February 27, 2009
Two mobile service providers in the U.K. are apparently smoking mad over Nokia’s decision to install Skype on its flagship Nseries phones.
Mobile operator Orange said to be turning red over Nokia decision
Nokia said earlier this month the N97 would be the first handset out the door with the Internet calling software in the third quarter.
Several published stories, including one on Mobile Today in the U.K., said mobile carriers Orange and O2 may refuse to stock the phones.
Service providers fear users will favor making free calls over the Internet with Skype, which is owned by eBay, instead of paid calls on the cellular network.
“This is another example of them trying to build an ecosystem that is all about Nokia and reduced the operator to a dumb pipe,” according to one anonymous source.
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news, web 2.0, wireless | Tagged: eBay, Mobile Handsets, nokia, o2, Orange, Skype | 
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Posted by Mark Boslet
January 21, 2009
Skype revenues have enjoyed a double-digit growth, albeit slowing
Although Skype’s value is nowhere close to the $2.6 billion eBay paid for, it does prove to be a stable and double-digit growing business, albeit slowing.
In 2008, Skype generated over half a billion dollars in revenue and has now 405 million customers, up from 276 million a year ago.
Overall the number of free Skype-to-Skype minutes and the paid Skype Out minutes grew at a rapid pace over the past year: 20.5 billion (+72%) and 2.6 billion (+61%), respectively.
Astonishing numbers making Skype at least one of the leading voice-over-IP (VOIP) company in the world, if not the world’s largest consumer VOIP provider.
“Skype had a terrific year… it’s a great standalone business,” said eBay CEO, John Donahue in a conference call with investors.
But minimal synergies between Skype and the rest of eBay
Despite the rosy picture, eBay seems to be ready to let Skype go solo. At this point, the San Jose, Calif.-company has nothing to loose but all to gain to divest its Skype business unit, having wrote-off over half ($1.39 billion) of its initial investment in the communications start-up last year.
“The synergies between Skype and the other parts of our portfolio are minimal. So we’re going to continue to run and operate the business. It’s not a distraction currently,” said eBay’s CEO about Skype on a response to a Wall Street analyst question.
No doubt now that eBay is shopping Skype around but with at least a $1 billion price tag around its neck, making it a hard sale in this cash-strapped economy.
2 Comments | communications, news | Tagged: Donahue, eBay, Skype | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360
January 21, 2009
eBay’s auction business – part of the “Marketplaces” unit – is in serious need of an overhaul and must be more seller-friendly to fight steep decline.
Marketplaces sales – which also combines Shopping.com, StubHub, Kijiji and other e-commerce sites – declined 19% in 2008, at $1.046 billion amid loosing 10 million users!
The volume of merchandise sold (excluding vehicles) on eBay’s core business sites was $11.47 billion for the quarter, a decrease of 12%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. eBay receives a cut on each item sold, plus listing fees.
Meanwhile, online classifieds as well as text and graphical advertising revenue grew during the quarter.
Leave a Comment » | news | Tagged: eBay, kijiji, marketplaces, shopping, stubhub | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360
December 15, 2008
A web site with the TRUSTe seal protects users' privacy
Facebook replaced Google as one of 2008 top 20 most trusted web sites in the world.
Despite the current financial climate, American Express retained its place from last year as the “Most Trusted Company for 2008 for Privacy”. While Nationwide, U.S. Bank and eLoan managed to stay in the top 20, Countrywide Financial and Bank of America (which acquired Countrywide) dropped off the list.
Technology sector privacy is improving
The technology sector showed marked improvement as eBay Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, and H-P all bettered previous rankings. Other tech companies include AOL, Dell, IBM and Intuit. Verizon was the only telecom operator of the list.
The ranking was published this morning by San Francisco privacy firm TRUSTe which ensures online privacy and protects confidential user information on more than 2,400 Web sites and many of the most highly trafficked, including Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, Disney, eBay, Intuit, and Facebook.
The study asked 6,486 adult-aged U.S. consumers which companies they thought were most trustworthy and which did the best job safeguarding personal information. A total of 706 companies were named by consumers; 211 made the final list of most trusted companies.
The top 20 ranking follows.
| 2008 Ranking |
2008 Ranking |
| 1 American Express (remained number one) |
12 Intuit (+7) |
| 2 eBay (+6) |
13 WebMD (-1) |
| 3 IBM (no change) |
14 Yahoo! (new to the top 20) |
| 4 Amazon (+1) |
15 Facebook (new to the top 20) |
| 5 Johnson & Johnson (+1) |
16 Disney (-1) |
| 6 Hewlett Packard (+10) |
16 AOL (-12) |
| 6 U.S. Postal Service (+1) |
17 Verizon (new to the top 20) |
| 7 Procter & Gamble (+2) |
18 FedEx (new to the top 20) |
| 8 Apple (new to the top 20) |
19 US Bank (-2) |
| 9 Nationwide (remained the same) |
20 Dell (-7) |
| 10 Charles Schwab (-8) |
20 eLoan (-9) |
| 11 USAA (+4) |
|
Leave a Comment » | news | Tagged: Amazon, amex, AOL, Apple, Dell, disney, eBay, eloan, Facebook, fedex, hp, ibm, intruit, johnson, nationwide, Privacy, procter, schwab, truste, us bank, usaa, usps, verizon, webmd, yahoo | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360
December 4, 2008
This year’s relatively strong Cyber Monday sales nonetheless saw the frugality of a down economy: average online spending per shopper was down as bargaining hunting was king.
Online retail sales on Cyber Monday, the first workday following the Thanksgiving holiday, increased 15 percent compared with last year.
Forty-four percet of buying came from abroad
Even more encouraging, online buyers were up 22 percent – meaning that more people turned to their computers at work and home to shop.
But they were frugal. The average amount spent per buyer dropped 5 percent and their average number of transactions fell 9 percent as people sought discounts and special prices, says comScore.
Cyber Monday sales are usually a good indicator of the strength of holiday season sales – and so far suggest an acceptable year-end period.
Interestingly, consumers from abroad played a big part in this year’s spending. Forty-four percent of online buying at U.S. site cam from overseas, comScore said.
The most visited sites on Cyber Monday were (in order): eBay (13 million visitors); Amazon (9.2 million visitors); Wal-Mart (6.8 million); Target (4.8 million); and Apple (3.7 million).
1 Comment | computers, economy, news, web 2.0 | Tagged: Amazon, Apple, ComScore, Cyber Monday, Discounts, E-Commerce, eBay, economy, Frugality, Holiday Sales, Online Sales, target, Wal-Mart | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
November 26, 2008
Ebay down spirral is mostly of its own making, driving sellers out of its marketplace
Tough times for the San Jose, Calif., e-commerce site.
As Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget reports, eBay’s core business is falling apart with its number of unique visitors declining more than 13%, over a year ago.
“And eBay’s efforts to turn around this business do not appear to be working,” writes Blodget.
However, most of the bad news is due to eBay’s own making like forcing Paypal on sellers, eliminating feedback that sellers can give buyers, higher fee structures, dubious listings/buyers/sellers, failed “best match” search engine… which are making harder for sellers to do business on eBay and eventually driving them out of what has now become an online flea market.
And with less sellers, eBay is less atractive to potential buyers.
A vicious circle that is taking eBay down with it. The former Internet powerhouse share price hit a five-year low last Friday and is now valued at about $16.7 billion, almost a third of its value from early this year. And as a former disgruntled eBay buyer puts it, “they’re outsmarting their way out of business.”
3 Comments | news | Tagged: blodget, eBay | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360
November 25, 2008
Online spending is down, as it should be in this troubled economic environment
This can’t be good news for online retailers like Amazon, Buy.com, eBay or even Apple, which are getting ready for the heavy trafficked Thanksgiving week-end.
Research firm ComScore reports today that for the first 23 days of November, e-commerce spending (excluding travel, auctions and large corporate purchases) totaled $8.2 billion, down 4% from the same period last year; marking the first historic decline in e-commerce sales since the researcher began reporting it, 7 years ago.
For the whole year, ComScore forecasts that overall online spending will be flat versus a year ago at $29.2 billion; compared to a 19% rise in online spending online last year. However, ComScore CEO, Gian Fulgoni, still hopes that “online spending growth inch back towards positive as we get deeper into the season.”
Leave a Comment » | economy, news | Tagged: Amazon, Apple, buy.com, ComScore, eBay, ecommerce, fulgoni | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360
November 18, 2008
In keeping with the secrecy that shrouded its acquisition of VUVOX last June, eBay quietly ended a private beta of the company’s multimedia presentation technology during the past several weeks and opened the site publicly without fanfare.
Richer presentations promote commerce, says Dane Howard
VUVOX does something interesting for the eBay auction site. It spiffs things up. Now sellers can create attractive collages of their wares using photos, video, text and music. And they can link them to their listings
The aim is to replace static photographs with richer, interactive presentations and increase sales, both for merchants and the Internet market place.
One-third of eBay listings are created with third-party tools, says VUVOX co-founder Dane Howard. Now there is an alternative.
The site creates something akin to a slideshow, with video clips, written explanations, photos and audio material placed next to each other, or even layered one on top of another. “Richer media for commerce is a very important thing,” says Howard, user experience interface designer at eBay. “You can enable stories to be told about products.”
He said the site was part of an effort at eBay to improve the buying experience.
But VUVOX isn’t just for eBay. Publishers, journalists and companies promoting products or events are invited to use it, Howard said.
Oh, by the way, eBay still isn’t saying what it spent for VUVOX.
Leave a Comment » | news, web 2.0 | Tagged: Dane Howard, E-Commerce, eBay, Listings, Multimedia, video, VUVOX | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
November 18, 2008
Spending from low-income households slumps
The combination of a flailing economy and increasing unemployment has pushed retail e-commerce growth to its lowest level since 2001, according to comScore.
October’s 1 percent growth in online retail sales is the sixth monthly decline and is likely to translate into slower business at Internet vendors such as Amazon and eBay.
ComScore said Wednesday that low- and middle-income households appear to be largely responsible for the softening growth. In the three months from August to October, overall online e-commerce grew 4 percent, but fell 3 percent among households making $50,000 or less. Households with incomes between $50,000 and $99,999 showed only a 1 percent growth in spending.
A year ago, e-commerce growth was 19 percent. As of April, it was still 15 percent. But the pace declined to 5 percent in September before dropping to 1 percent in October. ComScore said October represented the lowest monthly growth since the company began tracking the market in 2001.
Leave a Comment » | economy, news, web 2.0 | Tagged: Amazon, ComScore, E-Commerce, eBay, economy, October Sales, Online Retail Sales, Unemployment | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
November 11, 2008
Video conferencing inside Gmail
Google said Tuesday it will roll out a video chat feature inside Gmail in the next couple days that will bring it face to face with eBay’s popular Skype Internet calling service.
The Internet search giant said in a blog entry that as Webcams have become more widely installed on PCs video conversations are the obvious next step for e-mail service Gmail. The integrated voice and video service will be free, though it will require downloading a browser plug-in.
A new “Video & more” menu will appear in Gmail and let people hold video conferences with one another in a small window and enlarge the window to the full screen. Employees of the company in the U.S. and Sweden have been testing the system.
The company said the service will be available for PCs and Macs and will be available in the “next day or so.” It did not say whether “Video & more” would remain in beta.
2 Comments | news, web 2.0 | Tagged: eBay, Gmail, Google, Skype, Video Chat, Video Conferencing | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
