Officialy pre-announced: eBay is splitting feedback up into 4 sub categories: – Item description – Communication – Shipping time – S+H terms They will also expire (archive) old feedback, and you’ll only be able to see the last two years of results. First to test this will be (at least) three international sites – Australia, …
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
Brains and Beauty
Only in the USA. Actually no, but only in the USA would this be so blatant: Wealthy men meet beautiful women event Men are allowed to attend based on meeting income (age adjusted) or net worth requirements. e.g. $500,000+ if you are my age. Women are allowed to attend based on beauty – they submit …
Telecom increases prices
Telecom are in a monopoly position so they have pricing control – these increases are an easy way to increase profit. 018 calls go up 50% to 75 cents from 50 cents. Given that directory calls over here in the USA are a crippling $1.25 to $1.50, there is plenty of room for further growth. …
mmmmm….
via Stuff – Sam Morgan…. “If you are seeking a chief executive for a company like Telecom, chucking an ad up on Trade Me Jobs is not going to be the sole thing you’ll want to do”…
media old and new
Fantastic commentry on one aspect of how old media is migrating the new – by someone that straddles both worlds. I especially like the bit about bloggers with 100 viewers displacing old media types with millions. That isn’t really true (or it depends upon who those viewers are), but bloggers with millions of viewers should …
iPhone
The best summary of the iPhone I’ve seen. The device is beautiful, does everything you could dream of and more but is fatally tied (the phone locks out other SIMs) into a 2 year contract with dubious Cingular. To give Apple credit, ALL of the USA mobile networks in are terrifyingly poor – with Cingular …
Yellow pages
Some numbers from the potential Yellow Pages sale emerge, with expected EBITDA of $160m this year. Yellow pages prices have been cranked up over the last few years, and with online being what it is I don’t see huge upside for the printed product. The upside is all online, and although it is essentially an …
Amerika
Well I’m back in the USA, and all the differences come flooding in. The homeless guys all down the street, polite greetings, overly attentive waitresses and the stench of disinfectant in my cheap motel and my rental car.. The car itself is bizarrely shaped and barely drivable, while that gulf between poverty and wealth means …
Paypal moves to two factor security
Well done Paypal – customers apparently will get a dongle (for free if you are a business) that generates a password that you use along with your own each time you login to Paypal. Paypal fraud is a huge problem, and the service is highly sensitive to phishing attacks. Phishers will still have one shot …
Brands #2
Apple – launches iPhone with Google AND Yahoo!. The iPhone seems so good it has to be fake…
Wiki on Trade Me
Codswollops. I cannot comment on this as I’m an insider but not a spokesperson. Apply a bit of common sense to these statements though….. (and no – I’m not going to edit them) (From Wikipedia – TradeMe) Fraud and controversy …In recent times, TradeMe has not in all cases helped out victims of fraud. …. …
Big Retail
Big online retail sites tend to vary a bit by country. Check out the biggest French, German and UK sites – measured by Comscore traffic. Strange huh? Amazon is #3 in France, #2 in UK and Germany, while eBay doesn’t make the list – probably because Comscore fall into the old trap of treating eBay …
Brands playing together
Microsoft just got together with Ford to launch their car audio system Sync. The system appears to be pretty good, but it says volumes that Microsoft launches with Ford – a company in real trouble. Meanwhile Apple launched their original simple iPod system with, who else, Mercedes Benz…
NZHerald ads
Some ads are back – there is a Microsoft one (that’s smart enough to know I’m on a mac) served up by http://ads.apn.co.nz/ADCLICK/CID=xxx – which is not the former doubleclick method. There is also a super slow Sorted ad – served by http://secure-nz.imrworldwide.com/xxx, which is Neilsen. The ad appears quickly enough, but clicking on the …
Skype numbers adding up
Fantastic analysis of Skype’s numbers here. The author projects just under $12 revenue per active Skype user in 2007, versus the $78 per real Skype 2007 user paid by eBay. All up those are not bad figures, and the purchase by eBay makes financial sense. I’m a fan of Skype as it gives eBay the …
