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Buzz Out Loud 750: 7 deadly spams
One ton ‘Baby’ marks its birth … Read more
eBay pumps up PayPal protections
Buyers and sellers on eBay are due to get a bigger cushion for transactions gone bad.
At its eBay Live community conference this week, the online auction giant offered details on more generous PayPal protections and incentives for its top sellers, and also feted the anniversary of its Kijiji classified ad service.
Starting in the fall, the company says it will cover 100 percent of an item's purchase price on most transactions for buyers who use eBay's PayPal service, with no cap on coverage. The policy addresses items that are not received by buyers and those that are … Read more
eBay opens up its Selling Manager tool to outside developers
Open source has made a significant impact on the "offline" world of packaged software, but it's arguably having a more important impact on the web world. In the latest sign of the importance of openness to development in a SaaS world, eBay announced that it wil be opening up its Selling Manager auction tool to outside developers:
"Opening eBay.com directly to third-party applications through the Selling Manager gives developers an immediate channel to growth-minded eBay sellers," [An eBay spokesman said].
eBay's new program is only in its nascent stages of development. But the … Read more
eBay opening up add-on marketplace, APIs
At the eBay Developers Conference this week, the auction company will announce a new marketplace for sellers' add-ons to its online auctions. Essentially the program gives developers access to all the data that eBay's existing online app for medium- and large-scale retailers, Selling Manager, already has.
Like other online apps that have become platforms, such as Salesforce.com and Facebook, eBay's new initiative, called Project Echo, will give developers not just access to rich data they can package up for customers, but also a marketing channel for their applications.
Project Echo will allow app developers to pitch their … Read more
eBay ends online ads sales system
eBay has pulled the plug on Media Marketplace, a controversial pilot program designed to buy and sell radio and TV advertising on the Internet. The Internet auction house confirmed the closure of the program after one year with the brief message: "We have ended our pilot program in this market."
The system got off to a rocky start, receiving little support from the cable network industry and none at all from the broadcast networks, according to a report in AdWeek. The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau refused to endorse the system, and only a few of its members--notably Oxygen and … Read more
eBay gets its own native iPhone app (update)
On Monday, eBay announced and demonstrated its new Auctions app at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users can log in to their accounts to buy and sell items wherever they are. The app integrates with Webkit, allowing people to write out full descriptions just like they would in Safari, which has been formatted to match the finger-friendly screen. Users can also browse and sort through auction photos the same way they're used to doing with native albums.
While eBay has recently been taking steps to improve its Web 2.0 initiatives with social widgets and a really slick looking Adobe Air app, … Read more
The eBay "fad" is wearing off
Nick Carr asks today, "Is eBay a fad?" Nick's source of inspiration is a BusinessWeek article noting that more and more sales on eBay are through fixed-price sales, rather than auctions.
"If I really want something I'm not going to goof around [in auctions] for a small savings," says Dave Dribin, a 34-year-old Chicago resident who used to bid on eBay items, but now only buys retail.I think the larger problem is that the "savings" have been somewhat nonexistent for some time. It used to be that you could find deals on eBay. Today, those are fewer and farther between as eBay has become a haven for "real" merchants rather than Aunt Louise selling her handmade doilies.
This, coupled with the amount of effort that goes into eBay's auctions - first you have to dig through the site to find what you want, and then you have to sit around waiting for the auction to close, only to be outbid by software set up to win the auction in the final few seconds - make eBay a raw deal.
I personally feel like the right model will be one where sellers find buyers, not buyers finding sellers.… Read more
Wal-Mart tests free online classified ads
Wanna buy a cute, cuddly Shih-tzu? How about a 1993 Chevy truck? A three-bedroom, two-bath house in Maryland?
Think Wal-Mart.
Wait a second before you decide the big-box retailer has gone gonzo with the concept of selling everything under the sun. It's actually testing the waters with a beta of free online classified ads.
The site, launched last week and powered by Oodle.com, carries more than 40 million listings because it taps into Oodle.com's already-existing postings. Start-up Oodle.com aggregates listings from more than 80,000 local and national sites.
Wal-Mart's free service allows sellers … Read more
Baby offered on eBay now in state custody
Anyone who trolls eBay with regularity has probably gotten used to seeing the odd object up for sale now and again. But the Saturday story of a German pair offering their 8-month-old for purchase on the site may end up topping more than a few creepiest-ever-on-eBay lists.
A police spokesperson in the Bavarian town of Krumbach said law enforcement is investigating the couple for possible child trafficking, even though the 23-year-old woman of the duo insists the post was a joke. Authorities, not appreciating the parents' apparently twisted sense of humor, have also put the unnamed baby into state custody. … Read more
