What's the first thing you do after you layoff 10 percent of your workforce? You go on a buying spree, right? That's what eBay appears to be doing anyway. The company, which currently employs about 15,000 people plans to layoff about 1,000 full time workers as well as a number of temporary employees. At the same time, eBay has announced it will spend over $1.3 billion to buy two companies.
First up, eBay will buy Danish competitor DBA for more than $380 million. But the big news for folks who don't live in Denmark is the $945 million the company is spending to purchase Bill Me Later, a company which allows web sites to perform instant credit checks based on your birth date and last four digits of your social security number allowing online retailers to extend you instant credit and send you a bill later.
Bill Me Later's technology will be used to complement eBay's existing PayPal online payment system.
There's no question that eBay needed to do something to deal with increasing competition from Amazon Marketplace and other online stores/auction houses. But I have to say, if I were one of the 1,000+ people getting laid off, I wouldn't be to happy to see my former employer spending this kind of cash on acquiring new properties.
There's no question that PayPal is one of the easiest ways to send and receive payments for items bought on eBay. But since the online auction site was founded, users were able to send checks or arrange payments via other methods if they were more convenient. Now all that's about to change.
Starting in about a month, eBay will stop allowing users to send checks or money orders as payment for items purchased on the US version of the site. You'll only be able to pay using PayPal, ProPay, credit or debit cards (if the seller has an internet merchant account), or pay for the item upon pickup.
In January, eBay will make sure all of these options are easily available in the checkout section. For example, you'll be able to enter your credit card information to complete a purchase if a seller is authorized to accept credit cards.
Online auction site eBay has two things that make it different from every other online store. First, it's a virtual bazaar where anyone can hawk their own goods rather than a traditional storefront where a company maintains and sells its own inventory. Second, as an auction site, there's a chance that buyers will get a real bargain, or that sellers will get more than an item is worth.
For a while now, eBay has been offering sellers the option of selling items for a fixed price. This way both the buyer and the seller know exactly how much money will change hands up front. If you search eBay for pretty much any item now, you'll find a ton of "buy it now" listings amidst the sea of auctions.
Make it easier for customers to simply place an order for an item at a specified price instead of waiting a week to find out if they won an auction
Help eBay compete with the thousands of other web stores offering items for fixed prices
Kill off one of the things that really made eBay special
Now, eBay isn't really going to emphasize that last bit. But the truth is, the move sort of turns eBay into half.com (which is already owned by eBay). Sure, a few sellers might decide it's worth selling their items in auctions, hoping that some buyer will forget to comparison shop and pay way too much for an item. But if it's cheaper to just list the item for the price you hope to get, why wouldn't you? And that takes a way a bit of the excitement involved in the bidding process.
Then again, with so many people using eBay, when was the last time you really got a bargain as a buyer?
PayPal provides a quick and easy way to pay for goods on eBay, Half.com, or other sites that accept the service. But what if you want to buy something from a store that doesn't accept PayPal, but don't feel like giving up your credit card information? Last year PayPal launched a service that lets you create a single-use credit card number that is linked to your PayPal account. And the company has also launched a plugin that gives you easy access to the the Secure Card service in your web browser.
You can install the PayPal plugin by logging into your PayPal account and select PayPal Plug-in from the menu on the left. You'll be prompted to download a 5MB file which will install the plugin for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Note that the plugin is Windows only, and does not seem to play well with Firefox 3 yet.
Once installed, a window should pop up whenever you visit a site asking for your credit card information. You can also generate a card manually through a drop down menu.
If you're using Mac, Linux, or Firefox 3, you can still use the secure card feature by logging into your PayPal account and generating a card number. But the browser plugin makes the process much easier.
PayPal has left Safari out of its list of recommended browsers because it lacks two anti-phishing security features:
Safari has no built-in phishing filter to warn users of suspicious sites
Safari has no support for EV (Extended Validation) certificates, a secure web browsing technology that gives a visual cue in the browser when it visits a legitimate web site.
Until Safari updates its technology to incorporate these solutions, PayPal will recommend using IE7 and Opera, which are the only browsers that currently support EV certificates (the upcoming Firefox 3, along with its current beta, also add support for EV certificates).
So is the Safari browser really less secure because of these missing features? In our mind, it seems that phishing filters and EV certificates are secure only insofar as people are cognizant of the technology. Some studies show (download PDF) that EV certificates aren't effective unless someone is specifically trained to notice the green address-bar notification. And how many times do you think some unwitting computer user has clicked through a warning of a possible phishing attempt?
In the tech support world, there is a funny phrase where the support problem is described as a problem "between the chair and the computer." The question is, is the phishing technology in place in IE7 (and others) effective enough to keep us from doing something stupid?
Like buying things online but don't feel like giving out your credit card number to a gazillion different web stores? For a few years now PayPal has been the big name in one-stop checkouts. Just sign up for a PayPal account, link up your bank account or credit card number, and send and receive payment for your eBay auctions and buy stuff from participating retailers.
But while most stores take credit cards, there's still plenty of shops out there that won't accept PayPal. So tomorrow PayPal is launching a new service that will let you shop at those stores too.
Basically, PayPal will generate a new virtual credit card number every time you want to buy something on a site that doesn't have a PayPal checkout button. The company is partnering with MasterCard Inc to provide the "Secure Card" service. And we're guessing the service will go a long way toward helping PayPal fend off newcomers in the online payment marketplace like a little company called Google.
Sometimes you just need to look a bit outside the mainstream to find the t-shirt that captures your personality in print. Wal-mart and Target have t-shirts, but not like the ones we found at these online-only stores.
This Balky t-shirt, which has a one-color screen of the infamously annoying character from the 80's sitcom Perfect Strangers, is available exclusively from retroduck.com, a web outlet that specializes in "out-there" t-shirt designs. Some of our other favorites at retroduck include a Baker's Dozen cupcake design ripped straight from the popular SNL Digital Short that helped to popularize iTunes TV downloads a few years ago, and a one-color drawing of the Flux Capacitor from Back to the Future.
The trend of slightly off-center t-shirt fashion has taken hold in the nerd community of late, and probably stemmed from the open-source-propaganda web site thinkgeek.com, which offers t-shirts with tasty sayings like "Got Root?" and "All your base are belong to us."
Another online t-shirt shop we love is dirtyshirty.com, which offers some inventive screen transfers, everything from old-school Chevy automobile prints to silly pictures of Donald Duck. There's something here for everybody. And the best part is, you probably won't see other people macking your t-shirt design because these sources are mainly independent, online vendors. That is, you can't buy this stuff at Sears. (Sears doesn't accept PayPal, either.)
Payments by cell phone? Its 2007, we should have had that by now! (as well as flying cars) Not to worry, Google is on it. Apparently the team in Mountain View California does have a patent describing how to make payments via cell phone by texting the sum to a processing server. Person to person transactions can also be made using cash by the integration of Google Checkout into the mix. As it sits now, Google Checkout is not currently accepted in as many places as its rival PayPal is, so unless Google does a little teaming up or offer some hardcore incentives, Gpay could be in trouble. However, at least there is a plan in effect to get those ridiculous wallets out of our pockets to make room for the highly anticipated Gphone.
Freshbooks is on of a short list of companies invited to try out Amazon's Flexible Payment Service that competes with the likes of PayPal and Google's Checkout.
Toronto based Freshbooks provides an online invoicing and time tracking application. With the integration of the new Amazon payment system, their list of payment options for customers grows to 12. This payment service not only gives a greater variety of payment options, but gives customers a greater sense of trust since many people have already used, and currently use Amazon to buy products online.
Amazon's FPS helps developers get through the complex issues surrounding payments online, just as its S3 Simple Storage Solution does for on demand web storage.
Did they pay? Who still owes money? Where do I stuff all this cash while I wait for everyone to pay-up? Here are some questions you probably don't want to deal with but since you volunteered to be a group treasurer, team manager or money person, you're stuck with.
PayItSquare might be of some help to people like you who are collecting and recording amounts of cash for a group. The beauty of it is people can pay you online via their credit card or a paypal account and you get paid immediately through a paypal account.
We asked Brian Anderson, the founder of PayItSquare, what the service fee was. Here's his response:
Now Public is a news site dedicated to the ideals of citizen journalism. Now Public's mission is nothing short of being the world's largest news organization where "elites" don't set the stories but YOU, the average Joe/Josie does.
To help you channel Brian Williams or Katie Couric, Now Public is teaming up with You Tube so you can associate You Tube video with the story you've written.
Yahoo and PayPal are working on their strategic alliance by offering a pretty little shopping cart icon next to Yahoo's sponsored search results.
The new Yahoo shopping cart icons point searchers to merchants that accept PayPal Express Checkout as a payment method. This move looks strikingly similar to Google's Checkout feature whereby a shopping cart is placed below sponsored results that have a Checkout store.
With over 100 million current PayPal users, this is a great partnership that will surely skyrocket sales for PayPal merchants. Will this make them think twice about using Yahoo for online advertising? No way, it would surely make them spend additional ad dollars. Especially with the $100 credit Yahoo is offering for sponsored search. Could we see $10 off coupons coming out from Google soon?
The biggest update is probably the ability to send money to other Skype users through PayPal. Skype can act as a contact list for sending money, a feature PayPal didn't previously have. If you send money to a user with a Skype account, they'll receive a notification in Skype. You'll need to send money to someone who is in a country serviced by PayPal.
Next up, if you wanted to check your SkypeOut, SkypeIn, and other purchase history in the past you had to go to Skype's website. Now you can do that from within the application by clicking the "view account" button.
Another new feature lets you import contacts from Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail. Up until now you could only import contacts from Outlook and Outlook Express.
And finally, Skype 3.2 beta lets you snap a photo with a webcam and add it to your profile. Previously you had to use an external application to do this, even though you can use that very same webcam for video chat with Skype.
Looking for a parking spot can prove tedious, time consuming, and extremely expensive, especially in a large city. ParkMatch intends to change all that. The site allows users to find and list parking locations. Through ParkMatch, parking spots can be rented out during the times you know that it won't be used. Parking owners simply determine the times in which the spot will be available. Advertising the dates, times, and prices that suit the spot. Users register to use the site and pay confidently using PayPal.
So, the next time you know you are going to be in a crowded area, for a large event, you might want to check in with ParkMatch to see what's available in that area. It's going to most likely save you both time and money from the sometimes high costs of public parking locations during large events. Currently the service is only available for San Francisco users.
In an effort to crack down on phishing and account theft, PayPal will trial new key fob devices to their customers. Available for free to all PayPal business users, and for $5 for personal PayPal accounts, the devices were developed jointly with VeriSign. Every 30 seconds it displays a new one-time password which is used with your existing PayPal password for authentication. The idea with two-factor authentication (think of it like using two keys to unlock your front door) is that even if an attacker steals your username and password, without the key fob they are unable to compromise your account.
PayPal has been testing the devices internally for the past couple of months and plan to test it with customers in the USA, Germany and Australia as soon as next month. Depending on customer response, and a measure of its effectiveness, I can imagine this type of service likely used by other commonly phished web sites such as banking web sites and popular web mail services (Hotmail, Yahoo!).
Freshbooks is on of a short list of companies invited to try out 
