New Media News Every Morning
After watching all the drama surrounding Skype over the last few days, I can only conclude that Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay duing its 2005 acquisition of Skype, was a moron. At the very least, she severely undervalued the role of technology in the technology business. [Read more…]
Originally posted on September 19, 2009 @ 4:58 am
The rumors surrounding Skype’s future have been rumbling for moths now, with eBay quite keen to shed the Internet communication software because (as everyone else could already see) it doesn’t sit particularly well with its core auction business.
The New York Times reports that eBay will today announce a deal to sell Skype to a group of private investors that may well include VC company Andreessen Horowitz, which is headed up by Netscape’s co-founder Marc Andreessen. Interestingly, Andreessen is on eBay’s board of directors. Conflict of interest, anyone? [Read more…]
Originally posted on September 1, 2009 @ 3:00 am
What does it feel like to have one million people tell you how well you’re doing your job? What about four million? One successful eBay entrepreneur knows the answer to these questions first-hand. Jack Sheng, Founder and CEO of Eforcity, Inc., recently had all four of his eBay ID’s (everydaysource, itrimming , accstation and eforcity) surpass the one million Feedback milestone, marking the first time any single eBay User IDs have reached this volume of Feedback from transactions completed on the site.
To celebrate Sheng’s groundbreaking achievement, eBay is adding a new Feedback star to the site. Sheng will be the first seller to have the newly unveiled silver shooting star, denoting a Feedback score of 1,000,000 or more, appear next to his four user ID’s on eBay.com. [Read more…]
Originally posted on November 14, 2008 @ 11:33 am
eBay Inc. has acquired Den Bla Avis and BilBasen, providers of leading online classifieds sites in Denmark for approximately $390 million. The addition of Den Bla Avis and BilBasen to eBay’s global classifieds portfolio positions the company as a leader in the online classifieds market in Denmark and further strengthens the company’s world-leading portfolio of online classifieds sites. eBay’s online classifieds business now has a presence in more than 20 countries and 1,000 cities.
Larry Illg, general manager with eBay global classifieds, will head eBay’s business in Denmark and will lead the integration of Den Bla Avis and BilBasen into the global classifieds portfolio. eBay plans to use its experience in building online communities around the world to grow user traffic to dba.dk and bilbasen.dk. Den Bla Avis and BilBasen will maintain offices in Aarhus and Copenhagen, Denmark.
Originally posted on October 7, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Hillary Clinton believes it takes a village. How would you like to OWN the village? Thanks in part to an online auction, White’s City, New Mexico can be yours.
Imagine it: two motels, an RV park, 25 campsites, your own post office, grocery store, restaurants and more – sitting on your land.
The auction takes place on July 14 at 11am. Online bidding starts the very next day. Bid here.
No pressure, though. The town has been operating for over 80 years under the ownership of the White family. Looks like they’ve had enough and are packing it in.
The tourist town sits outside of Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
I love how far online bidding has come. I might be interested. Do you think they’ll accept Paypal?
Originally posted on June 17, 2008 @ 4:05 pm