VentureBeat |
- Look out Paypal: Visa jumps into personal payments
- WiFi-only Motorola Xoom hits stores on March 27 for $599
- Rotten Tomatoes owner Flixster in acquisition talks with Yahoo, others
- 9 emerging minitrends to watch
- Quirkat hopes to bring fun to gamers in the Middle East
- Plaxo throws in the social networking towel, refocuses on address books
- 7 ways to help your games go viral on Facebook
- Netflix bids for original series in move to become like HBO
- Verizon takes 12 percent of iPhone market share in just a month
- On the GreenBeat: Solar and wind stocks jump, cleantech funding rose in 2010
- What’s up with eBay?
- Microsoft on IE9: It’s about the hardware
- YouTube acquires Irish tech shop to fix your blurry videos
- LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman explains the brave new world of data
| Posted: 16 Mar 2011 09:03 AM PDT China’s chat and gaming service Tencent reported revenues and earnings today that should make everyone take notice. As the company prints money in its domestic market, it is amassing more capital to become a player on a worldwide stage in the social and gaming markets. Rich with cash from its QQ games and chat, Tencent recently agreed to buy U.S. online game maker Riot Games for $315 million.Observers believe that the company will acquire more firms in a bid to become the world’s largest game company. Revenues for the year were $2.97 billion, up 57.9 percent compared to a year ago. Earnings were $225.4 million, up 55.4 percent from a year ago. Gross profit marging was 67 percent. Tencent has stakes or owns businesses in a lot of leading User accounts for instant messaging are now at 647.6 million. Peak simultaneous online chat users is 127.5 million. Peak simultaneous online QQ game users is 6.8 million.Platforms include QQ, Qzone, microblog and Tenpay. Ma Huateng, chairman and chief executive, said in the earnings statement that “Tencent is entering a new phase of investments for the future.” He said the company will invest in a number of new strategic platforms from microblogging to online security, in addition to existing businesses. Since those are long-term investments, he said that Tencent isn’t worried about turning a profit on them in the short term. Tencent noted that during the quarter, the company suffered a significant security attack that disrupted its user base and hurt its corporate image. That’s why online security is a priority. Tencent has also been expanding overseas with investments in Russia, India, and Southeast Asia. Tencent said it had strong onine gaming revenue growth (up 9 percent from the previous quarter) thanks to the launch of the web-based massively multiplayer online game Qi Xiong Zheng Ba and better monetization of its Cross Fire, Dungeon and Fighter and QQ Game businesses. Year over year, China’s number of internet usrs was up 19.1 percent to 457.3 million in 2010, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. That’s about 34 percent of the population. Tim Merel, managing director at the boutique investment bank Digi-Capital, said he is not surprised at the strong performance, given Tencent’s strength in users, delivery across platforms, and cutting edge capabilities in cost-efficient game development. He says Tencent’s globalization efforts, as exemplified by its purchase of most of Riot Games, will be interesting to watch. If Tencent can replicate its success elsewhere, then it could become the biggest player in games and other online businesses. Companies: Riot Games, Tencent People: Ma Huateng
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| Look out Paypal: Visa jumps into personal payments Posted: 16 Mar 2011 08:56 AM PDT
Consumers will have the option to send personal payments from a bank to a Visa account by simply entering a recipient's 16-digit Visa account, email address or mobile phone number. The process is comparable to how users would send payments on Paypal. The new Visa personal payments service was made possible by technical improvements and a new Visa transaction type that allows banks to accept incoming funds. The first U.S. banks are expected to make the personal payments available by the second half of 2011. According to Jim McCarthy, global head of products at Visa, "For fifty years, Visa has worked to simplify payments at the merchant point of sale; we are now evolving our network capability to make it easier for our account holders to pay one another." Although Visa will be competing against a strong incumbent in the personal payment space, if there is one company that can unseat Paypal, Visa, which already offers personal payments in more than 70 countries, is it. Visa has been relentless in building its presence in the personal payment space, as evidenced by the company's purchase of virtual goods monetization platform PlaySpan and e-payment company Cybersource. Visa plans to use CyberSource, which it purchased for $2 billion, to pursue new opportunities in Asia and Latin America. In 2010, the company also introduced a Paypal competitor in Australia called PayClick. Competing with PayPal, however, will be no small task. At the end of last quarter, Paypal announced it had 94.4 million active registered accounts, and was adding approximately one million active accounts per month. The company's total payment volume was $26.9 billion last quarter. Photo via Declan Jewell People: Jim McCarthy
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| WiFi-only Motorola Xoom hits stores on March 27 for $599 Posted: 16 Mar 2011 08:51 AM PDT
The device will be available at seven distributors: Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Staples, Walmart and select Sam’s Club locations. The device can be bought for $599 in a physical store or online. The specs are the same as in the 3G version which launched weeks ago — dual cameras, 10.1-inch screen, Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS, 32GB of storage and so on — besides the obviously missing 3G connectivity. Personally, the idea of WiFi-only devices isn’t appealing to me. Sure, WiFi is certainly available in plenty of places these days, especially in big cities, but with what is essentially a mobile device, I hate to be out of service just because there’s no WiFi. That’s not to say the demand isn’t there by any means. So far some of the major manufacturers have been offering the more expensive 3G models, and it’s a no-brainer for Motorola to bring its slick tablet to those who are willing to negotiate connectivity for affordability. Combine that with the big time retailers that are going to carry the WiFi Xoom, and Motorola is sure to shift some units. The timing of the announcement is clever: it was certain that the iPad 2 was going to steal all the attention of tablet-minded folks around the world when it was released. After a pause, Motorola is reminding everyone about Android tablets again, even if some people are not too impressed with the OS as an iPad killer. And with recently announced Flash support and a more competitive price, the WiFi-only Xoom is a serious alternative for potential tablet buyers.
Companies: Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Costco, motorola, RadioShack, Staples, Walmart
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| Rotten Tomatoes owner Flixster in acquisition talks with Yahoo, others Posted: 16 Mar 2011 08:02 AM PDT
The sources say the acquisition talks are "substansive" with a price range between $60 and $90 million. If true, that's a decent return on investment for Flixster, which has raised $7 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pinnacle Ventures and others. News Corp. last year received a 20 percent stake in Flixster, valued at around $12.5 million in stock, in exchange for its Rotten Tomatoes property. In addition to Yahoo, media giants are also eying Flixster (possibly including Disney), AllThingsD reports. The appeal of the site is obvious: Flixster is a popular way for entertainment consumers to share their love for movies and TV shows, and owning that community could be valuable to some. The deal would make sense for Yahoo in particular, as it has managed to gather attention from online movie fans with its exclusive trailer launches for upcoming movies. It's always seemed strange that Yahoo premieres major movie trailers when it otherwise doesn't have much of a presence in the online movie world. Snapping up Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes could fill that gap for Yahoo and potentially pay off big. (If Yahoo doesn’t manage to screw it up like Flickr and Delicious.) News Corp.'s minority stake in Flixster doesn't give it much influence in the company, AllThingsD points out — even though the head of News Corp.'s IGN gaming unit, Roy Bahat, sits on Flixster's board. IGN purchased Rotten Tomatoes in 2004 and was then snapped up by News Corp. in 2005. Companies: Disney, Flixster, News Corp, Rotten Tomatoes, Yahoo
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| 9 emerging minitrends to watch Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:00 AM PDT (Editor’s note: John Vanston is the author of Minitrends . He submitted this story to VentureBeat.) There are many opportunities for those who are alert enough to recognize emerging trends, perceptive enough to realize their importance, and clever enough to take advantage of them. These minitrends are emerging trends that will become significantly important within 2-5 years, but are not yet generally recognized. Unlike megatrends, Minitrends are of a scope and importance to offer attractive opportunities to individual entrepreneurs, decision-makers in small and mid-size businesses, innovative thinkers in large companies, and adventuresome investors. In my book, MINITRENDS: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs & Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends, I categorize the nine Minitrends below to those most applicable to different-sized groups. (In the book, I also discuss the background, current trends, and business opportunities of each of these Minitrends in more depth.) That said, here are the minitrends well worth examining: Minitrends particularly applicable to individuals or small groups of individuals Expanding involvement in virtual: Virtual worlds are computer-based platforms that allow participants to engage in a wide range of real-world type activities (e.g., buying and building virtual world property, furnishing virtual world homes and offices and producing and selling virtual world goods). Increasingly, these worlds are being used for educational purposes, product advertisements, new product modeling and testing, identification of new markets, and uncovering unexpected problems with new marketing programs. Support for people working at home: Although an increasing number of people are now conducting all or part of their work at home, these people often find they miss interacting with others and miss the convenience of facilities, equipment, and administrative support. A number of solutions are emerging to better meet the needs and desires of people working at home, including small offices or meeting rooms that can be rented by the day or the hour; chat rooms where people can meet informally to discuss ideas; semiformal groups that meet regularly to establish person-to-person interactions; and temporary support staffs organized to provide administrative assistance as needed. Expanding capabilities of advanced websites: Although the World Wide Web had proven to be extremely popular, many believed a more interactive platform that took advantage of the Web's power to communicate would be desirable (Web 2.0). Programmers are now expanding the capabilities of the Web to substitute computer activities for human activities, particularly activities that are repetitive, burdensome, and uninteresting (Web 3.0). Many believe Web 3.0 will eventually lead to effective artificial intelligence that can interact with humans in natural language.
Minitrends particularly applicable to small and medium-sized companies: Increasing interest in privacy: Recent advances in technology, together with an increasing willingness of many to make personal information more easily available are threatening traditional concepts of privacy in terms of messaging, personal profiles, and identity. Techniques for countering these invasions of privacy, such as personal caution, technology aids, and group action are now being developed. New approaches to giving and receiving advice: Individuals and organizations commonly seek expert advice when making important decisions. In providing such advice, large consulting firms with large, multidisciplinary staffs, well-structured processes and procedures, huge computer capabilities, and long-standing reputations have traditionally had a major advantage. However, the ever-increasing power and ubiquity of information gathering, processing, and communicating technologies, small and medium-size consulting groups are often able to give more focused, timely, and user-friendly advice than the larger firms. Evolution of meaningful maturity: The twin trends of increasing life spans and decreasing retirement ages have caused a steady increase in retirement years. Because of social, personal interest, and/or financial reasons, many older individuals are either staying in their jobs longer or returning to the workforce. Their ability to utilize their experience, skills, and dedication effectively will depend on their current capabilities, their desires, and open opportunities to those willing to assist them. Minitrends particularly applicable to large companies: Advances in digital manufacturing: Advanced digital manufacturing (ADM) processes build complex, custom-made parts by the addition of successive layers of material rather than traditional machining processes that cut, bend, and machine a part from stock material. The processes allow quicker production of prototypes and small production runs at a much lower cost. Recent ADM advances, including improved yield rates, reduced time-to-market, increasing variety of materials, and advances in 3D modeling software, have made ADM processes increasingly attractive to many manufacturers. Increasing electricity use in manufacturing: The characteristics of electric power, such as no heat transfer medium requirements, controlled energy distribution and reduced material waste provide a number of benefits to manufacturing processes. Its use, however, has been limited by its relatively high cost. A number of factors, including advances in control technologies, changing customer needs, global competition, and increasing concern about the environment, are driving an increasing growth in the use of electricity in industrial processes. New applications of nanotechnology: When many substances are reduced to nano-size (100 nanometers or less) they often exhibit very different physical, electrical, chemical, and optical properties from the same substance at macro-size. These new properties often provide very unique and useful characteristics to nano-materials that can be used in a wide range of practical applications, such as cancer treatment, very high strength materials, special electronic systems, and water purification. Improved production techniques, decreased costs, and growing experience and understanding are increasing the practical applications of nanotechnologies.
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| Quirkat hopes to bring fun to gamers in the Middle East Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:00 AM PDT
The company’s very existence is a nod to the globalization of the video game business. In a time when web technologies enable start-ups to create, publish and distribute their games anywhere, it’s a lot easier to create games anywhere in the world. So it’s only fitting that an Arab game company should make games for hundreds of millions of people in the Middle East, or people who are interested in games set in the region. The name “Quirkat” has deep origins as the name of the ancient Middle Eastern game of strategy that may have spawned the game that we know as checkers. “It traveled around the world from the Middle East into the West and now we’re trying to make the same thing electronically centuries later,” said Mahmoud Ali Khasawneh (pictured below, left) ,co-founder and chief executive, in an interview at the recent Game Developers Conference, where he spoke on Middle Eastern games at the Localization Summit and attended a gathering of a couple of dozen Middle East game developers. The company’s game studio is in Amman, Jordan, while a couple of artists are in Beirut and the corporate headquarters is in Dubai.
He and Kirk wanted to create the first Arabic-focused video game development studio that would produce local content. They can take games and “arabize” them with local content or make original games for the region. In 2007, they got a big break by being able to co-produce a $5 million game with U.S.-based Breakaway Games. For that two-year effort, they beefed up the team to 40 contractors and co-produced a game called Arabian Lords (pictured top and bottom). That was a disk-based PC strategy game that allows players to become merchant lords during the time of rise of Islam. The player starts with one palace and expands to rule an entire city during the 7th through the 13th centuries. “It was tough to learn how to make games, but we had a lucky break,” Kirk said. Kirk said that shadowing the Breakaway team during the production of the game was invaluable. The game sold about 20,000 copies on the PC. That wasn’t much, but it was the No. 1 game in the region at the time and Khasawneh said it helped the company get on the path toward its goal of being the No. 1 brand for Arab gamers. “Breakaway saw that we could do it, and so then on the second game we were able to take on more responsibility,” Khasawneh said. That game got canceled when the world financial crisis hit in late 2008. But they split on good terms and Quirkat sped off into its mission of making original games. It created a casual game portal Fuzztak for online gaming in Arabic, English and French.
Historically, the Middle East has been about 80 percent Nokia Symbian. Now it is shifting to more BlackBerry and iPhone mobile users, who are still getting accustomed to downloading to mobile phones. There is some competition now. There are maybe 20 game studios in the Middle East, including a number in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. And there are lots of smaller shops across the region as well. One of the limitations is compliance with Islamic law. The company doesn’t touch on religion or politics for its game topics. Topics such as sex, gambling, alcohol and nudity are banned, and the portrayal of Arabs as the bad guys in games such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is frowned upon. (Call of Duty games aren’t banned per se and are actually popular). And within the 22-country region, the standards vary, with strict content standards in Saudi Arabia and looser ones in Egypt and Jordan. Even with those restrictions in place, that leaves a lot of fun stuff to do still, from card games to sports to mythical role-playing games. “The top ten games in the Middle East will likely mirror the top games in the U.S.,” he said. “Soccer is huge.” Knowledge of the region is also an advantage, since Quirkat can alert game developers to inaccuracies or sensitivities related to local culture. Quirkat has done some casual games and Facebook titles as well. Roughly 15 percent of Facebook’s audience originates in the Middle East and there are 75 million people on the internet in the region, Khasawneh said. They have 10 people and got funding last year. That funding took about six years to raise, but it eventually came from Accelerator Technology Holdings, a fund that focuses on the Middle East. “We have to raise the value and profile of our company so that it becomes sexier,” Kaswaneh said. One way it does that is work on well-known games via outsourcing, and another is to make sure that its art style is distinctive and identifiably Arabic. Kaswaneh said the company is focused on trying to make a PlayStation Network game in the coming year to show what his company can do. (The Xbox 360 doesn’t have much of a base in the Middle East). Kirk says the game will likely focus on casual sports. Jordan’s universities produce technically savvy graduates for the company to hire, but it usually has to train them in how to make video games. Kirk said that employees have skill, but not experience in dealing with things such as crunch time (finishing a game) or cancellations, which are common. Because of the focus on Arabic art, the company puts more resources into the art work and the artists needed to make it. While some engines such as Gamebryo are too expensive, Quirkat can make games with less-expensive game-making technologies such as the Unity 3D engine. So far, all of the revolutions in other countries such as Egypt, Libya or Tunisia haven’t led to a disruption in the market yet. The Persian Gulf countries tend to be the more stable ones for game sales. “We are some years behind the West and Asia in the game industry,” he said. Companies: Quirkat People: Candide Kirk, Mahmoud Khasawneh
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| Plaxo throws in the social networking towel, refocuses on address books Posted: 16 Mar 2011 06:38 AM PDT
Co-founded by entrepreneur and investor Sean Parker (whose role in the early days of Facebook has become famous thanks to the movie The Social Network — a movie that Parker has called “a complete work of fiction”), Plaxo’s originally aimed to convince everyone to create an account with the their contact information, then connect those accounts to the friends’ accounts. As people made more connections, they’d have a larger and larger network in Plaxo with completely up-to-date contact information. That plan stumbled on the reality that not everyone created an account, and that not everyone kept their accounts up-to-date, limiting the contact information in the service and its usefulness as an address book. said Miller (who joined Plaxo about 18 months ago). So as a contact finder Plaxo wasn’t always effective, and instead it jumped on the social networking bandwagon. Yet it faced new obstacles — namely the fact that Facebook and LinkedIn exist, so that Plaxo users were already “satisfied with the products solving their social networking and business networking needs.” At the same time, Plaxo’s original goal of preventing the “decay” of address books, still hasn’t been solved, Miller said. (He isn’t the only one to make that argument — WhitePages just launched its own app for cleaning up address books, called Hiya.) And the company still had some contact management products that were popular among Plaxo’s 50 million-person userbase. So with this relaunch, Plaxo is moving its existing address book tools back to the forefront, it’s launching a new product called the Plaxo Personal Assistant, and it’s announcing plans to phase out its non-address book products. Plaxo’s existing services in this area include Plaxo Basic, a free online address book that now includes the Plaxo De-Duper (previously a paid product) for removing duplicate contacts; Plaxo’s mobile apps; and Plaxo Platinum Sync, a paid product that updates all of a user’s connected accounts and devices when they change someone’s contact information. Meanwhile, the new Personal Assistant (another paid product) returns to the out-of-date contacts problem that Plaxo tried to solve earlier. Instead of expecting everyone to create a Plaxo account and keep it up-to-date, the Personal Assistant checks public data sources and notifies users when a connection’s contact info seems to have changed. Then users have the option of updating their address book to reflect the change. Comcast acquired Plaxo back in 2008. People: Justin Miller, Sean parker
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| 7 ways to help your games go viral on Facebook Posted: 16 Mar 2011 05:00 AM PDT In less than five years Facebook has created the most powerful free, viral distribution network in history. Game developers saw its potential early on and flocked to the platform. Some of Facebook's earliest adopters have grown to billion dollar plus market caps in less than three years. Sounds like Nirvana. But what developers have quickly come to realize is that when you play on Facebook's platform you play by their rules. And their rules continue to evolve. Many of the viral channels that made Facebook such a goldmine for game marketers in 2008 and 2009 are no longer available, making it more difficult, and more expensive to acquire new users. Specifically: · In December 2009, Facebook limited the amount of responses and communications per user action. · Three months later on March 1, 2010, Facebook did away with game notifications, relegating them to a new bookmarks bar on the side of the screen. · On September 21, 2010, Facebook completely removed game notifications from its newsfeed, strictly limiting game notifications to discovery stories and invites. The final result? Between January 2010 and September 2010, social games on Facebook went from reaching approximately 245 million monthly active users to approximately 225 million – a drop of nearly 20 million monthly active users in less than a year. So what can social game developers do now to promote virality and drive higher daily active users? Facebook still provides some great ways to acquire new users for free or at a fraction of the cost of other online methods, for example: 1. Game "Discovery" Stories 2. Self-Service Ad Program 3. Cross Promotional Bars 4. Game Invites 5. Gifting 6. "Likes" 7. Buy with Friends All in all there are still plenty of great opportunities for social game developers to achieve outstanding virality on Facebook. It's important to remember, however, that the competitive landscape has grown astronomically over the years. Now more than ever, success is strongly dependent on two things: a comprehensive understanding of Facebook's game regulations and a substantial dose of creativity. People: Jessica Rovello
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| Netflix bids for original series in move to become like HBO Posted: 16 Mar 2011 12:11 AM PDT
Clearly, the protracted talks that Netflix has had over the years with Hollywood studios has taught the company that its better to own your own programs rather than just distribute them for someone else. The move could be an escape route for Netflix, which seems doomed to pay ever-rising fees to content owners. Both Deadline Hollywood and the Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix is either in advanced talks or has outbid several networks in getting rights to House of Cards, a new TV series being directed by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey. Netflix is reportedly bidding more than $100 million, according to Deadline Hollywood. But the WSJ says the amount is much less. The point is that Netflix is willing to part with a lot of money to get content. But the question is whether Netflix can amass a sizable amount of content to spread out its risks and to make its own exclusives attractive enough to get more consumers. Consider the fact that HBO’s audience dwindled after it stopped airing new seasons of The Sopranos. Content is a game where you go big or you go home. Netflix has to date specialized in distribution of movies and TV shows, either through DVD disks sent through the mail or through digital distribution video-streaming deals on consumer electronic platforms such as the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the Nintendo Wii, or the Roku box. The House of Cards show, a political drama based on a British miniseries, could air first on Netflix’s streaming internet service. Netflix now has more than 20 million subscribers, compared to 28 million for HBO. The deal hasn’t been announced yet and most of the players wouldn’t comment to the WSJ. Under the terms being discussed, Netflix would have the right to distribute the series online before any other outlet carried it. Netflix’s users have increasingly adopted on-demand video streaming, which carries a monthly fee. Since users pay a flat fee to Netflix, they view the service as a better bargain than other on-demand streaming services. But the selection of movies is important to users. To date, Netflix has had limited appeal because it mostly has access to cheaper, older movies and TV shows. But last August, Netflix agreed to pay about $1 billion over five years to Epix, a pay-TV channel owned by Viacom, Lions Gate Entertainment and MGM Studios. Netflix also grew 63 percent in subscribers from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2010. Netflix now accounts for 20 percent of all digital movie watching, according to market analyst NPD. Companies: Epix, Lions Gate Entertainment, MGM Studios, Netflix, Time Warner, Viacom
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| Verizon takes 12 percent of iPhone market share in just a month Posted: 15 Mar 2011 11:34 PM PDT
That shows that Verizon probably sold a lot of phones in its first month working with Apple and AT&T is going to have to offer better services to users to hang on to them. Chitika can measure the number of AT&T and Verizon devices registering on its network. Just one day after the device launched to Verizon customers on Feb. 10, Verizon iPhones accounted for 3 percent of the U.S. iPhone base. Apple also debuted the second-generation iPad with Verizon as well as AT&T last Friday. While AT&T and Verizon slug it out, Apple is sitting pretty and could very well be gaining market share on Android. Companies: Apple, AT&T, Chitika, Verizon
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| On the GreenBeat: Solar and wind stocks jump, cleantech funding rose in 2010 Posted: 15 Mar 2011 10:47 PM PDT Here’s what’s happening today on the GreenBeat:
Investments in US cleantech companies rose 46 percent to $5.1 billion in 2010. Research firm Clean Edge also said that cleantech investments made up 23 percent of all venture capital investments last year. Veolia announces partnerships with startups. The environmental engineering company made the announcement at Cleantech Forum San Francisco. Among the partners: eco-friendly fertilizer company Ostera, software firm CoSMo, and design and marketing company Envolure. Solar plant company BrightSource Energy raises its fundraising goal from $100 million to $125 million. The company has already brought in about $122.5 million in equity and options. The money from this round will be used for projects in the American southwest. Companies: BrightSource Energy, Veolia
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| Posted: 15 Mar 2011 09:42 PM PDT
I've thought for a long time about whether to post this. I finally decided that I had to do it because I would want you to tell me the truth if the shoe were on the other foot. Many of you know that I used to work at eBay, and today seemed like a good day to share some of some thoughts with you on what's happening over there. For a long time, it was a magical place. There was a special, personal connection between the buyers, the sellers, the website, and the many wonderful people who worked at the company. Big corporations paid the same prices as the little guys and everyone had a fair shot to build their business. Most of all, eBay provided *value* to the buyers and sellers alike — sellers got great traffic to their items, and buyers got the world's biggest assortment at great prices. Today's eBay is something altogether different. Traffic Generation Blows. eBay is losing share of ecommerce to large and small competitors alike. Their ability to bring you buyers is broken. People I know inside the company despair that they have no idea how to get their mojo back on demand generation given that senior executives think "social commerce" means putting like buttons on ten percent of listings. Big Sellers Get Special, Back-Room Pricing Deals. Today's price increases — and make no mistake they are increases — are targeted at small sellers. You can bet that all the name-brand retailers who have special, back-room pricing deals — some of which I am told include zero listing fees of any kind, special placement in search results, and guaranteed sell through percentages — are not paying final value fees on shipping costs. eBay is unleveling the playing field again in a very big way. The worst part? We don't even know how bad it is: The special, back-room pricing deals with big corporations are closely guarded secrets. You Pay "Success Fees" on Your Shipping Costs. When Pierre [Omidyar] created the final value fee, it was designed to let eBay and the sellers share in the same success. I always thought that shipping *costs* are like merchandise costs, labor costs, material costs. Now they are something to be taxed in this crazy way. That smells like it came from a Washington DC playbook, not from a playbook to build businesses. It just seems wrong to me. Using PayPal to Spy on Your Business. I first heard about this a few weeks ago. At first I didn't believe it. A senior level eBay person confessed to me that eBay monitors sellers' PayPal accounts to see how much off-eBay business they are doing. It's how, this person said, they figure out who to worry about and who "doesn't matter." They are doing it to Yardsellr too and he wanted me to know it I think. I am very happy that the vast majority of your sales are processed through our own, secure and private merchant account. Planning to Centralize Checkout and Collect Your Money. I happen to like shopping carts and simple checkout more than most people. That's why, when I built Yardsellr, I made it easy for the buyer to pay just like they do on normal ecommerce sites, and yet easy for the seller to get paid by Yardsellr regularly and smoothly. Fast and easy checkout, and fast and easy payments to sellers have been part of our service from day one. I think we have earned the trust of buyers and sellers one transaction at a time on this. So, you might expect I'd be a fan of eBay's unannounced plan to force a new checkout and escrow system on sellers (supposed to be coming this summer or fall). After all, it validates one of Yardsellr's key notions of ecommerce. But I think it's going to be rough times for sellers. Why? According to one person who is working on this project, more than 100 engineers are writing and testing a centrally-controlled checkout and escrow system for eBay. But you know and I know that gatekeeping other people's money is a matter of trust more than a matter of building software. And I think it's OK to say that a company that freezes cash in PayPal accounts, that suspends selling accounts first and asks questions later, that cuts sweetheart pricing deals behind closed doors with anointed sellers, that "scores" you as a person with made up DSRs [detailed seller ratings], that taxes your shipping expenses, and that fails to solve the fundamental problem of buyer traffic is a little questionable in the trust department. Centralized collection of your money is not a good thing when its eBay that's doing the collection. People: Daniel Leffel
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| Microsoft on IE9: It’s about the hardware Posted: 15 Mar 2011 08:24 PM PDT
Specifically, he said the IE9 team rejected the philosophy that websites and browsers should run the same across any device — or, as he put it, the misconception that "the Web is the Web is the Web." That thinking has led to browsers that only take advantage of 10 percent of a normal computer's capabilities, he said. Hachamovitch argued that the browser is actually "only as good as the operating system." That's why IE9 uses a computer's graphics processor for faster delivery of text, video, and graphics. (Rick Bergman at chip company Advanced Micro Devices, told VentureBeat that IE9 should lead to better web sites and more usage of graphics chips for non-gaming computing tasks.) And that doesn’t just make a difference on the latest Windows 7 computers; since almost any computer has at least a dual-core processor, even a notebook that only costs a few hundred dollars will see an improvement, he said. Besides the hardware acceleration, Hachamovitch said one of the IE9 team's other big goals was to move the focus away from the browser and toward the website. That's why the browser allows users to "pin" websites directly to their Windows taskbar, so they can access their favorite websites just as easily as they can the software on their computer. The design of a pinned site places an even greater emphasis on the website over the browser. A pinned site has its own notifications and site search, and the back button is even colored to match the site's favicon (the little logo or icon that you see at the top of the browser). Website publishers are already seeing benefits from this approach Microsoft said — for example, the Huffington Post found that 38 percent of visitors on IE9 "pinned" the site, and that those users spent 49 percent more time on the site than other users. Companies: Microsoft People: Dean Hachamovitch
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| YouTube acquires Irish tech shop to fix your blurry videos Posted: 15 Mar 2011 08:09 PM PDT
The site, which gets over 35 hours of video uploaded every minutes, says it hopes to use the technology by the Irish firm to improve the quality of the many blurry, jerky, and unsteady amateur videos uploaded to the site daily — as those shared recently, for example, by political protestors in Libya. When a video is uploaded to the site, it is processed by YouTube and converted to the various sizes and formats offered by the site. The integration of this technology, which would act as an additional filter for restoring and improving quality, could be instrumental to the millions of YouTube users who watch and share videos on the site. Green Parot Pictures was founded by Anil Kokaram, an Associate Professor at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Its technology, which improves video quality by offering tools to stabilize an image and remove flickers, noises, and blotches, has been used in movies such as Lord of the Rings, X-Men, and Spider-Man. A couple weeks ago, the site also announced that it is buying Next New Networks, a video production and distribution company to help content partners an emerging talent. The price of both acquisitions have not been disclosed. MotionDSP’s vReveal software can also sharpen and stabilize blurry videos. Companies: Google, Green Parot Pictures, Next New Networks, YouTube People: Anil Kokaram
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| LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman explains the brave new world of data Posted: 15 Mar 2011 04:47 PM PDT
Hoffman, who is now a partner at Greylock Partners, sounded dismissive of most of the buzzwords that have been tied to Web 3.0 — bandwidth, "appification", video, location, real-time, and mobile. (He said mobile is probably the most significant trend of the bunch, but it's "kind of boring".) Instead, he said that the next big trend in the evolution of the Web, and the next big opportunity for entrepreneurs, is data. Specifically, he said that if Web 1.0 involved "go search, get data" and some limited interactivity; and if Web 2.0 involves "real identities" and "real relationships", then Web 3.0 will be "real identities generating massive amounts of data." Of course, there are risks associated with you sharing data tied to your personal identity. (Two of the conference's keynote speakers, 4chan founder Christopher Poole and Web video star Felicia Day, both made arguments for the benefits of anonymity.) But Hoffman said startups should just follow two important rules about data. First, "never ambush your users." Second, "not all data is created equal." A lot of the data that people provide online isn't harmful, he said — what companies and users need to be really careful about is "data that is essentially equivalent to a password,” which includes things like credit card numbers. Hoffman offered several examples of companies that are already doing interesting and useful things with social data: LinkedIn offers a new feature called Skills, where users can find people, companies, and jobs related to each skill. There's Waze, a mobile application that uses data about your location and speed during your commute to deliver traffic advice. And there's Redfin, an online real estate broker (which Greylock invested in) that gives homebuyers more information about their prospective homes and the housing market. In what Hoffman acknowledged was a rather self-referential move, he proposed collecting social data about the interesting apps that can be built with social data — audience members are supposed to post their ideas on Twitter with the hashtag #web3, and his team will try to create an infographic showing off the ideas. In addition to talking about data, Hoffman also offered what he called his 10 rules of entrepreneurship.
Companies: linkedin People: Reid Hoffman
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LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman presented his vision today for "Web 3.0" at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin.
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