMERICAN ICON and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. Unless the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty are put up for sale, this will be your last chance to own one of the world's most famous structures.
THIS IS A LEGITIMATE AUCTION. SERIOUS BIDDERS ONLY. CHECK MY PERFECT EBAY RECORD.
A brief history:
1923 - Film director Mack Sennett and LA Times publisher Harry Chandler build sign
1932 - Actress Peg Entwistle commits suicide by jumping off of the letter H
1944 - Sign and surrounding land are deeded to City of Los Angeles
1949 - Letters "land" are removed and the sign is repainted
1973 - Sign is declared a Cultural Historic Monument
1978 - Celebrities donate funds to rebuild the Hollywood sign
1978 - Original sign taken down and new sign is built
1978 - Hank Berger buys original sign and places it in storage
2003 - Dan Bliss buys sign and creates AuthenticHollywood business
2005 - YOU buy the HOLLYWOOD sign
You will cement your name in history as the final owner of the HOLLYWOOD sign.

Ebay's Matthew Bannick Exercises / Sells 50,000 shares

2005-11-18T14:05:00.000-08:00

FILER: BANNICK MATTHEW J TITLE: Officer
DATE TRANSACTION SHARES PRICE VALUE
11/17/05 Exercise 50,000 $19.39 $969,375
11/17/05 Sale 50,000 $42.74 $2,136,830

Ebay's Skype to make US Retail Debut at Radio Shack on Monday

2005-11-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

November 18, 2001

zdnet.com

Story Link

Skype to make U.S. retail debut

Net telephone service Skype Technologies is set to make its first appearance in a U.S. retail store.
The Luxembourg-based Net telephony company, founded by the people behind the Kazaa peer-to-peer service, is expected to announce on Monday that it has struck a partnership with consumer electronics chain RadioShack.
More than 3,000 RadioShack locations nationwide on Monday will begin offering the Skype Starter Kit, which includes the software that enables a customer to use Skype's free computer-to-computer telephone service, a headset and 30 minutes of Skype's premium service, with which a user can call a landline or cell phone, company executives said.
The move is an attempt by Skype, the world's largest provider of voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, to introduce its service to mainstream America. Before this deal, U.S. consumers could only get Skype service by downloading the software from the Internet.

Online shopping comparison sites sharpen up for holidays

2005-11-18T12:24:00.000-08:00

Story Link

Nov 18, 2005

Online shopping comparison sites sharpen up for holidays
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Laura Hanson relies on the Internet to make her a smarter shopper even when she isn't planning to buy online.
Before traveling to a conventional store, the San Francisco resident regularly visits an online comparison shopping site to explore prices and review product research so she won't need to embarrass herself with store clerks.
``With these (shopping comparison) sites, I can ask lots of stupid questions in the privacy of my own home,'' said the 27-year-old Hanson.
Yahoo Inc. runs Hanson's favorite comparison site -- just one of many free Internet services that churn out pricing guides and other helpful insights about everything from iPod accessories to kitchen sinks.
The comparison sites are expected to play a central role in the upcoming holiday shopping season when Forrester Research predicts some 2.5 million U.S. households will buy merchandise online for the first time.
To grab more consumer eyeballs, they've laid on new features. Some are tracking more merchandise, others using the latest technology to alert shoppers to moneysaving deals or warn them about fraud risks. Still others supplement their price comparisons with product reviews and hard-to-find coupons.
``We are entering a new era (in comparison shopping),'' said Rob Solomon, general manager of Yahoo's shopping site. ``Now, we are all trying to figure out ways to differentiate ourselves.''
All told, U.S. consumers are expected to spend $18 billion shopping on the Internet between Thanksgiving and Christmas, a 25 percent increase from last year, Forrester estimates.
Feeling the pinch of higher gasoline and home heating bills, even consumers leery of Internet shopping are more likely to visit comparison sites to help steer them toward nearby brick-and-mortar stores with the best deals, predicts e-commerce analyst Heather Dougherty of Nielsen/NetRatings.
All the major comparison sites are free to use; they generate revenue primarily from referral fees for sending prospective customers to online merchants. It's a formula that's attracting big bucks as more consumers rely on the comparison sites.
The two most popular such sites, Shopzilla (formerly BizRate) and Shopping.com, were recently acquired in separate deals worth more than $1.2 billion.
Meanwhile, venture capitalists have financed another wave of entrepreneurs promising to introduce even more useful shopping tools.
Michael Yang and his business partners have already raised $11.7 million for their 9-month-old site, Mountain View, Calif.-based Become.com.
By coupling professional product reviews with pricing guides, Yang is confident he can do even better with Become.com than he did with his first comparison shopping site, MySimon, which he started in 1998 and sold to CNet Networks Inc. for $678 million in 2000.
``Comparison shopping really is on the verge of becoming a mainstream service,'' Yang said.
Other new-wave comparison sites include:
-- FatLens.com, which has raised $8 million in venture capital and believes it has come up with a more effective way of finding the best deals for consumers;
-- Dulance, which enables users to create wish lists and receive electronic notices of hot deals through RSS Web feeds;
-- ConsumerClub, eDeals and CouponCabin, which all serve up rebates and coupons from a wide assortment of retailers;
-- Dealio, which offers a shopping toolbar that alerts shoppers when they are about to buy something available at a lower price elsewhere on the Web;
-- SquareTrade, which offers a shopping sidebar that patrols the prices of online auctions and provides fraud protection.
``We haven't seen a terrible amount of innovation in comparison shopping during the past four or five years,'' said Talmadge O'Neill, co-founder of Smarter.com, another newcomer to the field. ``We are still in the early days. There is a huge pie out there yet to be had.''
As they angle for a bigger piece of the action, even long-established comparison sites are rolling out improvements designed to make themselves even more appealing.
Yahoo's shopping channel, shopping.yahoo.com, for instance, is now offering prices and information for about 90 million products, up from 60 million a year ago.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company also is encouraging more social interaction on its shopping site by creating financial incentives for consumers to post lists of their personal recommendations. If those recommendations send visitors to a merchant, the referring consumer will receive a slice of Yahoo's commission.
Besides Yahoo's shopping channel, Shopzilla and Shopping.com, other top shopping comparison sites include Google Inc.'s Froogle.com, PriceGrabber, NexTag and ShopLocal.
This group accounted for the bulk of the 49.3 million people who visited comparison sites during September, an 8 percent increase from 45.8 million at the same time last year, according to the most recent data from Nielsen/NetRatings.
At the top of the shopping cart, Shopzilla and Shopping.com each lured nearly 15 million U.S. visitors in September, Nielsen/NetRatings said.
In deals completed during the summer, Cincinnati-based newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps Co. bought Shopzilla for $570 million and online auctioneer eBay Inc. paid $685 million for Shopping.com.
Though they are attracting more traffic, none of the comparison sites so far have been able to establish themselves as indispensable e-commerce hubs. Most online shoppers still begin their research on the home page of a major Internet search engine, such as Google Inc. or Yahoo, forcing the comparison sites to advertise heavily to attract traffic.
``It's been a challenge for any of these sites to engender any kind of consistent loyalty so far,'' Dougherty said.

ChannelAdvisor Offers eBay Merchants Support for Google Base

2005-11-18T05:41:00.000-08:00

Story Link
ChannelAdvisor Offers eBay Merchants Support for Google Base

By Ina Steiner

AuctionBytes.com

November 18, 2005
eBay sellers who use ChannelAdvisor's Merchant service to manage their sales will be able to launch their listings to Google Base with the click of a button, according the company's CEO Scot Wingo. ChannelAdvisor announced support of Google's beta product, Google Base, on Thursday afternoon after being flooded with interest by customers. When loaded onto Google Base, items have the potential to be included in Google's main search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local, based on overall relevance.
"We believe Google Base is the foundation for an important new online marketplace/sales channel," said Scot Wingo, chief executive officer and president of ChannelAdvisor. "We are very excited to offer our customers direct automated access to this new channel for the holiday selling season."

ChannelAdvisor Announces Support for Google Base Beta

2005-11-17T22:26:00.000-08:00

Story Link

November 17, 2005 04:20 PM US Eastern Timezone

ChannelAdvisor Announces Support for Google Base Beta; Exciting New Channel Offers Great Potential for Additional Holiday Sales

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 2005--ChannelAdvisor, the leading provider of channel management solutions (CMS), announces support of Google's beta product, Google Base. The support of Google Base offers ChannelAdvisor customers another channel to easily sell products and also the potential of inclusion in main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local based on overall relevance.
Todd Rath, chief operating and marketing officer of Rock Bottom Golf, a top internet golf retailer and a current ChannelAdvisor customer, said "We're very excited about Google Base and looking forward to listing our products there for the holiday season. ChannelAdvisor always provides cutting-edge support for new online sales channels and we are pleased they are supporting this new and exciting channel so rapidly."
"We believe Google Base is the foundation for an important new online marketplace/sales channel," said Scot Wingo, chief executive officer and president of ChannelAdvisor. "We are very excited to offer our customers direct automated access to this new channel for the holiday selling season."
ChannelAdvisor's Google Base support opens a new channel for existing customers who are interested in selling their items via Google Base. Additionally, the Google Base support can be leveraged by any businesses looking for an automated, scalable way to move thousands of listings directly from their inventory/ecommerce systems to Google Base.
ChannelAdvisor is providing a number of resources for those interested in the Google Base support:
-- Google Base micro site detailing the ability to turn on support immediately: http://www.channeladvisor.com/googlebase
-- An interactive webinar for customers and prospects to be held Tuesday, November 22nd at 3pm ET. Sign up is available at: http://www.channeladvisor.com/webinars

Overstock.com Responds to Rocker's and Gradient's Motions

2005-11-17T22:15:00.000-08:00

Story Link
Rocker and Gradient Do Not Deny the Substance of Our Lawsuit, Claiming Instead That it is 'Protected Speech'
Far From Following Up on Their Threats, Neither Gradient Nor Rocker Has Filed a Countersuit, Choosing Instead to Hide Behind California's Anti-SLAPP Statute
Gradient and Rocker Will do Whatever it Takes to Avoid Discovery or a Trial
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overstock.com(R)(Nasdaq: OSTK) issued the following statement in response to Rocker Partners'and Gradient Analytics' motion to dismiss Overstock.com's unfair businesspractices lawsuit.
Patrick Byrne, president of Overstock.com:
"Anyone following our lawsuit should note that Rocker and Gradient failed to do two things. Though in the past their shills have accused me of making wild accusations, in their responses Rocker and Gradient do not deny the substance of my allegations, instead claiming that their behavior counts as 'protected speech.' Secondly, they have not filed the countersuit they had promised to file: instead, they asked the court to stay all discovery and to dismiss our lawsuit."
"For the record, I believe that Rocker and Gradient are misusing California's Anti-SLAPP statute and the claims they have made under it are improper. These motions, which don't deny any of our allegations, are an attempt to prevent us from ever getting discovery or the suit from ever seeing a courtroom and jury. If they had, as threatened, filed a countersuit, we would begin the discovery process. I believe they will do everything in their power to fight discovery. Thus, we expect Gradient and Rocker to continue to try to string this out as long as possible with delaying motions such as the one filed Tuesday. Only when it becomes clear that they cannot avoid court do we expect they will file a countersuit.
"Observers should also take note that the declarations we made public describe Gradient's practice of letting hedge funds order hatchet jobs, permit select clients to review and edit reports before publication, and then front run the research. My question is this: if that is in fact how Gradient and Rocker operate, can all agree that is inappropriate, without dithering over specious claims about the First Amendment? If they will not concede such a minimal standard, I believe the public may begin to see the pernicious effects of their style of 'investing.'"
Gradient's demand to stay Overstock.com from conducting third-partydiscovery will be available for download athttp://www.shareholder.com/overstock/suit.cfm.

Overstock.com Comments on Counterfeit Share Issue

2005-11-17T22:12:00.000-08:00

Story Link

Overstock.com Comments on Counterfeit Share Issue

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire-

FirstCall/ -- Overstock.com(R)(Nasdaq: OSTK) today commented on a story that appeared in today's Wall StreetJournal ("Now Playing, Again: 'Get Shorty'"), and associated rumors on theStreet.

Patrick Byrne, president of Overstock.com, said today, "In the past Ihave described how my family and I have experienced delays trying to getbrokers to settle our trades, let alone obtain possession of stockcertificates of shares we already own. I attribute these problems to what Ibelieve are millions of counterfeit shares of OSTK trading on NASDAQ, alongwith the SEC's turning a blind eye while refusing to disclose (and prohibitingNASDAQ from disclosing) the number of counterfeit shares landing us on the RegSHO list every night. I feel obliged to remind shareholders that the onlyprophylactic against hedge fund counterfeiting is for shareholders to obtaintheir actual physical certificates from their brokers."

Buyers out $60,000: Seller Of Missing eBay OSU Tickets Disappears

2005-11-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

Yet another story about fraud on Ebay. This story was filed by a local Columbus, Ohio NBC station and sounds like it's possibly taken an ominous turn:

Story Link

Seller Of Missing eBay OSU Tickets Disappears

OSU Fans Still Waiting For Tickets
POSTED: 4:19 pm EST November 17, 2005
UPDATED: 7:55 pm EST November 17, 2005
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The mystery of the missing Ohio State football tickets has become even more upsetting for fans as the man who claimed to have tickets for sale has disappeared.
The missing ticket problem was first reported on Tuesday. Mark West has been selling Ohio State vs. Michigan tickets on eBay, but dozens and dozens of his customers said they never received their goods, NBC 4's Monique Ming Laven reported.
"I'm just a regular guy. That's all I am," West said in an interview Tuesday. "This is terrible. My wife's upset." Watch The Report
Now, West's wife has filed a missing person report on her husband with Fostoria police. Investigators said he hasn't been seen since Tuesday.
Jeff Kirby ordered four tickets to the game in The Big House in April. The game was meant to be his brother's bachelor party.
"(I'm) very, very angry," Kirby said.
Another NBC 4 viewer e-mailed that she is still waiting for tickets she bought her parents as a thank you gift for throwing her wedding.
In all, nearly $60,000 worth of tickets has been reported missing.
Anyone wanting to report a problem can call the Ohio Attorney General's office at (800) 282-0515.

Getting Skittish About Skype

2005-11-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

Story Link

November 28, 2005

Getting Skittish About Skype

Security questions have some companies steering clear of the Internet phone service

Business Week
It's the kind of notoriety that comes with a $2.6 billion buyout. Since Luxembourg-based Internet telephone startup Skype Technologies was gobbled up by online marketplace eBay Inc. (EBAY ) for that princely sum in September, Skype has added 12 million more users, for a total of 66 million -- and has attracted a boatload of closer scrutiny. Most troublesome are questions about whether Skype's technology is safe to use inside corporations. The company's popular software lets people make free calls over the Internet from one PC to another. But in recent days consultants have begun warning companies that employees who use the software in the office could be poking holes in the security systems designed to defend against hackers and other intruders. On Nov. 10, Info-Tech Research Group in London, Ont., issued a report under the headline "Ban corporate Skype usage immediately" that cited a litany of potential security risks. Tom Newton, a product manager at SmoothWall Ltd., a maker of corporate firewalls in Leeds, England, says: "We advise customers to keep it off their networks."
What makes Skype a potential risk is the very thing that makes it so appealing to millions of users: It's a breeze to set up. Unlike more complex and expensive Internet phone offerings from the likes of Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO ) and Avaya Inc., Skype can be downloaded and installed by any employee, beyond the control of info-tech managers. What's more, Skype is designed to burrow past firewalls while leaving little trace of its presence. The software works like a charm, but the hole created for phone conversations could be exploited to swipe data or release viruses.
There have been no reports of attacks that take advantage of Skype technology. Yet the company itself concedes its product may not be right for some organizations. Michael Jackson, Skype's director of operations, strongly defends the software's safety and data encryption, but he acknowledges it lacks features such as the ability to log and monitor phone calls. Avoiding Skype may thus be "the right thing to do," Jackson says, for companies facing stringent compliance requirements under the Sarbanes-Oxley standards now necessary at publicly held U.S. companies.

China 'yet to embrace e-commerce'

2005-11-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

Story Link

China 'yet to embrace e-commerce'
BBC News
Chinese internet users are wary of buying products online, a survey of Chinese internet habits has revealed.
More than 75% of those questioned by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said they had never purchased anything online. Only 10% bought regularly.
While internet usage is developing rapidly in China, growth in e-commerce has been much slower.
The survey also found that one-third of internet users do not use e-mail, preferring instant messaging instead.
Young and male
The research - the third survey of Chinese internet use since 2000 - revealed that web users are predominantly male, under 25, well-educated and wealthier than average.
Many people do not trust the quality of goods bought online Guo Liang, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
China now has more than 100 million internet users, making it the second largest internet market after the United States.
The battle for eyeballs has intensified with a host of internet firms - including Google, Yahoo, eBay and domestic portal Baidu - striving to exploit the expanding market.
The Chinese Academy - the government's main think-tank- said that while internet usage had mushroomed, overall penetration was still limited.
Less than 8% of the population have access to the internet while less than 50% of urban dwellers are internet users.
Trust
The latest research suggests that most Chinese are not yet comfortable buying goods online.
"Many people do not trust the quality of goods bought online," said Guo Liang, the report's author.
"If they buy it in a store and don't like it, they can easily bring it back."
Most of the 2,300 people questioned in the survey said they used the internet to access news and for online games.
The survey covered internet users in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Ghangsha.

Queen's Freddie Mercury's Rolls-Royce going up on Ebay

2005-11-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

The late great Queen fronman Freddie Mercury's silver Rolls-Royce will be up for grabs on Ebay starting on 11/17.

Press Release

Mercury’s cherished 1974 Silver Shadow goes on sale today (Thursday 17 November) at 8.30pm, in a two-stage auction procedure entirely new to eBay, conducted by on-line sales specialists SellStuffEasy. The aim is to protect the singer’s family (who inherited the car in 1991) from a flood of frivolous bids, while ensuring that serious collectors have a clear run at bidding for their prize.

War of words: Verso Responds to Statements by Skype

2005-11-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

The war of words between Skype and Verso Technologies is heating up.

Story Link

November 17, 2005

08:30 AM US Eastern Timezone

Verso Responds to Statements by Skype

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 2005--Verso Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSO), a leading provider of packet based solutions, responded today to recent comments by Skype CEO, Niklas Zennstrom regarding Verso's NetSpective M-Class product's Skype(TM) blocking abilities.
The NetSpective(R) M-Class product is a carrier grade application filter which offers bandwidth optimization and content management specifically for the carrier market. The application provides the most comprehensive array of bandwidth optimization and content management options currently available for cable and mobile operators and Internet protocol service providers seeking to selectively disable undesirable network traffic by applications such as Skype and other P2P applications.
Applications such as Skype present several critical and well documented problems for carriers, including:
-- increased congestion on networks;
-- interrupted or degraded service for mission critical applications;
-- the violation of legal intercept requirements established by most nations around the world; and
-- security vulnerabilities including distribution of viruses, denial of service attacks and remote access control.
"Verso does have an executed trial agreement with a tier one carrier in China; however, at the request of the customer, we will maintain their anonymity until the trial is completed. We will not jeopardize an important business relationship to respond to baseless comments," said Monty Bannerman, CEO, Verso Technologies. "Verso has been doing business in China for more than 10 years and we understand the market and its regulatory environment. In addition, it has been widely reported that Skype technology is illegal in China," added Bannerman.
Verso has had an established reputation in the content filtering sector since 2001. In response to market demands from both enterprises and carriers, Verso began the development and brought to market the P2P and Skype filtering capabilities available today. The critical drivers for the enhancements were the network security vulnerabilities and bandwidth utilization issues presented by unauthorized evasive applications running on corporate and carrier networks. Recently both the Tolly Group, the authoritative, unbiased source for global IT research, certification and testing, as well as the Info-Tech Research Group, a global leader in providing information technology research and analysis, communicated the security and bandwidth problems presented by Skype for carriers and enterprises.
"Verso is highly confident in our product and we are currently in the process of securing an independent, third party accreditation and certification for this product. Additionally, if Niklas Zennstrom is willing to accept my invitation and return to the United States, we would be delighted to give him a personal demonstration," concluded Bannerman.
About Verso Technologies
Verso is a leading provider of next generation communication applications for carriers, service providers and enterprises that need to lower their communication infrastructure costs while enhancing service capabilities to remain competitive. With an extensive portfolio that extends from the "core-to-the-edge" of a network, Verso solutions and applications enable its customers to leverage legacy technology investments while migrating to converged voice and data networks.
Verso solutions are currently deployed in thousands of customer networks worldwide. For more information, contact Verso at www.verso.com or call 678.589.3500

Ebay President Bill Cobb: "It's all about freedom" - Ya, right...

2005-11-17T08:31:00.000-08:00

Interesting article on cbronline.com entitled "You ain't seen nothing yet, say Internet gurus" where Ebay President Bill Cobb is quoted as saying: "It's all about freedom. What the Internet does now is it allows convergence between a seller and a buyer. All these inefficiencies in the supply chain can be eliminated."

So true, Bill. So true. Thanks for pointing that out. One extension of this that you didn't mention -- Ebay has become one of those "inefficiencies" itself. Many sellers have grown to realize that they don't need Ebay, with its ever increasing fees, as a middleman. Ebay, in it's fear of losing business to the web, has among other things been slowly closing its system by making it more difficult for sellers to communicate with buyers outside their system, taking freedom away. Judging by its release of Google Base yesterday, Google is opening the web up. For Ebay it seems that this 'freedom' is a double edged sword.

Story Link

You ain't seen nothing yet, say Internet gurus

17th November 2005

By Stuart Lauchlan

The best is yet to come for the internet industry, according to the good and the great of the business. With more homes connected at speeds of 2 to 3 gigabits per second, a market is opening up for companies such as eBay, Salesforce.com and other Internet companies to expand their installed base.
"We are seeing the beginning of things," said Reed Hastings, chief executive of online DVD rental company Netflix at the TechNet Innovation Summit in San Jose, of video on the web. "Web 2.0 is broadband. Web 3.0 is 10 gigabits a second."
"Now we're seeing services and applications," said Jerry Yang, co-founder of Internet media firm Yahoo. "This has been one of the promises the Internet has offered for a long time - the consumer can really be the programmer."
Companies are building ever more complex services that run over the Internet and are used through a simple Web browser. "Everything is really driven as a service over the Internet," said Mark Benioff, chief executives of Salesforce.com during a panel discussion on what is next for the Web. "Instead of that traditional concept of you having a data centre in your house or your business, you will use these services."
Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America added: "It's all about freedom. What the Internet does now is it allows convergence between a seller and a buyer. All these inefficiencies in the supply chain can be eliminated."

Piper Jaffray investment research analyst Safa Rashtchy: "Google Base: The Trojan Horse To A New Web"

2005-11-17T06:13:00.000-08:00

Piper Jaffray investment analyst Safa Rashtchy put out a note this morning on Google entitled "Google Base: The Trojan Horse To A New Web". He believes that it could be disruptive to both Ebay and blogs. We believe that's true as well. The summary from his note is below:

KEY POINTS:
* Google's Launch of Base Could be Start of a New Chapter for Google

* City of Mountain View Approves Deployment of GoogleNet Wi-Fi - Expect expansion in other areas

* Long-Term Picture Getting Stronger as Google Delivers on New Platforms

Google Base - A Trojan Horse. Yesterday, 11/16, Google launched Google Base, aplatform for anyone to enter and save any content on the web that can then be easily categorized and found by others. This broad description is the key tounderstanding Google's potential with this new platform: Getting classified listings is just a Trojan Horse to create an entirely new web of content,already indexed and ready for use by millions, a process which will alsocreate massive advertising inventory for Google. Instead of creating a newportal, Google aims to create a new worldwide web. Google has already indexedthe current content of the web, but there is significantly more contentoutside the current Internet " one that Google is aiming to get people to puton the web through Google Base. We believe services as diverse as eBay and blogs could be disrupted if Google succeeds in directing, or alternately enhanced, similar to the way search boosted the e-commerce revenues. In this process, Google can stand to make a handsome profit by being the intermediaryand the database. In this note, we describe the key features of Google Baseand, more importantly, its long-term potential in disrupting the currentplatforms of the web by offering a new alternative for finding content,particularly localized content, products, and services.

The Beginning of Wi-Fi GoogleNet. The Mountain View City Council approved thedeployment of GoogleNet, a free Wi-Fi network in the city of Mountain View. Weexpect Google to use the Wi-Fi network as a testing ground for the deploymentof large scale Wi-Fi networks and location based services including localizedad targeting. We also expect the deployment of a Wi-Fi network in MountainView to position Google as the leading vendor to win the contract with thecity of San Francisco for low cost/free wireless Internet access throughoutthe city of San Francisco. In addition, we anticipate free wireless access tofurther build Google's brand equity with consumers which may lead toincreasing adoption of other Google services.
Long Term Picture. Our thesis on Google, articulated in our initiation piece,is that Google has the potential to create a number of large and profitableplatforms, beyond search. We believe recent initiatives confirm this thesisand make us more confident of the long term potential of Google technology,Google brand, and Google innovation.

Alibaba.com claims victory over Ebay and vows to beat Google

2005-11-17T05:59:00.000-08:00

A brazen Jack Ma of Chinese internet company Alibaba.com claimed victory over Ebay and vows to beat another nemesis: Google. If Mr. Ma's Ebay claims are true, Meg's gonna have to get busy. Guess that means that fees on Ebay's US site will go up even more in 2006 to fund the Chinese battle.

Story Link

AFX News Limited

China Internet firm Alibaba.com vows to beat Google

11.17.2005, 02:33 AM
BUSAN, South Korea (AFX) - Chinese Internet firm Alibaba.com hasvowed to defeat US giant Google Inc in the battle to become the dominantsearch engine for the potentially lucrative Chinese market. Alibaba.com chief executive Jack Ma said his company was the undisputed king of the web in China after seeing off e-Bay and taking over Yahoo! Inc's Chinese operations in an August deal that secured one bln usd of investment.

Agence France-Presse cited Ma as saying Google was vulnerable in Chinaand that Alibaba would focus on building up its search engine to keep it out. Speaking to reporters at a meeting of Asia Pacific leaders in the SouthKorean city of Busan, Ma said Alibaba -- through its electronic retail unittaobao.com -- had already defeated e-commerce rival e-Bay.

He said Alibaba was over 20 times bigger than e-Bay and has 11 mlnproduct listings on its website. "The game is almost over, finished. I'm not interested in thatcompetition at all," Ma declared, referring to e-Bay.

"For the search engine, I think Google is very powerful. But it is notthat powerful in China now," said Ma, who founded Alibaba in 1999 with 2,000usd borrowed from relatives. Asked to spell out Alibaba's strategy, Ma said: "We win e-Bay, buy Yahoo!and stop Google. That is for fun. Competition is for fun."

He accepted that Google and Yahoo! were the dominant Internet powers inEurope and the US, but he said neither was that strong in Asia. "I call them sharks in the ocean. We are crocodiles in the Yangtze River.If we fight in the Yangtze River, we have more chances than they have." In August, Yahoo! bought 40 pct of Alibaba for one bln usd and turnedover its Chinese operations to help it grow faster in the Chinese market. The joint venture created a combined entity valued at four bln usd, withaccess to China's more than 100 mln Internet users.

"We will use all the resources we have to focus on search in the next twoto three years in China... We already won (over) e-Bay, we already boughtYahoo! and the money is to stop Google," Ma said. Alibaba plans to expand in South Korea in the next two to three years,and later the Japanese market. While it also plans to boost its presence inEurope, its focus would remain in China and Asia. A public listing for the company may only happen in three to five years,Ma said, adding that any decision on the matter must be taken for very goodreasons. Ma forecast China will become the "number one Internet country" in theworld in five years.

Ebay's Matthew Bannick Exercises / Sells 25,000 shares

2005-11-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

FILER: BANNICK MATTHEW J TITLE: Officer

DATE TRANSACTION SHARES PRICE VALUE
11/15/05 Exercise 25,000 $19.39 $484,688
11/15/05 Sale 25,000 $43.02 $1,075,443

New competition for Ebay's Skype: Sony launches free Internet phone service

2005-11-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

VOIP competitors seem to be coming out of the woodwork. The latest offering seems to be from Sony.

Story Link
Sony launches free Internet phone service
By Greg Sandoval

Story last modified Wed Nov 16 19:00:00 PST 2005
Add Sony to the list of companies getting into the telephone business.
The electronics giant launched a free Web-based phone service on Wednesday called Instant Video Everywhere, designed to link users of the service via their computers. According to an advertisement on Sony's Web site, the new service will ship with the company's latest version of Vaio BX laptops, which are equipped with built-in video cameras.
The move comes as traditional phone companies are losing their grip on services that were once theirs exclusively. In September, auction powerhouse eBay announced that it had agreed to pay $1.3 billion for Net telephone provider Skype, one of the premiere Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, companies. eBay said it plans to boost communications between buyers and sellers.
Yahoo, AOL and others also offer video-calling services similar to IVE. Video-phone services have long been touted by technology enthusiasts but have struggled to attract a mainstream audience.
In June, Sony signaled that it might offer a consumer telephone offering, when it rolled out an IVE service aimed at businesses. Sony is working with Glowpoint, a Hillside, N.J.-based video-phone service provider known for its "All You Can See" unlimited video dialing plans and easy-to-use services, which include features such as live video operators and video-call mailboxes. Sony said it will also offer to connect IVE users to landlines and cell phones for a monthly fee of $9.95.
Sony executives did not immediately return calls for comment.

Attention Star Trek collectors: William Shatner wants to sell his kidney stone on Ebay!

2005-11-16T16:35:00.000-08:00

Trekkies may soon get to bid on a precious stone with a big Star Trek connection. A super valuable dilitheum crystal? No. Something much better! A kidney stone from Captain James T. Kirk himself!

In a visit to Jimmy Kimmel's show on Monday night, former Star Trek and current Boston Legal star William Shatner described a recent visit to a hospital where he had a kidney stone removed. In the process, he and Kimmel came up with the idea to sell the kidney stone on Ebay with the proceeds going to their favorite charities. Bidding can start once they get it back from the lab. They better check with Ebay first, just to make sure it doesn't violate the 'no body parts' rule.

Posted on Wed, Nov. 16, 2005
In a guest appearance on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live show Monday night...
In a guest appearance on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live show Monday night, William Shatner, the former Captain Kirk and star of Boston Legal, talked about a recent trip to the hospital to have his kidney stone removed.
"The hospital was very crowded," Shatner said. "They put me on a maternity gurney, the one with the stirrups, and rolled me down the hall into a room. I was yelling in pain, and people were pointing at me saying, 'Look, Captain Kirk is having a baby.'"
A non-Trekkie's response would have been, "Thank you for sharing, Bill." Jimmy Kimmel's reaction? "Can I have the stone? I really want it. It is the ultimate Star Trek collectible."
Shatner and Kimmel decided to sell the kidney stone on EBay and donate the proceeds to their favorite charities. You can't bid yet -- you have to wait for it to get back from the lab.

Police looking more and more for stolen goods on Ebay

2005-11-16T15:54:00.000-08:00

Story Link

November 16, 2005

Brazen bandits? Find 'em on eBay, state police say

By Dave Richardson Times Herald-Record drichardson@th-record.com

Highland – It was a clever plan: steal stuff, disguise it and then sell it to mostly unsuspecting buyers on the Internet auction site eBay.

Unfortunately, it wasn't clever enough to keep the five Ulster County residents accused of perpetrating it out of jail.

State police in Highland uncovered the scheme while investigating a rash of brazen thefts of dirt bikes, ATVs and other equipment in October.

The wily thieves, sometimes working in broad daylight, struck at least 10 times this year, snatching ATVs and motorcycles left unattended along busy roads in and around Plattekill by owners hoping to sell them.

Police got their first break with a couple of anonymous tips and arrests last month after a story about the thefts appeared in the Times Herald-Record.

Investigators followed different threads, eventually finding someone who they said admitted to buying stolen property from one of the prime suspects.

The arrest of that suspect led to the others in short order, police said.

Investigators said the crew was running a "sort of sophisticated" chop shop. After stealing ATVs, dirt bikes and even lawnmowers, they'd buy new parts to disguise the items, and then sell them on eBay.

Computer records showed one of the suspects bought a new frame for a dirt bike on eBay just hours after one was stolen in the area, police said.

It fit a clear pattern, police said: a bike gets stolen, new parts would be bought on eBay, then the stolen bike would appear on the site, wearing the new parts.

Now, all five of the suspects, arrested earlier this month, are facing felony charges.

Jeramey Orlando, 30, Spencer Seymour, 22, Daryl Willis, 23, Joshua Greco, 23, and Lori Durling, 20, face charges ranging from criminal possession of stolen property to grand larceny – all felonies. All have been arraigned and released, pending grand jury action on their cases.

"This case is far from over," said Investigator Yan Salomon. "We are still looking for people who purchased stolen property from the suspects, and we're still looking for a lot of the property that was stolen." Anyone with information about this case is asked to call state police investigators at 691-7855

Skype Inks Deal With PacNet In Asia

2005-11-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

Story Link

November 16, 2005 (4:28 PM EST)
Skype Inks Deal With PacNet In Asia
By Laurie Sullivan, TechWeb News Skype could soon have a stronger foothold in China. The Internet telephone company that eBay purchased last month for $2.5 billion in cash and stock on Tuesday reported closing a deal with Pacific Internet Ltd. to jointly provide voice services in Singapore.
PacNet, Asia Pacific's largest independent Internet telecommunications service provider, serves businesses in China through its Hong Kong subsidiary. "We also have customers in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Austria, Hong Kong and India," said Mervin Wang, senior manager for corporate communications and investor relations. "The initial focus of the agreement primarily will be in Singapore, but we are interested in talking with Skype for a subsequent rollout in other parts of the region."

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling takes a swipe at Ebay for bootleg items on the site

2005-11-16T10:50:00.000-08:00

Full Story Link

Faces In The News Latest Harry Potter Film Available For Illegal Download?
Chris Noon,
11.16.05, 11:14 AM ET
Trawling through J.K. Rowling's quaintly constructed Web site--where the billionaire author lays rumors to rest, chooses a "Wizard Of The Month" and muses on various morsels of Potterania, you swiftly realize there's only one force that's darker than the pernicious diabolist Lord Voldemort in Rowling's world, and that's unauthorized use of her intellectual property.
Rowling urged "constant vigilance" from her fans on the look out for Harry Potter e-books offered for download from the Internet a few months back, warning on her Web site that the files "may infect your computer with viruses, leave you vulnerable to the dangers of hacking and/or credit card fraud and may also contain content that has nothing to do with Harry Potter, to say the least."
A prudent tip-off, and a few months later Rowling put the novels on sale as audiobook downloads to tackle piracy. All six books now be purchased via Apple Computer's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) iTunes site.
Rowling also took the chance to take a swipe at eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) for failing to take responsibility for bootleg Potter items sold on the online auction site, speaking of "the huge number of unauthorized Harry Potter e-books and audio digital files that users of eBay have offered for sale to Harry Potter fans".

PayPal Suffers Outage, Netcraft Says

2005-11-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

Ebay's Paypal payment service apparently went down on Tuesday evening, the second outage this year.
Story Link

eBay and Banking: Is PayPal a Serious Rival?

2005-11-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

Full article requires subscription

Excerpt from article:

eBay and Banking: Is PayPal a Serious Rival?

American Banker

November 16, 2005

Should banks worry about competition from PayPal Inc., the Internet payments unit of the online auctioneer eBay Inc.? Some industry insiders think they should. PayPal has gotten fat on banks' leftovers. The San Jose company has been increasing revenue by about 50% a year, partly by providing basic transaction services to businesses too small to get the attention of traditional banking companies. Because much of that volume comes from eBay customers, competition from PayPal is not on most banks' radar screen. Though it processes more than 600,000 transactions a day, including about two-thirds of all online-auction payments, only a tiny percentage are generated by micro- and small businesses. (PayPal said it could not break out figures.) But as PayPal adds services to cater to more of these companies, analysts and insiders say, banks should start asking when it will get tired of eating their leftovers and start eating their lunch. Last month it pushed further into the world of micro- and small businesses by agreeing to buy the payments gateway service of VeriSign Inc., the Mountain View, Calif., digital security firm. The deal, which is expected to close by yearend, will nearly triple PayPal's transaction volume, which is expected to come in at $26 billion this year. But perhaps more important, it will give PayPal access to VeriSign's 100,000 small-business customers. PayPal, which acts as a merchant acquirer for credit card transactions made through its service, currently relies on bank partners - primarily Wells Fargo & Co. - to provide merchant processing for a substantial share of its transaction volume. Paypal declined to reveal Wells' fee per transaction. Wells declined to comment for this article. Stephanie Tilenius, a PayPal vice president and the general manager of its merchant services division, said the company is pleased with its relationship with Wells and other partner banking companies, such as Comerica Inc. and Bank of America Corp. She insisted that though PayPal offers many of the same services as banks, it does not view banks as competition. "We see the banks as our friend, not foe. We bring business to the banks," Ms. Tilenius said. "Because of our account base, we've been able to enable small businesses to use Visa and MasterCard. And even with the VeriSign acquisition, we are now offering a stand-alone gateway product, so people can use our new gateway product and their bank." She declined to characterize the provision of similar services to the same customer base as competition to banks. "Merchants can come to us and they can choose what products to use," Ms. Tilenius said. "They can come to us and just use the gateway product and bring their own bank with them. Or they can come and decide to use a full suite of products from PayPal." Asked if PayPal had considered applying for a bank charter to capture merchant-processing profits it now yields to Wells, she said, "We don't want to be a processor today." She declined to elaborate. But regardless of whether it officially moves into the banking industry, PayPal is already doing more than nibbling around the edges. "My perspective is that they are encroaching in the businesses of banks," said Jackie Reeves, a managing director at Ryan, Beck & Co. Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla. Ms. Reeve pointed out that even armed with a bank charter, PayPal would not be in a good position to operate a traditional brick-and-mortar bank - because of its utter lack of branches. However, she added, it is probably well positioned to operate as an Internet-only bank, drawing from a customer base of Web-savvy account holders. An additional advantage, Ms. Reeve said, is that PayPal could thereby "probably raise money cheaper than wholesale funding." But industry analysts and insiders said that even without a bank charter, the operation is a competitive threat to banks. In fact, Ms. Reeve said, there is a strong likelihood that some company attracted by its "new technology and new distribution system" will offer to buy it from eBay. PayPal presents "a value proposition to the marketplace," she said, "and could become part of another institution because of that value proposition." When asked to comment on that likelihood, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said: "I have no doubt that it would be viewed as incredibly valuable, and that there are many companies that would like to own PayPal." But, Mr. Durzy added, PayPal is "a pillar" of eBay's corporate structure, and that there is little likelihood that the company would ever elect to sell it.

Google Base expected to go live today

2005-11-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Story Link

Google's reach expands with new project
Google Base has the potential to make a sea of content including recipes and job listings instantly available.

By Matthew Fordahl

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Wednesday, November 16, 2005
SAN JOSE, Calif. — An ambitious new Google Inc. service will let anyone upload almost anything to a publicly searchable database, potentially laying the groundwork for a foray by the Internet juggernaut into classified advertising.
The venture, Google Base, also could signal grander ambitions for the king of online search-related advertising. Expected to be available today, Google Base has the potential to make instantly available a sea of content including recipes, job listings, photos, DNA sequences, real estate listings and individual standalone databases.
Normally, it takes Web "crawlers" days or weeks to scour the Web and feed Google's main search engine with updated information. This tool will make locating anything that has been uploaded nearly instantaneous.
Submitters also will be able to describe what they uploaded with keywords, making searches and filters more reliable.
"This is all part of our efforts to make it really easy for anyone with information to make it accessible from Google," said Salar Kamangar, vice president of product management.
What's less clear is exactly what Google plans to do with what it amasses from Google Base's release, in what is being characterized as a beta test.
Kamangar said the company eventually wants to integrate the results with results from its main search engine, its local search site, which identifies results by geographical location, and its shopping service, Froogle.com.

Skype optimisic of launching computer-to-telephone call ops in China - report

2005-11-15T17:30:00.000-08:00

Story Link
AFX News Limited Skype optimisic of launching computer-to-telephone call ops in China - report
11.15.2005, 06:53 PM
BEIJING (AFX) - Skype, the internet telephony company owned by EBay, is optimistic its talks with Chinese state-owned operators will clear the way for the launch of its computer-to-telephone call service in China, the Financial Times reported. The newspaper, citing Niklas Zennstrom, chief executive of Skype, waved aside suggestions that Verso Technologies, a US company, was close to selling an anti-Skype filtering system to a leading Chinese operator. Skype offers its free computer-to-computer telephony service to users in China but does not directly market its fee-paying SkypeOut computer-to-telephone service because of regulatory restrictions, the paper said. 'We have quite a good relationship with the operators here in China and are in dialogue with them,' Zennstrom was quoted as saying in the paper's online edition. 'I am optimistic we will be able to launch the SkypeOut service in China.' The paper said Zennstrom declined to forecast when Skype would be able to introduce SkypeOut, which allows users to make calls round the world at a fraction of the price charged by traditional operators. Verso's announcement fueled speculation that Chinese state-owned operators would seek to block cut-rate telephone services based on voice over Internet protocol technology, as Skype is, the paper said. But Zennstrom said Skype had found no Chinese operator that was using or reviewing Verso's product and suggested the US company had played a 'smart PR trick'.

Mypoints.com offers points for Ebay Purchases among others

2005-11-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

Ebay may have killed off it's unpopular and useless 'Anything Points' program, but if you're a MyPoints user, you can earn points if you purchase through Mypoints.com.

Story Link

November 15, 2005 09:02 AM

US Eastern Timezone MyPoints Shoppers Extend Value of Holiday Dollars Without Waiting for End of Season Sales

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 15, 2005--End-of-season sales keep some shoppers waiting until the last minute to purchase holidays gifts. A better option is to stretch the value of holiday dollars now by purchasing gifts online through MyPoints.com, the premier frequent shopper website that rewards online shoppers with free valuable gift cards and other rewards.
Every time a shopper makes an online purchase through the MyPoints.com website, they earn points redeemable for gift cards from major retail brands such as Starbucks, Home Depot and Macy's. MyPoints.com has over 300 retail partners that offer a minimum of two points for every dollar spent on purchases. And, many of their retailer partners also include specials such as free shipping or extra bonus points -- especially around the holidays. Just a few of the great holiday offers available from MyPoints include:
-- Macy's.com provides 10 points per dollar for every online purchase during the holiday season.
-- eBay.com offers 2 points per dollar for every online purchase as well as 50 points for registering and making the first transaction.
-- The Children's Place.com provides a $5 flat rate for shipping plus 2 points per dollars for all online purchases.
-- Overstock.com offers 10 points per dollar spent, plus a flat shipping rate of only $2.95 per order.
-- FTD.com offers 500 points plus 250 bonus points per order for flowers, gourmet food baskets, and other gifts for the holidays.
-- Hotwire.com offers 750 points per booking for hotel, flight or vacation packages for the holidays -- even last minute!
-- Sephora.com offers 2 points per dollar spent plus free shipping on orders over $75.
-- The Entertainment Book.com provides 750 points per order and offers hundreds of discount coupons to use throughout the year.
"Not only do shoppers get the best deals from MyPoints' retail partners, they also get the added benefit of earning points that can accumulate quickly and turn into free, valuable gift cards," said David Rosen, MyPoints' Senior Vice President, Marketing.
Points add up fast, especially during the holidays: a cashmere sweater for Mom from Macy's ($99.99 = 990pts); a Nikon digital camera for Dad from Overstock.com ($209.00 = 2090pts); a remote controlled Roboraptor from the Discovery Store.com ($99.95 = 200pts); Adidas running shoes ($72.00 = 288pts); a new iPod 30GB ($299.00 = 600pts); and four plane tickets to grandma's house from Travelocity.com ($1800 = 3600pts).
These purchases quickly add up to 7768 points. This translates to $60 in free rewards -- for everything from Barnes & Noble gift cards to United travel certificates to prepaid fuel cards -- just for buying needed holiday items online through MyPoints.
Stretching Your Rewards Even Further
This holiday season MyPoints members are also eligible to win up to 100,000 points or double points from Macy's.com, Best Buy.com or Overstock.com through a special "rub and win" promotion. Additionally, MyPoints has put together a tailor-made gift guide section designed to make holiday shopping even easier, with gift ideas for every shopper regardless of budget. Shoppers can also earn an additional point for every dollar spent by signing up for a MyPoints.com Rewards Visa Platinum card.
About the Program
By signing up at www.mypoints.com, members can immediately begin earning points for their everyday online purchases -- everything from birthday flower bouquets at FTD.com to iPods at BestBuy.com. These points can then be redeemed for free gift cards and other rewards from retailers such as Starbucks, Home Depot, Target, Barnes & Noble, Gap, Red Lobster, BLOCKBUSTER, Exxon Mobile and other top brands.
The average member begins to redeem points after as little as 77 days from joining. Gift cards are sent within days of cashing in the points earned from normal online shopping.
About MyPoints.com
MyPoints.com is the premier online shoppers program that offers its members the most rewards from America's top brands. Founded in 1996, the frequent shoppers program now has the largest membership of active shoppers on the web. Members earn "points" by reading e-mails, taking surveys or shopping online at more than 300 merchants, including Apple, Office Depot, Neiman Marcus, Circuit City, Macy's, Dell, Barnes & Noble, Overstock.com and Nordstrom. MyPoints.com members zealously redeem points for themselves -- and others -- for free gift cards for name-brand merchandise, airline miles, gasoline, and dining out. www.mypoints.com

Vendio(TM) Launches Dealio(TM), New Comparison Shopping Toolbar

2005-11-15T08:02:00.000-08:00

Full Release
First Truly Intuitive Shopping Utility for the Web Allows Instant Comparisons of Online Retailers and eBay(R) Listings
SAN BRUNO, Calif., Nov. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Dealio, a novel new comparisonshopping toolbar that offers consumers a fully automated and intuitive way tofind the best deals on the Web, launched today from Vendio(TM), a leadingprovider of services that empower merchants to reach consumers and manageonline transactions. The Dealio Toolbar operates unobtrusively within aconsumer's Web browser and provides coverage for millions of products fromtens of thousands of online merchants of all sizes without requiring consumersto visit a website each time they want to conduct a search. The Dealio Toolbaris also the first comparison shopping engine to incorporate auction and fixedprice listings from hundreds of thousands of eBay(R) sellers, furtherexpanding the range of prices for everything from digital cameras to plasmaTVs, MP3 players, cell-phones and more. The Dealio Toolbar reflects the latestdeals from many of the largest online retailers, including major brands suchas Sony Style(C), Wal-Mart(R), Target(C), Amazon.com(C), Circuit City(C),OfficeMax(C), Dell(TM), Best Buy(C), Overstock.com. and RitzCamera(C). TheDealio Toolbar is not adware or spyware -- it does not record consumers'individual Web movements or adversely affect system or Internet connectionperformance, and it does not generate pop-ups or any other advertising on aconsumer's computer. Dealio is free to consumers and is available for downloadat http://www.dealio.com.

Ebay's charging for their analytics, Google's gonna give analytic tools away for free

2005-11-14T20:36:00.000-08:00

Story Link

Free website therapy - Google gives away analytics

By Eric Auchard, Reuters

15 November 2005 08:30 AEST

Internet

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google plans to give away a set of analytic tools allowing web developers, administrators and advertisers to fine-tune their sites including advertising, the web search leader said on Sunday.
The tools are intended to address a key aspect of successful websites, which is the ability to track user behaviour to determine which features keep visitors on the site and which ones make them click away.
Google Analytics can be used by website builders to figure out what keywords attract visitors, which promotions hold on to customers and how to design web pages that draw attention.
Google, which derived virtually all of its US$1.58 billion in revenue from advertising sales during the last quarter, is betting that by giving away sophisticated web measurement tools it can also drive increased use of its search marketing services.
"Any time we add more measurability and more control, advertisers understand more of what they are doing and they end up spending more," said Paul Muret, the Google engineering director who co-founded its analytics service.
Google's offering is based on Urchin Web Analytics, which it acquired in March for undisclosed terms and then cut the price to US$199 a month for the service from US$400 previously.
Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/) are already used by many top websites, including dozens of Fortune 500 companies. By making the service free, Google is seeking to draw a wider range of users to web analytics, including individuals looking to more actively promote their topical web logs, or blogs.
Free software
While most web creation programs offer rudimentary site tracking tools, a more sophisticated set of costly tools are offered by companies such as WebSideStory, SPSS Inc and CoreMetrics.
"Google is giving away free software to improve websites. I fail to see how some of these web analyst vendors could not be hurt by this," Jupiter Research analyst Eric Peterson said of the impact on the estimated US$450 million-a-year industry.
All user data is safeguarded in line with a recently enhanced privacy policy. But with so much information coursing through its computers, Google must manage the data carefully so as not to raise suspicions about its actions, Peterson said.
Advertisers using Google AdWords, its popular pay-per-click keyword-selling service, will find Google Analytics embedded in their accounts. This will help marketers using AdWords to automatically drive traffic to relevant pages on their sites.
It also can track the results of an online marketing campaign, including banner advertisements, website referral links, email newsletter promotions, and spontaneous or paid search traffic, which could expand Google's advertising base.
Analytics will come in 16 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and Russian, with others to be added.
Google is not alone in seeking to open up more web data to customers in order to encourage them to buy more services.
EBay introduced a subscription analytics service last week to allow buyers and sellers to search pricing trends on eBay. Microsoft is testing its own search advertising tool, known as AdCenter, which also offers users a set of site analytics to optimise marketing efforts.
"Once marketers understand what they are spending money on, they are basically budget-unlimited, as long as revenues remain marginally positive," Muret said.

MySpace.com displaces Ebay as the Fourth Busiest website

2005-11-14T20:26:00.000-08:00

Come on Meg. You better crack that whip and get that traffic up. Ebay has just been displaced as the fourth busiest website by MySpace.com according to Business Week.

Story

Ebay's Michael Jacobson Exercises / Sells 60,000 shares

2005-11-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

FILER: JACOBSON MICHAEL R TITLE: Vice President
DATE TRANSACTION SHARES PRICE VALUE
11/10/05 Exercise 60,000 $0.63 $37,500
11/10/05 Sale 60,000 $42.84 $2,570,118

Paris Hilton mom pictures bought for $2,000 on Ebay with 'Buy It Now'

2005-11-14T10:08:00.000-08:00

When we posted earlier on the Kathy Hilton pictures posted on Ebay, after searching, we couldn't find them and assumed that Ebay had found a way to pull the pictures. However, it looks like they were purchased in a 'Buy It Now' for $2000. The buyer's identity was listed as 'private'. Wonder if Kathy Hilton ponied up the bucks and bought them herself to prevent the embarrassment of being as snickered about as her daughter's porn video.

3 photos KATHY HILTON 15 YRS OLD Paris Hilton's MotherSPREAD EAGLED ON BED and Bikini Shot at 14 yrs old PLUS
Item number: 4789977677

Sold for:
US $2,000.00

Auction ended early with Buy It Now.
Ended:
Nov-14-05 08:25:07 PST
Start time:
Nov-04-05 19:30:00 PST
History:
1 bid (US $2,000.00 starting bid)
Buyer:
User ID kept private

From the auction:

Here are 3 photos of Kathy Hilton when she was a 14 and 15 year old teenager. This was long before she married hotel heir Rick Hilton when her name was Kathy Richards. Kathy of course later became the mother of Paris and Nicky Hilton and the rest is history.
You may be more familiar with Kathy from her recent NBC reality show "I Want To Be A Hilton" which recently finished its television run.
See my "Me" page to find out about our Celebrity Services and how you can get personally autographed photographs direct from various celebrities or CLICK HERE to see our "Me" page and the link to our celebrity client's Official Websites.
The first two B&W glossy photographs were personally given to me by Kathy back in 1974. I think she is 14 years old in these photos. Kathy was trying to get acting roles back then and had these photos taken for publicity purposes. One shows her in a little bikini bathing suit and the other shows her smiling and holding onto a tree branch.
She has inscribed the backs to me saying "Pierce, I love U!, Kathy" and "Dear Pierce, You have been such a great friend and escort (escort underlined twice). Maybe one day we will get 2-gether. Love ya, Kathy".
The next color photo of Kathy I personally took myself with a Polaroid camera back at a party I had at my house when Kathy was 15 and I was 17 years old (1974). This shows her laying spread eagle on a mattress on the floor with her legs wide open and blouse loosely undone without a bra. She's wearing tight jeans and her shirt is tied in a knot in the middle with her midriff showing (no private parts show).
That was some party that night and Kathy was my favorite guest! There was lots of people and drinking and pot smoking and music and carrying on (my parents were gone for the weekend). NOW...I don't remember if Kathy did any drinking or drugs at this party (I was pretty buzzed at the time)...I don't think she was into those things so I'm going to say that she didn't.
But she was certainly feeling free enough that night to plop herself down on a mattress that was on the floor and make the pose you see in this photo. This didn't surprise me as she was always VERY friendly and outgoing around me.
This Polaroid is old from 1974 and kind of dark in contrast. I intentionally lightened it up in my 2nd photo so you could see the details better. But that's Kathy!
I was a personal friend of Kathy's for about a year back in 1974 when I was 17 and she was 15. She had a boyfriend at the time named Steve and I was good friends with Steve. We used to go to Kathy's home in Los Angeles all the time and hang out and goof around. Kathy and I eventually became good friends and we used to go out and do things and I made the perfect escort for her. We used to play paddle tennis on her backyard court all the time and play games and entertain her little sisters Kim and Kyle. You may know her sister, actress Kim Richards, from all the Walt Disney and other movies she did as a kid.
When Kathy's "I Want To Be A Hilton" show started airing on NBC, I contacted Star Magazine about possibly buying the Polaroid photo from me. They offered me $500 for it. But later, one of their editors said that it was too "racy" a photo for them to put in their magazine and the deal fell through. This surprised me as I though the tabloids had no morals. Personally I don't see anything wrong with this photo...just a playful girl having some fun at a party.
Anyway...I'm now offering these photos up to the Ebay community. Maybe some other tabloid magazines (National Enquirer, Us, People, In Touch) or celebrity photo collectors would like these photos for their archives or further research.
The words "PIERCE" and "FOR EBAY" are only on my scans and NOT on the original photos. The bikini photo measures 4" by 5 1/4". The other B&W photo measures 4 1/4" by 5". The Polaroid photo measures 4 1/4" by 3 3/8".
These 3 photos are solely for personal entertainment, memorabilia and educational purposes only. NO rights are given or implied and they are being offered and sold collector to collector.
Is goldenpalace.com out there?