The impending Age Of Abundance was prophesied in the scriptures thousands of years ago.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
eBay, Come Back
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| Image via CrunchBase |
Behind eBay’s Comeback
EBay, Yahoo and AOL, the dominant Internet triumvirate circa 2004 ..... eBay’s success has big implications for struggling companies like Yahoo and AOL, not to mention more recent sensations that have already lost some luster, like Zynga, Groupon and even Facebook ...... “One of the unique things about the Internet is a company can be a white-hot success and become a global brand and reach global scale in just a few years — that’s the good news,” he told me this week. “But then somebody can turn around and do it to you. There’s constant disruption. One of the first things I had to do here was face reality. EBay was getting disrupted.” ...... So thoroughly has eBay been transformed that he didn’t even mention its traditional auction business ..... Excitement about eBay’s prospects has little to do with its traditional auction business, or even its core e-commerce operations ...... Most of its growth came from mobile retailing and its PayPal online payments division, a business it acquired in 2002 for what now looks like a bargain $1.5 billion. ...... “Mobile is revolutionizing how people shop and pay.” ..... EBay is offering a one-click payment solution. .... Mr. Spitz said he was recently stopped at a traffic light and the sun was bothering his eyes. By the time the light turned green, he had used his phone to order and pay for sunglasses. ...... “We saw the mobile revolution early and we made a big bet across the entire company. We saw that mobile was an important factor for our customers. It was becoming the central control device in their lives. We didn’t worry if it cannibalized our existing business, because we knew it was what our customers wanted.” ..... The smartphone “has blurred the line between e-commerce and off-line retail,” Mr. Donahoe continued. “Four years ago, you had to be in front of a laptop or desktop to shop online. Now you can do it seven days, 24 hours. We’re going to have to drop the ‘e’ from e-commerce.” ...... Amazon continues to invest in its delivery systems and it, too, has an effective mobile app and one-click payment system. ..... EBay and PayPal apps already rank among the top 10 mobile apps .... EBay stresses, without mentioning Amazon by name, that it doesn’t compete with its retail customers. ...... “We spent three years fixing the fundamentals and tried not to worry about what everyone else was saying.” ..... “We’re more technology- and innovation-driven than we’ve ever been. Mobile gave us the opportunity to start with a clean slate from a technology perspective.” Less than two years ago, eBay acquired Critical Path Software, which was helping to develop eBay’s mobile apps. “We thought they were the best, so we bought them and got a couple hundred of the best software developers in the world working exclusively for us,” Mr. Donahoe said. ...... PayPal Here, a new payment system, would allow customers to “check in” in advance at a shop, be greeted by name when they arrive, complete transactions without a mobile device or credit card and get a text message as a receipt. ..... Mr. Donahoe has been chief for just over four years, and has replaced most of eBay’s top management.Looks like PayPal is doing the trick.
Looks like John Donahoe is a role model for Marissa Mayer. Yahoo also needs a turn around.
Google: Search, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Fiber
Google Fiber is certainly way out there.
Google Fiber Is The Most Disruptive Thing The Company's Done Since Gmail
All Google Fiber customers also get 1TB of free storage. If they buy TV service for an extra $50 a month, Google will throw in a $200 Nexus 7 tablet to be used as a remote control. Google is also giving away -- for free -- a package that offers 5Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. ...... Google was able to get prices so low, in part, because it designed and built all the hardware for the system itself. This is a good reminder that although Google wasn't a consumer electronics company until recently, Google has actually been designing hardware for its data centers for more than a decade. It was this data center efficiency that allowed Gmail to offer way more free storage than competitors back in 2004....... just like Gmail unlocked an enterprise business, Fiber could unlock a whole new business as an ISP and TV provider..... Now, we just need Google to roll out Fiber to the rest of the country.If Google can figure out a way to use snooping technology to serve well targeted ads it could make internet access ad supported, and it could take top speeds to all corners of the world. It would not be limited by Fiber. Heck, it could use satellite technology as necessary.
This is the single most important thing Google could do. At globally universal broadband, Google surpasses the nation state in power. It also becomes a trillion dollar company in the process.
That "5Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream" free deal is a big deal.
At 1 GB, YouTube has no more disadvantages to traditional TV. Video ads fetch more.
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