ebay

Times are tough in Detroit. Many citizens of the city are struggling to find ways to keep their homes and find steady work. It couldn't get much worse.

But thanks to Jay Leno and eBay joining forces, it actually has gotten worse.

Jay Leno is planning a free stand-up comedy show for struggling Detroit residents. The tickets were made available Monday morning. By Monday night, Leno noticed that some of the tickets he gave away were on sale on eBay for "eight hundred something dollars," he said.

During his television monologue Monday night, Leno told viewers about the situation and explained that "you're out of your mind to pay $800 to see me." And then he asked eBay to cease all ticket sales for his live show. "I would like to ask the people at eBay to take the tickets down," he said. "There's nothing for sale here. It's just totally free."

By Tuesday, all instances of the sale were down from eBay. According to the company, Leno's request to have the tickets removed falls under its "Authorized Resellers Only" policy, so all would-be sellers were banned from selling tickets to the events.… Read more

Intel announced two new board members Thursday as Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, resigned from the board.

The chipmaker said Thursday that John J. Donahoe, CEO of eBay, and Frank D. Yeary, vice chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, have been elected to serve on Intel's board of directors.

Concurrently, Intel announced that Carol Bartz, the new CEO of Yahoo, is retiring from the board.

Intel issued the following information about the two newly elected board members:

Donahoe, 48, has served as eBay president and CEO since 2008. He joined eBay in 2005 and oversaw the company'… Read more

eBay on Wednesday announced plans to revise its struggling marketplace unit, giving it greater focus on its core used goods auction business, rather than its retail business, the company said during its analyst day presentation.

The news apparently pleased Wall Street, which bid up eBay shares 4.7 percent Wednesday, as the company held its analyst day. eBay shares continued to rise Thursday, climbing 2.24 percent to $11.89 a share in morning trading.

With its announcement, eBay addresses one of Wall Street's long-held complaints that the e-commerce giant suffers from an identity crisis. Analysts have previously said … Read more

Dropio has launched a new applet called Playlistio that allows users to post music to the cloud in just three clicks. According to the company, users can find the file, upload it to the cloud, and stream it anywhere they can find a Web hookup and connect to Dropio. And with the help of the company's new Apple App store application, Droppler, users can even stream their Playlistio songs through their iPhone. The free applet is available now.

Google announced Tuesday that it has launched a new skills qualification program. Dubbed Google Analytics Individual Qualification, the new feature will … Read more

PALM DESERT, Calif.--If you've spent any time online, you've almost certainly found yourself wondering about the trustworthiness of the people and Web sites you encounter every day.

Already, individuals are often rated on many sites, like Slashdot or eBay. But it can be difficult to easily discover whether you can trust what you come across, regardless of where you go online.

That's where a company called Purewire and its Trust service come into play. The service, which Purewire announced Tuesday here at Demo 09, is intended to give people a way to quickly and simply see … Read more

Curt Sleeper is a man ahead of the curve. The curve that begins the downward spiral.

Understanding that humanity is regressing to its cave-dweller roots, he and his wife Deborah bought their own cave in Festus, Mo., back when most people were tossing their home equity down a cavernous hole.

The Sleepers even sold their DVD collection to buy the 17,000 square foot cave. I don't even want to think what their heating bills must be. However, I know they are now experiencing a deep chill.

The cave cost $160,000, of which the Sleepers put down half. … Read more

Grizzled eBay veterans know all too well that the action on any auction doesn't heat up until the last few minutes. Bidding wars can be won and lost by who had the fastest click--or the highest auto-bid. To aid in this nail-biting process is Snipe Swipe, a "sniping" tool with a new Firefox add-on that does the bidding for you at the very last possible second.

Once installed you'll get a new button on any auction page that lets you set it to be sniped. After you've done this, it gets flagged in Snipe Swipe'… Read more

Having had two separate eBay auctions to sell his rare Xbox Live gamertag yanked off the site for apparent terms of service violations, a New York State man is now moving his business to Craigslist.

Earlier this week, as first reported here, Chris Graziano had put his gamertag, "Hitman," up for auction on eBay. Graziano, a student at SUNY New Paltz, had been hoping to capitalize on the rarity of the moniker to score a big payday, and indeed, in the hours after his auction went up, more than $500 was bid for the gamertag.

"Don't … Read more

Wall Street will have a bevy of questions as newly-installed CEO Carol Bartz oversees her first conference call as Yahoo's boss. CNET News' Stephen Shankland explains what investors hope to hear--as well as the near-term expectations Bartz is likely to set.