Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services

A few weeks ago eBay announced plans to change its fee structure. The company was spinning the move as something that would help sellers save money. But that only worked out to be true in some instances. Since eBay planned to lower listing fees but raise final sale fees, most sellers were a bit concerned that they’d wind up giving eBay a higher percentage of their hard earned cash.

Responding to concerns from sellers, eBay has announced yet another fee structure change. This time, the listing fees for media including books, music, movies, and video games will go way down. The price for listing an item with a starting price less than a buck drops from $0.20 to $0.10. Sellers with starting bids of less than $10 will now be charged $0.25 instead of $0.40. And if you’ve got an item with a starting bid of under $25, you pay $0.35 instead of $0.60.

Since eBay is still raising the fees on final sales, in most cases sellers will still wind up paying owing eBay a tiny more. But today’s announcement softens the blow. A little.

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Ever wish you could find one web site that works as a social networking site, an IM service, a way to discover new music, sell your artwork, or store files online using a web-based desktop? Yeah, neither did we, but those are just a few of the services offered by Hurox, a site that’s so jam-packed with features that it nearly defies description.

Don’t get us wrong, Hurox is hardly the only company trying to control all of your on the internet activities. Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others would like you to use their email, IM, calendar, photo, and video sharing services. The difference is that most companies don’t try to cram everything into a single URL. And there’s a good reason for that. Hurox is kind of pretty, but it also seems horribly complicated.

When you first sign up for a free account, Hurox asks you a series of questions to determine whether you’re more interested in things like celebrity gossip or tech news; folk music or heavy metal; reading or watching movies; and so on. Then you get a little tour that attempts to explain what you can do with the site, but it’s hard to keep everything straight when you can do everything from creating and sharing personal web pages to creating an on the internet marketplace for selling goods.

We’re all for all-in-one solutions. We love programs like 8hands or Flock that let you manage multiple social networking services at once. And Digsby does an awesome job of acting as n email notifier, chat client, and social networking monitor. But Hurox is something else altogether. It doesn’t let you manage activities you were already doing online. It asks you to join yet another social network. Sure, it’s a social network that’s full of features, but it has so many features that we can’t help but think of Hurox as a kitchen sink site. It seems like the company just added every feature they could think of without taking the time to make sure that they all make sense together.

[via Mashable]

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Filed under: World wide web, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

StumbleUpon is a web discovery service that makes it simple to find cool and interesting web sites. All you’ve to do is install a browser toolbar and start hitting the “stumble” button whenever you’re bored. The service also begins to get a sense of your tastes as you give various pages a thumbs up or down.

But there’s at least one problem with StumbleUpon: There’re no toolbar for Opera, Safari, or any web browsers besides Internet Explorer and Firefox. So what’s a bored Opera users to do? Well, fortunately StumbleUpon has a nifty demo feature that lets you stumble pages using a virtual toolbar. All you have to do is enter http://www.stumbleupon.com/demo/#url= into your browser’s URL window, and then add the site that you want to begin at. For example, http://www.stumbleupon.com/demo/#url=http://www.downloadsquad.com/.

You should now see a virtual toolbar with all the features of the regular StumbleUpon toolbar. But since this is just a demo, you can’t actually vote on sites or submit new sites. And there’s no way to enter your account information. But you can hit the stumble button as many times as you like.

[via Digital Inspiration]

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Filed under: Forecasts, Deals, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO)

Yahoo!’s (NASDAQ: YHOO) board of directors officially rejected Microsoft”s (NASDAQ: MSFT) already generous bid of $44.6 billion for the company. Not a surprise, and Microsoft will actually pay up for the deal to occur. Microsoft has to and they are now over a barrel. Let’s explore why.

Microsoft spent over $6 billion last year to acquire the best company in the on-line digital advertising/marketing space, aQuantive. To monetize this acquisition and effectively, or least try to compete with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft needs a much larger platform in the search engine sector. No question, even with all of its might and brand name recognition, the ideal Microsoft could muster is a 3.9% market share for its MSN versus Google’s big 76%. Yahoo! has 15% share and combined with MSN, the share rises to just under 20%. Still a small player versus Google but a viable one.

Microsoft allegedly bid for Yahoo! last year for $40. Even though never confirmed by the various parties, but the leak-the-news network pretty much had it in tow. Otherwise, why would Yahoo! reject $31 per share offer, a good 60% higher than its current stock market price of $19.18? Because Yahoo! knows full well that Microsoft needs Yahoo! very, very badly.

On its own merits, Yahoo! is a broken story. Momentum is gone and senior management is sufficient at best. Investors know it, too. At each turn, Google is knocking the heck out of Yahoo! and Microsoft as well. Microsoft knows it cannot build it, it must be acquired. No other viable option. Period.

Yahoo!, however, for a broken story is sitting in the cat bird seat–at least for the moment. The smoke screen of combining with AOL or partnering up with Google are neither an acceptable option nor a long term viable strategy. The stakes in the search engine/digital advertising/marketing game are enormous. Let’s put this into perspective. In less than ten years of existence and less than four years as a public company, Google is on track to accomplish $16-17 billion of revenues this year. No other company in American corporate history has reached this kind of hyper-growth. Take a minimum of 30% growth for the next five years and Google’s revenues will be at a staggering $55-60 billion. The profitability is also at a stunning rate of 35% plus.

Microsoft will swallow its pride and some of its own current market cap and pay up for Yahoo!. Microsoft began this movie and now they must finish it. In the meantime, Yahoo! personnel are and will continue to be distracted and as I wrote before, Google can pick up even more market share these next 18 months before Microsoft has a clear strategy with the eventual Yahoo! acquisition.

Georges Yared writes about great growth stocks today in GameOn Investing.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, FedEx Corp (FDX), United Parcel’B’ (UPS), UAL Corp (UAUA), Small business

With airline traffic steadily increasing, more and more of us are faced with the same question; How in the world am I going to fit all these things in our luggage? Maybe it is time to start thinking outside of the box, and instead of packing all our things, maybe we should just start to take into account sending our belongs ahead of time and stop worrying about packing all of our things?

As I read Joe Brancatelli’s (portfolio.com) article discussing airline baggage, I couldn’t help think back to December when my girlfriend had her bags lost for over a week on a trip from Europe back to the states for Christmas. Inside this luggage we’d all her clothes, as well as all of my family’s Christmas presents. Since she was flying into the says on Christmas Eve, and the airline lost her bags for a week, we had no presents to give out on Christmas, and by the time they showed up, on New Years Eve, the Christmas magic was pretty much lost.

As we examined last week, airline delays last year were near an all time high, but as I mentioned in my article, the one thing that bothers me more than being late, is arriving without my luggage. While lost baggage rates stayed pretty steady last year, with 9 out of 1,000 passengers filing lost baggage claims, there are other reasons why we might should think about shipping instead of packing in the future.

For one, you’ve to worry about paying fees for having luggage in excess of airline guidelines. Returning to Europe after Christmas I felt the pain of that rule. I won’t mention the airline name, but let’s just state that they’d a 50 pound per bag rule, which I think is probably pretty uniform these days with major airlines. We’d 4 bags total, with two bags being over the limit. The result? $125 fee! I was definitely kicking myself for loading up on English books while I was home (which I still have yet to open)!

The point? For $125 I probably could have just shipped the extra baggage and had a much greater possibility of the articles actually making to my place on time. Not only will shipping your baggage ahead of time possibly save you money, it also has the added beauty of freeing you from having to lug all those heavy bags around with you as you travel.

On some airlines not only do you face the chance of extra fees for overweight bags, but you also have to deal with fees for taking more than two check-in bags. If you travel airlines that permit more than two check-ins, consider yourself lucky. Soon, passengers that are allowed two check-in bags may be part of the lucky crowd. Last week, United Airlines, UAL Corp (NASDAQ: UAUA) went so far as to lower the number of bags you’re granted to check from two down to one. Now, if you want to check a second bag, be ready to add $25 onto the cost of your flight. I have to say, United is definitely in my “no fly” zone from now on.

OK, so enough about the reasons why we should considering shipping our luggage, what are our options?

There are the usual names, FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) and United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), which offer affordable pricing and a solid reputation for their services. But if you want something a tiny more personal, Mr. Brancatelli also points out that there are many new companies that specialize just in shipping luggage. These include Luggage Forward, Sports Express, Luggage Concierge, and The Luggage Club.

While FedEx and UPS typically come with a smaller price tag, some traveler like to use the luggage specialists because they feel they’ve a more personal connection with someone from the company when they need assistance. Brancatelli cites the case of airline traveler Andy Abramson, who is a fan of Luggage Forward, and says that they make it very simple for him in the event of last minute itinerary changes.

I, personally, have never shipped my luggage. I have lost luggage several times, and definitely fell victim to fees for over packing my luggage, which I’ve usually just taken in stride, and promised myself that I would be more careful the next time i packed up my things. But, for sure, the next time I get ready to take a trip I know I’ll definitely be looking into all my options.

What about you, our readers? Are you a frequent flier? Have you had bad experiences with your luggage in the past, and will you begin to consider shipping in lieu of lugging your bags on your upcoming flights?

~ Here is another good article on traveling by Mr. Brancatelli, “What I Learned on the Road This Year” ~

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the on the web investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Industry, Competitive strategy, eBay (EBAY), General Motors (GM), Options, Technical Analysis

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) stock is falling this morning after the company announced on Friday that it will list the entire inventory of General Motors (NYSE: GM) used-car segment. In addition, both GM and EBAY will develop marketing and other offerings designed to drive leads and sales to GM dealers. In theory, this should help out EBAY, but the stock is lower today as investors don’t think it is good enough news to overcome the slumping economy. If you think this stock won’t be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on EBAY.

After hitting a one-year high of $40.73 in October, the stock hit a one-year low of $25.64 in January. This morning, EBAY opened at $28.04. So far this day the stock has hit a low of $27.60 and a high of $28.11. As of 11:00, EBAY is trading at $27.88, down $0.19 (-0.7%). The chart for EBAY looks bearish but improving, while S&P gives the stock its highest 5 STARS (out of 5) strong purchase rating.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would think about an April bear-call credit spread above the $35 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn’t do what you think but still leverage nice returns. This particular trade will make a 4.2% return in two months as long as EBAY is below $35 at April expiration. eBay would have to rise by more than 25% before we would start to lose money.

EBAY hasn’t been above $35 since November and has shown resistance around $27 recently. This trade could be risky if the economy turns around quickly, but even if that happens, this position could be protected by resistance EBAY might find at its 200 day moving average, which is currently around $34 and falling.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in EBAY or GM.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Rants and raves, Competitive strategy, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM), in an effort to help lagging car sales and reduce dealer inventory has decided to open loans to seven years [subscription required], expanding the repayment terms from the more traditional three or four year term. The longer amortization periods naturally reduce the car buyers’ payments, but there is no mention of a larger problem that’s very likely and the reason this has not been done before — vehicles depreciate rapidly!

George Borst, chief executive of Toyota Financial Services, stated at a financial-services conference in San Francisco that the company started offering seven-year car loans in late summer. These loans, which carry slightly higher rates than 72-month deals, (the previous stretch) have risen to represent 4% of all automobiles Toyota Financial Services lends money on.

In one way, this could be looked upon favorably by Toyota car buyers. The company has a great track record for building quality products. This reinforces that notion of dependability. However, cautious buyers should understand that this might not play out to their advantage. It is possible that some time in the fifth year, the loan will be upside down, meaning it will have an outstanding balance higher than the value of the car. What happens then?

This could be another case of dealers charging more money (interest) to the poorest buyers, who are not aware of the impact these loans might eventually have. Reminds me of the mortgage mess. In hindsight, the government should have examined the mortgage industry and Wall Street’s business practices and risk. Who’s watching now?

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the design and research principal for an architecture & planning firm.

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Anneka notes that, even though both Netflix and Ideal Purchase threw logs on HD DVD’s funeral pyre this day, things are not all going Blu-ray’s way. A Connecticut man is suing Samsung, the maker that brought the first Blu-ray players to market, over its “defective” BD-P1200 player. The lawsuit seeks class-action status. The problem is that the Samsung BD-P1200 is a “Profile 1.0″ player that can’t play some Blu-ray discs and Samsung has no intention (or ability) to upgrade these players via firmware. Quoting Ars: “The meager requirements of the 1.0 profile mean that Blu-ray players which fail to implement the optional features won’t be able to take advantage of picture-in-picture, which requires secondary decoders. 1.0 players are also unable to store local content, lacking the 256MB of storage mandated by the 1.1 profile. Profile 1.1 discs should still play on 1.0 players, however, but the extra features won’t work.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux.com is reporting that in addition to the bad press, Trend Micro’s patent case against Barracuda Networks’ use of ClamAV has drawn an apparent boycott of Trend Micro. “Dutch free knowledge and culture advocacy group ScriptumLibre called for ‘a worldwide boycott on Trend Micro products.’ In its news release, ScriptumLibre summarizes the case, with its chairman, Wiebe van der Worp, describing Trend Micro’s actions as ‘well beyond the borders of decency.’ The ScriptumLibre site includes link to free graphics that supporters can add to their Web pages to show their support and a call for IT professionals that provides a links to help people to educate themselves about the case and recommends a series of actions that people can take in the boycott.” Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by SourceForge Inc.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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bushwhacker2000 writes to tell us that the EU might soon be requiring travelers to provide biometric data before crossing into Europe. They are trying to soften the blow by offering “streamlined” services for frequent travelers but the end result seems the same. “The proposals, contained in draft documents analyzed by the International Herald Tribune and scheduled to go to the European Commission on Wednesday, were designed to bring the EU visa regime into line with a new era in which passports include biometric data. The commission, the EU executive, argues that migratory pressure, organized crime and terrorism are obvious challenges to the Union and that the bloc’s border and visa policy needs to be brought up to date.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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