In that location have been and then many manufactures posted on Steve Jobs in the by week, I really idea I wasn't going to add one hither on my blog.

However, yesterday, John Lilly wrote a great piece on Steve Jobs yesterday, and I realized I might have a story worth telling later on all.  I observe myself fortunate, in hindsight, to have joined Apple in 1996 as an intern, and then full time in 1997 merely weeks earlier Steve Jobs took the helm as interim CEO.

A Tale of 2 Meetings

As an approachable intern of the Avant-garde Technology Group, I actually did attend the coming together that John describes in his web log postal service.  However, equally a full time engineer on WebObjects, I as well had the opportunity to attend a dissimilar all hands that Steve Jobs chosen for the unabridged Rhapsody team (the codename of the projection that became Mac Bone X).

If yous oasis't read John's post, information technology's definitely worth reading in tandem with this one.  He does a great job capturing the insights from the ATG coming together.  Instead, let me add together to the story with my recollection of the Rhapsody meeting that happened the same calendar week.

(Note: It has been over fourteen years since the meeting, so don't take this as a literal play-by-play.  I have no notes, so all quotes are from memory.  But this is how I think information technology.)

The "Michael Dell" Meeting

The mood of the Rhapsody squad coming together was energetic, simply mixed.  More than any other group at Apple tree, the Rhapsody team required a combination of talent from both long time Apple engineers and newly merged Side by side engineers.  At that place was a palpable sense of excitement in the room, as particularly the NeXT team had a huge amount of respect for the "incoming administration".  At the same time, in that location was an element of discontent around suddenly finding themselves part of a big company, and even some skepticism that Apple was salvageable.

Steve got on stage at the front of the room in Infinite Loop iv, and put a huge, larger than life picture of Michael Dell on the wall.  He repeated the news provender that Michael Dell had been asked recently what he would do if he was running Apple Reckoner.  (At the time, Dell was the ultimate success story in the PC manufacture.)  Dell said that he would liquidate the company and return the greenbacks to shareholders.

A few gasps, a few jeers and some general murmuring in the audience.  But I don't think they expected what he said next.

And you lot know what? He'southward right.

The world doesn't need some other Dell or HP.  Information technology doesn't need another manufacturer of plain, beige, tedious PCs.  If that's all we're going to practice, and then nosotros should really pack up now.

But we're lucky, because Apple has a purpose.  Different anyone in the industry, people want us to make products that they love.  In fact, more than than dearest.  Our chore is to brand products that people lust for.  That'south what Apple is meant to exist.

What's BMW's market share of the auto market?  Does anyone know?  Well, it's less than 2%, only no i cares.  Why?  Because either you drive a BMW or you stare at the new one driving by.  If we do our job, we'll make products that people lust later on, and no 1 will care about our market share.

Apple is a outset-upwards.  Granted, it's a startup with $6B in revenue, merely that can and will go in an instant.  If you are here for a cushy 9-to-5 task, then that's OK, but you should go.  We're going to make certain everyone has stock options, and that they are oriented towards the long term.  If you need a big bacon and bonus, and so that'southward OK, just you should go.  This isn't going to be that place.  There are enough of companies like that in the Valley.  This is going to be difficult work, possibly the hardest you've always done.  But if nosotros exercise information technology right, it'south going to be worth it.

He and then clicked through to a behemothic bullseye overlayed on Michael Dell's face up.

I don't intendance what Michael Dell thinks.  If we do our job, he'll exist wrong.  Let's prove him wrong.

All I can remember is thinking: "Wow. Now that's how you regroup, refocus and set up a visitor in move."  I had seen speeches past Gil Amelio in 1996, and there was nada comparable.  Please remember, at this point in time information technology wasn't at all obvious that Steve or Apple tree would actually succeed. Only I felt like I'd witnessed a footling piece of history.

Fast Frontward: eBay 2006

That meeting left a huge impression on me that extended well beyond Apple tree.  Steve's deportment and words at Apple in 1997 represented the accented best in leadership for a turnaround situation.

It wasn't until 2006, even so, that I establish myself at another large technology company looking to rediscover itself.  In the summer of 2006, I was i of a relatively modest number of production leaders to bout a typhoon of a new initiative at eBay chosen "eBay 3.0".  Led by the marketing team, a modest, strong team had done a lot of research on what fabricated eBay unlike, and what people wanted from the eBay brand.  The answer was that eBay was fun, full of serendipity, emotion, thrill.  The contest of auctions, the surprise at discovering something you didn't know existed.  This reduced into a strong pitch for eBay equally "colorful commerce".

I was excited about the research and the work, because it echoed some of the things I remembered most Steve & Apple, and the simple vision he had for a company that made products that people lusted for.  But I as well remember voicing a strong concern to several members of the team.  I told them about Steve's speech to the Rhapsody team, and asked: "Does eBay want BMW market share, or Toyota market share?"  At the time, eBay was more than 20% of all e-commerce, and all plans oriented towards growing that marketplace share.

Unfortunately, eBay tried to do both with the same product.

It's not typical for a large, successful public visitor to basically say market place share doesn't matter, and to drive a company purely around a unproblematic focus and vision.  When things are the toughest, unfortunately, that'south when leadership and vision matter the most.

Final Thoughts

Who would have imagined that Apple would have the largest market capitalization in the world?  Who would take idea that in the twelvemonth 2011 that Apple – not Microsoft, non Dell, not Sony – would be defining the market for so many digital devices and services?

Most importantly, who would have thought that a leadership mandate that eschewed market share would achieve such dramatic gains?

Apple so easily could have gone the manner of SGI, the mode of Lord's day.  Instead, it literally shapes the future of the industry.  All considering in 1997 Steve was able to offering a elementary and compelling reason for Apple to exist.  A purpose.  And it's a purpose that managed to aggregate some of the nearly talented people in the world to do some of their all-time work.  Once again and once again.

And so I will add here a simple give thanks y'all to Steve Jobs for that coming together, and for irresolute the fashion that I retrieve about every visitor's purpose – their reason to be.  Residue in Peace, Steve.

Information technology has been quite a long fourth dimension since I posted here about eBay.  I still use the site regularly (I typically still list at least a few things every month), and while I may tweet almost things from time to time, I rarely experience the need for a full weblog postal service.

On January 21st, Ikai Lan (@ikai) posted this tweet:

What's the large deal, right?  So what if Ikai establish a better deal on Amazon for his Star Trek geekfest?

Here's the big deal. This was my response to Ikai:

The outcome here isn't that I was somewhat obnoxious (although conspicuously, I was a fleck obnoxious).  Ikai & I worked together at LinkedIn, so it's not unexpected to have a little chip of fun with the back & forth on Twitter.

The problem is that Ikai is a smart, technical guy.  He'south also someone who looks for a practiced deal.  If someone like Ikai thinks that Amazon has a cheaper price on an item like the complete DVD collection for Star Expedition DS9, then eBay has a real problem.

eBay's Value Trouble

When I wrote my Eulogy for eBay Express in 2008, I talked almost 4 key value propositions that eBay navigates: value, selection, trust and convenience.  One of the motivating factors backside eBay Express was trying to detect a way to leverage eBay's huge advantages in value and option, while shoring up perceived weaknesses in trust and convenience.

Only here nosotros are in 2010, and while eBay has the item, apples-to-apples, for over $100 less than Amazon.com – Ikai didn't know it.  And yous know what?  If a low cost falls in the forest and no ane is effectually to hear it, it doesn't make a sound… or a sale.

eBay's Value Trouble is really a Search Problem

The signal is, despite the fact that Ikai is an engineer working at Google, he couldn't find the detail.  So a $115 price advantage was nullified.   Why?

I'm not a 100% sure what Ikai did to identify the proposed "$350 toll".  When I searched on eBay, I found literally dozens of items priced beneath $300, many of which were from top sellers, and many of which that offered returns.  In fact, I saw items as low as $130, but I tried to detect the everyman priced item that matched the quality of service Ikai would expect from an Amazon third party seller.

Of course, I've been on eBay since 1998, and I spent years working on structured data and search products at eBay, so I have a hunch why I constitute the items and he didn't.

He typed the wrong query. My guess is that he typed something similar this "Star Expedition DS9 flavor 1-vii" in the DVD category.  Makes sense, correct?  Unfortunately, this simply returns two items, the cheapest of which is $299.

Despite years of investment, the eBay search engine still doesn't understand that "DS9 = Deep Space 9", and that "1-7" is a range, and that "flavour" is an attribute that DVD sets for tv series can have.

Now, what I did do?  Simple:

  1. I typed the query "deep space (nine, 9)"
  2. I selected the category for DVD
  3. I selected "Buy Information technology At present" for listing blazon
  4. I sorted from highest price to lowest

Permit's review the tricks I used:

  1. The () notation is how the eBay search engine does OR.  And then I was able to find listings with both "9" and "9" in them.  To be fancy, I could have used "DS9" in there too, only it wasn't necessary.
  2. Filter to DVD category to make clean out other clutter.
  3. I figured Ikai didn't desire to bid on an sale
  4. Sorting from loftier to low is a counter-intuitive flim-flam, but if you assume that the collection will be more than expensive than individual DVDs, it makes sense.  I use this all the time with high priced items, since quality tends to float to the meridian.

I then scanned downwardly the list to observe the cheapest collection sold past a apparent seller (someone with loftier feedback and % satisfaction).  Then I tweeted information technology to Ikai.

Would anyone else know how to do this? Would anyone else want to practise this?

I do it, largely considering I still dear eBay, and because I actually know how to do it.  Plus, I actually appreciate saving coin on items similar this, and then the $115 is worth a few minutes.

But all I know is that if eBay can't leverage it's intrinsic price reward with buyers like Ikai, and then information technology has a serious trouble.  They can never vanquish Amazon or traditional retailer east-commerce sites on trust and convenience.  They tin can, however, vanquish them on price and selection.

But customers have to be able to find those advantages to value them.

This by week, the US Mint sold out of the one ounce 2009 Proof Platinum Eagle.  As no bullion coins or partial sizes were minted this twelvemonth, it was the just United states Platinum coin produced in 2009.

From CoinNews.cyberspace:

Released at Noon Eastern on Thursday, December 3, 2009, the Platinum Eagles were express to a mintage of only 8,000. Over 7,200 of those sold in the commencement few days, even with a household order limit of 5 pieces in place. The Us Mint sold just 4,769 of the one ounce proof coins during all of terminal year.

Some had theorized that this year'southward run would exist challenged past the loftier price of the coin ($1792.00) and the relatively unpopular new design.  Still, given the huge demand for precious metals this twelvemonth for investment (gold, silvery, platinum, palladium), information technology's hard to be completely surprised that this coin sold out so quickly.

Nope.  2008 the US Mint only sold iv,769 coins.  This year, they sell out early at 8000 coins.

The case for buying platinum correct now is fairly strong:

  • The relative price of platinum to gilt is extremely low, given gold's huge run up.  A few years ago, platinum toll over 3x an equivalent corporeality of gold.  At current prices, the 2 metals are approaching parity.
  • Simple investment vehicles in Platinum and Palladium, like ETFs, do exist (they trade in London), only don't have popular US versions (still), then investment demand remains weak compared to it's ETF-rich brethren of gold (GLD) and silver (SLV).
  • The automotive manufacture, which is the largest consumer of platinum and palladium, is extremely depressed.  Yet, since the demand for fuel efficient cars is growing, the apply of these metals in catalytic converters and fuel cells seems to forecast pregnant futurity need when the industry recovers.

That being said, I was surprised when I searched eBay for completed listings for the 2009 Platinum Eagle.  Unremarkably, when there is a sell out at the Us Mint, y'all immediately run across panic ownership on eBay for huge premiums over the US Mint price.

Here is the query.  What you see is that, as of December 12, the prices range from $1727 to $2050, hardly a premium given the transaction costs of eBay / PayPal which tin easily run 8-9%.

As a result, I have to wonder:

  • Was the sell out the product of truthful individual need for the coin?  Or was this a case of coin dealers speculating on a sell out and premium collectible opportunity?

The trouble with the Platinum Hawkeye series is that it's unclear how many collectors actually endeavor to build "the consummate set" of these expensive coins.  Set edifice is typically the primary commuter for premium values for the silver and gilt eagle serial.

I'll be watching the completed auctions closely this coming week.  At that place are a couple sellers already experimenting with higher prices.  Allow's come across if they stick.

It's been quite a while since my final eBay-related post, and nine months since my high traffic mail service, A Eulogy for eBay Limited.  Notwithstanding, this past calendar week Keith Rabois wrote a adequately inflammatory article for TechCrunch that I thought was worth discussing.  Keith is currently an executive at Slide, and was formerly a founder at LinkedIn and an executive at PayPal, then his consumer internet credentials are adequately substantial.

His article was entitled:

TechCrunch: How Facebook, MySpace and YouTube Killed eBay

Told yous information technology was inflammatory.

However, I'm non ordinarily the i to take eBay flame bait.  Afterward all, if I was, I'd be posting twelve times a solar day on the topic.  Simply Keith actually striking upon a deeper insight in his piece that is worth calling out, considering information technology provides insight into both eBay and other successful, engaging web products.

Although information technology was always classified equally an e-commerce destination, the quirkiness of the eBay market was in one case a major source of entertainment on the Web. It was where people sought and bought everything from the beginning broken laser pointer to Beanie Babies to Bob Dylan's boyhood home. While the catch—anything from an antique clock to a Gulfstream 2—was rewarding for the heir-apparent, information technology was generally the entertainment and excitement of the chase that brought a buyer to eBay in the first place.

This insight, that eBay's success was driven past entertainment and engagement is extremely strong.

The balance of the article follows this path:

  • In January 2004, over 47% of internet users visited eBay once per calendar month.
  • In December 2006, while the % of audience stayed the same, people were spending 3x the time on MySpace
  • In 2007 Facebook & Youtube added to this migrate of attention and engagement (timeline is off here a bit, since Youtube took off well before 2007).
  • eBay stripped out the fun, not pursuing eBay 3.0 strongly enough, and then Donahoe pushed towards an Amazon-focused approach.  Fun gone.

I don't personally agree with much of the deductive menstruum hither, actually.  Overall, Myspace, Youtube & Facebook have significantly increased the engagement overall on the net, taking metrics like "daily visits" and "daily unique users" and "fourth dimension on site" to previously unthinkable numbers.  It isn't a nada-sum game, per se, because the overall number of users and time spent on consumer internet sites has grown dramatically.

More than importantly, the assessment of eBay iii.0 and the current strategy makes information technology sound like eBay'south current approach is largely management-driven, when in reality the overwhelming global scale and activeness of eBay buyers (and sellers) has made the electric current direction almost fait accompli.  In 2006, the number of eBay listings that were fixed cost (including store listings) was already well northward of l% and rising rapidly.  The marketplace was voting through billions of bids, BINs and listings, and it was voting for a college and higher proportion of stock-still cost commerce.

But I digress.  The point is that Keith got something very, very right in his article about eBay.

eBay was never meant to be merely east-commerce.  It was fun.  It was exciting.  It was empowering.

It was engaging.

There are a couple strong reasons for this.

First, if you've read my previous posts on game mechanics in the pattern of engaging software and websites, you'll know I'm a big fan of Amy Jo Kim's work here.  In fact, eBay demonstrates all five of the "fundamental games" that humans like to play.  This wasn't done intentionally, only it explains a lot of the almost visceral, addictive reaction that people had to eBay.

2nd, eBay captured irrational economic behavior on both the buyer and seller side of the market brilliantly.  Buyers exhibited a number of irrational behaviors that we now describe and associate with behavioral finance.

These irrational behaviors on the buyer side, combined with the game mechanics of the site, effectively created a elevator in demand.  Combined with the transparency and latitude of the online market place, you lot had literally a huge multiplier on due east-commerce demand.

On the seller side, however, appointment was driving irrational behavior too.  Buyers of collectibles became sellers in social club to "fund their habits".  (I know this personally, since I began selling coins on the site to help keep my PayPal "slush fund" fully tanked so I could purchase coins…)   More than than anything, people cruel in dearest with the empowerment eBay offered.  You didn't have to take $100,000 to open up a business, an SBA loan, or an MBA.  The web was full of stories of people only driving around garage sales, picking up items on clearance at local department stores, and stocking upward at flea markets.  Some of these sellers grew businesses that measured in millions of dollars, promoting promise that anyone could build a business organization on eBay.

Of course, there was a kernel of truth to this.  An unprecedented number of successful businesses were congenital over eBay.  Just most sellers were nowhere near whatever sort of traditional business calibration.  There is a reason, later all, that PowerSeller starts at but $1000 a calendar month.  And that's $1000 of sales acquirement, not profits.

Can you lot imagine whatever existent-world storefront with merely $12,000 a year in sales?

People would spend 8, 10, even 12-hours a day looking for inventory, listing items, answering questions, and shipping goods.  When people went to the first eBay Live, they even made sure that on the road trip out to California, they brought enough packing materials to go on shipping items.  They made buyers happy because it wasn't only a business for them, it was a way of life.

In every sense of the word, it was irrational commerce.  It was a labor of dear, non economics.  Sure, information technology was a good way to pad the income of a family unit.  But for many the money was but a rationalization – they were really in information technology for the excitement, the activity, the empowerment, and of form, the customs.  If you calculated the "wage rate" of many of these sellers, it would be shockingly low.  But no one did, because that wasn't the point.  It was fun.  It was empowering.  And it was only just the start…

I didn't get to get to the starting time eBay Alive in 2002, but I did go to three starting with the third in New Orleans in 2004.  I'll never forget, at i point Pierre was touring the booths (I believe he was giving a speech that day).  A group of united states of america were discussing how to manage the insanity of the consequence – the intensity and sometimes aggression of some attendees who had to have every pin, every collectible.

I won't get the quote correct, but Pierre said something there that has stayed with me to this day.  To paraphrase, he said that he loved the energy, and that the insanity is function of what made eBay great.  If eBay became simply some other sales channel, so it would lose its magic.

It has been 5 years,  and for me personally the growth in my understanding of game mechanics, behavioral finance, and spider web two.0 product design take given me terms and tools to help explicate the irrational date that people had with eBay, and currently have with sites like Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter.

eBay has a very metrics-driven culture, but while site and business organisation metrics accurately reported the results of the incredibly engagement and action on eBay, every bit always they never really provided  the full moving picture around causality.

So, from my point of view, Facebook, MySpace & Youtube did not kill eBay.  (eBay, of course, is no where near killed in any case, since it continues to exist an incredibly large and active site.)

Instead, eBay fell victim to a much more insidious threat than elementary contest for eyeballs or time on site.  It fell victim to a version of the Innovator'south Dilemma.  There is a limit to how many people will wrap their lives around selling on eBay.  At that place is a limit to what percentage of people'due south purchases they volition pursue through an auction process.  There is a limit to the disposable income to spend on collectibles and hard-to-find items – most purchases, in fact, are of new, standard commodity products.  Thus the company and the site follows the aggregated votes of hundreds of millions of buyers and millions of sellers, their "best customers", and those votes are somewhen dominated by the majority of the e-commerce market place.

Reading manufactures this weekend, similar this piece in VentureBeat, they quote Donahoe in the Wall Street Periodical as follows:

Asked about eBay'south identity, Mr. Donahoe said he wants shopping on the site to offer the same sort of low-price experience equally buying at bulk retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. There, "the inventory is somewhat fluid, merely everything they've got is a corking bargain," he says in an interview.

(Ironic for me, since Costco was ane of the examples nosotros looked to frequently in the design and idea behind eBay Express.  I am a huge, unrepentent fan of Costco as both a customer and as a student of keen companies.)

eBay 2009 cannot get back to the eBay of 1999, or even 2004.  The size and scale and make-upwardly of the market means that whatsoever attempt to "crowd-out" the less engaging aspects of the marketplace would mean drastically reducing the size of eBay.

That doesn't mean there isn't hope.  In that location is still time for eBay to re-invigorate its experience to capture and create elements that drive engagement.  At that place is time to acquire from both the past and the present, and chart a class that will inspire and empower millions.

The original needs that drove eBay to success still exist.  People are finding some of the serendipity and empowerment from Craigslist… simply it'south non as actionable or broad.   The game mechanics, for the most function, aren't at that place.  Amazon has increased its latitude, but it'southward truly an ecosystem designed for large sellers (past eBay standards).  Google has enabled independent websites to purchase traffic… to an extent.  But the more you lot make selling online like running a business, the more y'all lose that sense that this is fun instead of work.

Collectors still desire to collect.  People nevertheless want to find ways to make a footling actress money and to be a office of something bigger.  Little kids withal collect and trade things from a very young age – no affair if they are stickers, baseball game cards, Pokemon, or whatsoever small colorful items come in sets with variable rarity.  I sold my brother's broken iPhone (he dropped it in the ocean) for $130 to a man on an island (Reunion) that I had never heard of.  Those eBay stories still exist. Small businesses are still being built on eBay.  Sellers are multi-channel, but eBay can and should offering them unique dynamics that capture a disproportionate amount of their attention, if not their business.  Apple has a small fraction of the computer market, but it captures the lionshare of its attention.  That could be eBay if it was prepared to deed boldly and ask hard questions about what eBay reall should be… and shouldn't be.

eBay cannot exist MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Twitter.  Nor should it be.

It should be eBay.

Update (5/27/2009): Turns out I had missed a great mail from Rob Go on this aforementioned topic, just a few days ago.  Worth reading.

Caught this article yesterday on the new 2009 Lincoln pennies:

2009 Lincoln Penny Mania

A quick review of recently completed eBay auctions shows unmarked rolls selling for $30 to $50 each. Unmarried pennies accept sold for $2 to $4 each. Rolls with a Lincoln postage postage and cancellation from the start day of outcome at Hogdenville, Kentucky have sold for over $200. Most astoundingly, a single 2009-P Lincoln Cent graded NGC MS66RD and attributed "First 24-hour interval of Consequence" has sold for $400.

View the current eBay auctions.

Information technology's truly bizzare.  $0.50 rolls of the new Lincoln pennies are going for $30-$50 on eBay.  That'southward insane.  Nosotros're talking about a coin that will exist minted in the hundreds of millions, if non billions, this year.

What I would love to do is to "brusque" these rolls – finer presell them at this price, collect money now, and then transport the rolls in a few months when you'll exist able to source them at less than $1/roll.

Unfortunately, that violates eBay policy. It'southward for adept reason, since brusque selling actual inventory is hard to distinguish from a scam transaction.  Afterward all, how do you know the seller will brand proficient on the future commitment?  What is the recourse for the buyer?

The lack of brusque selling, however, means that temporary supply/demand imbalances similar this lead to constructive price gouging for buyers who assume the eBay toll is "fair".  Information technology'southward certainly fair for the moment, but the expected ROI on this purchase for the collector is probable to exist disasterous.

Still, I wouldn't mind the ability to short sell a few hundred rolls.  If you have access to a banking concern that really has these rolls, you'd be a fool not to put them up on eBay quickly, before the prices settle downwardly.  Exercise I take any readers in Kentucky?  If so, can you choice me up a box?

It's still fascinating to me how many insights I gain from the traffic to my own personal blog.

Today, I checked my stats briefly and noticed something really strange: my mail service well-nigh eBay Express, A Eulogy for eBay Express, had jumped with a vengence to the number 1 post on the weblog.  My overall traffic spiked a fleck too.  A picayune strange for a post that is over 6 months quondam.

Perusing my acme referring sites, I saw one obvious culprit: eBay Strategies.  Scot Wingo has a new mail up entitled Episode Iv – How to ready eBay (y'all are here) – A NEW Hope – Introducing eBay 2.0. Information technology's a long post, only in that location are a couple of paragraphs in it that signal directly to my terminal eBay Express post:

Yous may recall an experiment eBay had chosen eBay Express where they tried to extend the brand with a dissimilar fixed-price site, simply failed.  Ex-eBayer, Adam Nash had a great eulogy and behind-the-scenes view of what happened that I recommend everyone read to see his perspective.

I always likened eBay Limited to diet donuts.  It just isn't an extension and you are admitting that, well, if yous take an eBay express, that makes eBay – what- eBay boring and poky?  At that place were other issues too that Adam details, similar they didn't ship it whatever traffic and small things like that.  Likewise the way the inventory worked was all jacked-up, it was a sub-set of fixed-price items on eBay (what?!).  I've read all of Adams thoughts on eBay Express and chatted with him before on what eBay's doing incorrect/correct and many of his ideas have found their way into eBay 2.0. (BTW, eBay needs to get this guy back.)

OK, it'south hard non to find that concluding line flattering.

Scot'southward post is adequately long and detailed, and while I don't agree with everything in the commodity, I did find all the talk of "New Coke" amusing in one sense.  You come across, Malcom Gladwell'southward volume Blink had merely been released when nosotros kicked off the eBay Express concept efforts.  As a result, one of the specific guiding statements for the project was: "Don't build New Coke."  As I mentioned in my original mail, 1 of our key goals for eBay Express was to NOT change the original eBay, but instead focus our efforts on a new site in order to protect what buyers & sellers loved nigh eBay.com.  Our illustration was, in fact, Diet Coke, which is not totally surprising given that I have an unabridged category for Diet Coke-related posts on this blog…

Still, the branding point around the name "eBay Limited" is fair, and as I mentioned previously, branding was one of the obvious mistakes made in retrospect.

In whatsoever case, a lilliputian more snooping and I discovered that while eBay Strategies was the source of some of the new traffic, even more than traffic was being sourced from the Seeking Alpha distribution of the commodity.  I've been an active reader of Seeking Blastoff as an investment site for years, and I've noticed their recent push button for sourcing content from any major blogger.  However, this is some real prove that bloggers who leverage Seeking Blastoff are likely seeing significant boosts in distribution.

I wonder if I take any posts that are Seeking Alpha worthy… I'll accept to remember virtually experimenting with them at some point.  I've actually been cited in Seeking Alpha posts earlier, but typically with pointers to my articles on investing in Timber as an asset class…

Interesting milestone this calendar week.  My very get-go patent granted.

USPTO: Patent # vii,490,056

  • Filed: November, 2004
  • Granted: February 10, 2009

Ironically, I wouldn't accept known virtually it except for a promotion itemize I got in the postal service today with a list of plaques I could buy to commemorate this patent from some gift company in Florida.  Yes, I know.  Weird.

This was the first of several patent applications I submitted while at eBay.  This item application surrounded the logic and algorithm effectually assessing popularity for e-commerce listings based on "following" beliefs, aka "Spotter" in eBay terms.

Yes, this was the "Most Watched" patent, from the debut of eBay Pulse.  (Sadly, it looks similar the patent office has really moved faster approval this patent than eBay has updating eBay Pulse since that 2004 launch.)

There is a lot I could annotate on here about the USPTO, the dubious nature of software patents, the length of fourth dimension, etc.  Normally, I'd get on at length about some of these bug.

Instead, however, I'll just note that it'southward a somewhat sentimental moment for me, considering I ever think hearing about how my late grandfather had filed an important patent on his path to business success.

My blood brother dropped his iPhone in the Pacific Body of water.  An original, $399 iPhone.

Needless to say, saltwater does not practise practiced things to an iPhone.  It doesn't boot anymore.   No recourse with Apple or AT&T.  He had to get a new phone.

As a outcome, I concluded up with my own variant of Pierre Omidyar'south famous broken laser arrow… I listed the broken iPhone on eBay.

Well, it sold today, for $122.fifty.  Even so, it sold to an international buyer… in Réunion.

Réunion, as it turns out, is a lilliputian island in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Madagascar.  It is a French island, and happens to be the first identify in world (due to time zone) to adopt the Euro.

So, would you ship a cleaved iPhone to Reunion?

They paid with PayPal.  All the info lines up, roughly.  eBay has a hotmail address for the user, but the payment came from a wanadoo.fr email address.  Notwithstanding, the name and address on both is the same, although eBay lists The states for the registered country (with the Reunion accost).

That could exist a sign of fraud.  Or information technology could be the sign of a user who moved.  eBay data is pretty messy at times.

He has made recent purchases with positive feedback.  A inexpensive piece of wireless equipment, and an expensive ($259) slice of tree climbing equipment.  So, not but trivial items.

So, do I transport it?  Not sure.  The worst that would happen is that the credit card would end upward being stolen, so PayPal would seize the funds.  And I'd exist out a broken iPhone.

But, on the plus side, selling to Reunion is a new destination for me.  I've sold to over 30 countries on eBay at this point, and information technology's getting harder to attract buyers from new ones.

I call up I'm going to transport it.

People are basically proficient… right?

A couple weeks agone, at that place was a slap-up reunion party for many eBay Production Managers & User Experience Designers from the past decade.  I didn't get an exact count, but at to the lowest degree 70 people were in that location, including many of the early Production Managers from before I joined the company in 2003.

I was happily reminded of an outcome that I absolutely would take shared on this blog at the time – if I had been writing this blog at the fourth dimension.  It seemed worthy of a posting now, three years later, especially since it comes with some dot-com bragging rights.

The result?  The time I sold a Leonard Speiser mask to Golden Palace Casino on eBay for $400.

speiser01_pic_1011

Strangely disturbing, isn't it?

Details

The auction was put up in May, 2005, shortly later the official "going away" party for Leonard, which we held at the Tied Business firm in Mountain View.  It was a big effect, and we took upwardly the back room.  There was food, drink, and the requisite roasting of Leonard "see attachment" Speiser.  (We're not rolling back, we're rolling forward!) It also included infamous video from a particular usability examination, on permanent re-run.

It was a fun time, and as party favors everyone was given these paw-made copies of Leonard'southward face, taken from his Halloween rendition of Harry Potter.  They were just color copies, stapled onto rulers.

On a lark, I listed one that night on eBay, hoping to raise money for his going away present.  I had recently launched the first version of eBay Pulse, a popularity page ranking queries, stores, and almost watched items on eBay.  (At that place is really a patent pending on the latter).  Through a grass roots e-mail campaign, I got a sufficient number of eBay employees to watch the item, propelling it onto the "Top 10" list for most watched items on eBay.

At that point, Aureate Palace Casino establish it.  At the time, they were buying up crazy items on eBay as a course of PR, starting with the famous Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich.  Yes, I know the memories are coming back to you now.

After some furious behest, they won the item for $400, providing plenty cash to buy Leonard an engraved video iPod (the hot item at the fourth dimension).   He claims he still has it.  🙂

In any case, we delivered the item, signed, to Golden Palace, and they posted it on their website.   Information technology'south hard to discover at present, but a niggling Google sleuthing uncovered it.  Here's what they had to say:

A handheld sign, fabricated from a ruler and a cut-out of Leonardï'south caput, was sold on eBay for $400.00. GoldenPalace.com bought the detail, which was made for Leonard Speiser, an eBay Product Manager who was leaving his job. In order to enhance money for the send-off party and roast, the sign was auctioned off on eBay. The sign has staples in it to roughly make a slot for the ruler, which yous apply to hold information technology up.

Itï's funny to see actual eBay employees putting items up on eBay, but nosotros are bodacious that: "this listing in no mode, shape, or course represents any type of official eBay business organisation. This listing is purely a loving gesture for i of the truly great members of the eBay community."  Leonard will apparently be greatly missed by many, and they are trying to heighten money for a going abroad present, to be given to him at the political party. All the online casino got for their coin is the sign and ruler; naught more, zip less.

Leonard Speiser went on to institute Bix.com, which was acquired past Yahoo in 2006.  Leonard is all the same there, every bit you can see from his electric current LinkedIn profile.

Just in case he tries to feign ignorance of this whole event, I accept proof he was a party to it:

speiser01_pic_100

This is such a fun retentivity, really symbolic of some of the best times at eBay… I'm really happy that I'm getting a chance to capture information technology hither.

Every bit I wrote final week, I'm saying goodbye to my Offset Spouse coins.  I'grand moving through the series step by step.

The first coin sold for virtually ten% over the original buy cost concluding yr.  Since that's roughly the cost of eBay & PayPal fees, let's just say that owning the coin did no impairment financially.

This week, I have both Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson'south Liberty upwards for sale.

Bidding is on eBay all through the week.

Enjoy.

Simply posted the get-go of my First Spouse gilded coins on eBay

2007 First Spouse Proof Martha Washington Golden Coin

For those of you reading my web log for a long time, yous know a couple things about my history with this series:

  • I managed to get one of the commencement coins, even though they sold out within hours
  • I wrote the top ranked eBay Guide on this series
  • I was on the fence about collecting this series all the style through

I've decided that this series of coins isn't for me… it'southward too much cash tied up in coins, and bluntly nigh of the first spouses just aren't that interesting to me.  I may buy one or ii in the future (Jacqueline Kennedy?), but I've decided to opt out of the full serial.

As a result, I'll be selling the beginning five off at a charge per unit of one a week.

I recollect I'thou going to steer clear of the more trendy, obvious collector-bait serial going forward.  Yes, Native American $1 Dollar Coins, I am talking to you.  Of course, I am a sucker for truly cute new efforts.

Just think, all bids on eBay are binding.  And you must bid from a PayPal business relationship with a confirmed address.

Paypal quietly launched it'due south PayPal Micropayments service level this week, and it's definitely a step in the right management.  It'due south a service that has been in testing and research for quite some time, but it'southward nice to run into information technology finally launched publicly.

Here is the new PayPal Micropayments site, which explains the terms.

For those of you unfamiliar with PayPal economics, PayPal charges a fixed fee and a variable charge per unit on every transaction for premium customers.  A premium customer, by the way, is basically anyone who wants to receive more than than $500 a month and/or take credit cards.

The payment scheme is similar to the credit card companies, although of grade PayPal charges the aforementioned fee for bank & debit payments besides.  They even charge the fee on PayPal balance purchases.  There is a reason why PayPal is a astounding business in its current form.

The problem is that for low toll items, the PayPal stock-still fee can be expensive.  The fees for a bones premium account are:

$0.30 + 2.nine% of the transaction.

And so, if you lot are selling a $100 detail, your fees would come up to:

$0.30 + $2.90 = $iii.20, or 3.ii% of the transaction.

Not a huge fee, only certainly a meaning line particular for normally thin retail margins.

Now look at the toll for a $5 item:

$0.30 + $0.145 = $0.45 (rounded), or ix% of the transaction.

Wow.  9% for payment processing.  Hard to build a bully business at that place.

The micropayments service offering fixes this, by lowering the fixed fee, and raising the variable fee.  The new fee structure is:

$0.05 + 5% of the transaction.

Then, that same $5 payment at present costs:

$0.05 + $0.25 = $0.xxx, or 6% of the transaction.

half dozen% is still high, merely much, much amend than the former fees.

Of form, given the scalability & cost issues with PayPal infrastructure, the launch is typically express in terms of implementation:

  • You tin can't really discover this on the site, you have to go to the magic micro-site to sign upwardly.
  • Y'all have to sign upwards for this fee construction separately.  You tin can accept the micropayment structure, or the normal structure, not both on a single account.
  • Y'all have to wait 2 days for the fee structure to accept effect.

This means that every bit an eastward-commerce seller, you have to keep two accounts open – one for your items over $12, and one for the rest of what you sell.  It also means you have to juggle the fact that PayPal doesn't similar to see 2 accounts linked to the same depository financial institution account, credit card, or email address.

Nonetheless, information technology was fairly petty for me to fix upwardly a new email address on my personal domain, and get the new account.  I'll beginning using information technology immediately on Media items, like used DVDs, that tend to go below $x prices.

If I was in the eBay selling tool concern, I would definitely build in a feature to automatically assign the correct PayPal account to listings based on the fixed price or expected terminal value of an sale.  Information technology probably wouldn't take more than than a day or two to implement.  An eBay seller with $100,000 GMV per year, with 50% of items below $10 could likely salvage thousands of dollars with this technique – that'south margin that is worth taking.

I'chiliad not sure this fee structure will get PayPal into the truthful micropayments arena.  If they want to be collecting payments under $one, they will really demand a fee structure that operates on the amass – group together charges like they exercise for iTunes to minimize charges.  Notwithstanding, I'm glad to see them brand at least this modest pace forward.  Information technology must not have been like shooting fish in a barrel to face up the potential cannibalization for existing sellers who are using PayPal today on eBay for under $10 items and who volition move to this payment construction.

What would be cracking is a true wrap account from PayPal that would mix together a true micro-payment pricing (sub-$1), low price item ring (sub-$ten), and regular merchant fees, with PayPal handling all the aggregation and direction to evangelize payments for a broad product line at a fixed rate based on monthly book.

Still, I'grand sure there are a few people at PayPal who slaved over this recently, and I practise want to say to them give thanks you for shipping it.  I'm hoping this will assist make selling lower price items viable again for me.

This is literally yesterday's news, just was worth a mention here.  From the eBay Ink blog:

Marc Andreessen has joined eBay's board of directors, constructive immediately.

Andreessen is nearly noted for co-founding Opsware and Netscape, and served equally AOL's CTO immediately following its acquisition of Netscape. His current venture is Ning, a new consumer Internet company founded in 2004 that is focused on building a next-gen platform for social networking. Rather than having its users bring together one all-encompassing social network, Ning encourages and allows users to create their ain social networks for anything they're passionate near. In iv years, more than 480,000 social networks accept been created by users on Ning.

I had a hazard to encounter Marc briefly every bit part of the OpenSocial launch @ Google last year.  At that place is no question in my mind that eBay volition benefit from having his perspective on the board given their current challenges.

Some interesting facts & links:

  • Marc has one of the best blogs out there, bar none.  If you don't read it, you should.
  • Marc has a adequately strong LinkedIn profile.
  • Mac is the Co-Founder & Chairman of Ning, which is the wide-open, customs platform for edifice social networks.

In detail, I'm going to flag a post I wrote over a yr ago about how eBay missed its opportunity to purchase Ning cheaply, and why that acquisition would have made sense.  I caught some flack for that last summertime… feeling at least partially vindicated here.

Seema may be a pretty miserable blogger, but she's a bully production manager.  And her site just went live final week.

Congratulations to the team, and welcome worldofgood.com.

Earth of Good is an try to produce the first, global-scale marketplace for socially beneficial goods.   Yep, when you shop the site you will see badges for:

  • Eco-Friendly
  • People Positive
  • Animal Friendly
  • Supports a Cause

It's a overnice initiative because it combines some of the raw, positive economic science from aggregating demand for these poorly distributed goods, allowing many of the vendors to achieve buyers they otherwise would be unable to discover.  It'southward a classic eBay play to try and brand an inefficient market place more efficient.

I'one thousand not sure of the overall business concern opportunity here for eBay, but information technology'south great to see this two-year effort pay off for Seema and the squad.  Congratulations.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a Eulogy to eBay Express here on this web log, and it quickly became one of my near popular posts e'er.  (Of course, nothing quite competes with the Battlestar Galactica posts, but I digress…)

Last week, eBay quietly announced the death of Bid Banana, a product concept that I remember fondly from my days at eBay, and I thought it would exist worth a few minutes to reflect dorsum on lessons from the life span of that effort.  The truth is, while eBay gets a lot of press coverage from both the traditional media and from bloggers, I see very little, if any, bodily detailed word of the features themselves, whether good, bad or ugly.  Usually, you only see factual reports, like this.

Bid-O-Matic, the original concept backside Bid Assistant, is an idea that goes back to at least 2005, if not earlier.  The problem it was attempting to solve is pretty much as former as auction behest on eBay:

  • Equally a buyer, you ofttimes observe several auctions for the detail you are looking to buy, at various stages of completion.
  • If you bid on only one auction, the cost of that auction might get too high, and you lot might have missed out on one of the other auctions.
  • If you bid on more than than one auction, so you run the risk of winning more than than one particular.

eBay, of form, frowns on retracting bids, permit alone backing out of a completed winning bid, then it'southward a difficult situation to handle.  If you talked to any of the regular auction buyers on eBay, they would give you a personal story relating to this problem.  Try behest on a digital camera some time, and you'll experience the issue pretty quickly.

Enter Bid-O-Matic.

Bid-O-Matic was supposed to be the starting time step in building a truthful eBay assistant for behest.  Y'all, equally a heir-apparent, would pick out a listing of equivalent items to bid on.  Bid-O-Matic would then place bids for you, attempting to win exactly i of the items at the everyman possible price.

That was the idea, anyway.  Like many groovy production ideas, information technology had its roots in a existent customer problem;  a customer problem expressed in earnest past some of eBay's best customers, it'due south regular sale buyers.  And it was a classic case where technology could dramatically improve the customer experience.

And like many a road to hell, it was paved with skillful intentions.

Bid-O-Matic originally failed to get traction within the company, largely because the cost of edifice the feature did not seem to justify the incremental improvement to the eBay business concern.  The trouble mathematically is that frequent auction buyers actually already buy a lot, and so information technology was hard to encounter how this tool would really help them buy that much more.  In improver, the problem is unique enough to advanced users that it was hard to imagine that many auction buyers who weren't regular buyers adopting the tool.

Bid-O-Matic stayed just a concept, until renewed focus on improving the auction experience really took hold in 2006 as function of the "eBay 3.0" concept.  Bid-O-Matic seemed like the perfect instance of a feature that eBay's all-time auction buyers would love, and and so despite the numbers, the feature was given the green light.

Without going into likewise much gory detail, after much hurting, schedule changes, toll increases, design compromises, and a typically horrific naming process, Bid Assistant was born.

While I was a huge fan of the initial concept, and of the people who worked on it, equally a user I was never really able to engage with Bid Assistant.  It required a adequately cabalistic noesis of "Watching", the eBay process for bookmarking auctions.  The integration points were as well fairly tortured – in that location was very picayune in the actual Finding and Buying experiences to pb yous to discover the Bid Banana.  Worse, I recall fixed price listings severely limited the potential do good of the characteristic.  Bid-O-Matic was never useful for multiple, unique, one-of-a-kind collectibles.  And if you are buying a article item, like a specific model of digital camera, so just buying it on eBay Express (or Shopping.com or Amazon.com) made much more sense.

Like all Product professionals, features similar Bid-O-Matic leave me torn.  On the 1 paw, I want to say that there was a real user problem here, and that with the right research, pattern inspiration, and iteration, eBay could have come upward with a great product here.  On the other mitt, that fourth dimension and effort is expensive, and in that location are likely much more of import issues eBay could be putting that endeavor towards.

In any case, I just want to say goodbye to the Bid Banana, and a brief acknowledgement to the squad that built information technology.  Improve to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all.