Filed under: Yahoo

A multi-year agreement has been made between Yahoo and eBay to bundle many of the two company's services together.  Here's the Seattle PI in case you haven't seen the story yet.  Watch the discussion unfold over the day at Techmeme. 

Update: Mick Weinstein of Seeking Alpha precedes his summary of blogosphere reactions with this noe.  "Note that JP Morgan Securities had a report (.pdf) out just two days ago predicting such a eBay-Yahoo alliance as the most likely deal of its kind among the big internet players."

Thoughts:  I think this is liable to be seen as a less obtrusive partnership than some other search engine/other vendor deals.  As far as I know, nobody's computer or even browser comes with Yahoo or eBay baked-in top-level (Firefox Yahoo inclusion is substantially more low key than that of Google)  so I think this is going to be received as an extension of voluntary use. 

Second, I'm not sure how limited the possibilities are here.  Will people start using Flickr to upload their photos for eBay?  Will future auctions be promoted on Upcoming.org?  Maybe I'm being silly here, but the point is that Yahoo's recent torrent of feature-add-by-acquisition offers a lot of creative potential for a partnership with a huge player like eBay/PayPal/Skype.

Some people have said this is just a trial balloon, that these two companies are really competitors, etc.  But in the face of Google's success and Microsoft's largess I can't imagine that Yahoo and eBay wouldn't be able to work out some really powerful collaboration.  The fact that Yahoo gets more page views than any other site online, has acquired so much hippness and yet is the dark horse in this space is amazing.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: Yahoo

A multi-year agreement has been made between Yahoo and eBay to bundle many of the two company's services together.  Here's the Seattle PI in case you haven't seen the story yet.  Watch the discussion unfold over the day at Techmeme. 

Update: Mick Weinstein of Seeking Alpha precedes his summary of blogosphere reactions with this noe.  "Note that JP Morgan Securities had a report (.pdf) out just two days ago predicting such a eBay-Yahoo alliance as the most likely deal of its kind among the big internet players."

Thoughts:  I think this is liable to be seen as a less obtrusive partnership than some other search engine/other vendor deals.  As far as I know, nobody's computer or even browser comes with Yahoo or eBay baked-in top-level (Firefox Yahoo inclusion is substantially more low key than that of Google)  so I think this is going to be received as an extension of voluntary use. 

Second, I'm not sure how limited the possibilities are here.  Will people start using Flickr to upload their photos for eBay?  Will future auctions be promoted on Upcoming.org?  Maybe I'm being silly here, but the point is that Yahoo's recent torrent of feature-add-by-acquisition offers a lot of creative potential for a partnership with a huge player like eBay/PayPal/Skype.

Some people have said this is just a trial balloon, that these two companies are really competitors, etc.  But in the face of Google's success and Microsoft's largess I can't imagine that Yahoo and eBay wouldn't be able to work out some really powerful collaboration.  The fact that Yahoo gets more page views than any other site online, has acquired so much hippness and yet is the dark horse in this space is amazing.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: Yahoo

A multi-year agreement has been made between Yahoo and eBay to bundle many of the two company's services together.  Here's the Seattle PI in case you haven't seen the story yet.  Watch the discussion unfold over the day at Techmeme. 

Update: Mick Weinstein of Seeking Alpha precedes his summary of blogosphere reactions with this noe.  "Note that JP Morgan Securities had a report (.pdf) out just two days ago predicting such a eBay-Yahoo alliance as the most likely deal of its kind among the big internet players."

Thoughts:  I think this is liable to be seen as a less obtrusive partnership than some other search engine/other vendor deals.  As far as I know, nobody's computer or even browser comes with Yahoo or eBay baked-in top-level (Firefox Yahoo inclusion is substantially more low key than that of Google)  so I think this is going to be received as an extension of voluntary use. 

Second, I'm not sure how limited the possibilities are here.  Will people start using Flickr to upload their photos for eBay?  Will future auctions be promoted on Upcoming.org?  Maybe I'm being silly here, but the point is that Yahoo's recent torrent of feature-add-by-acquisition offers a lot of creative potential for a partnership with a huge player like eBay/PayPal/Skype.

Some people have said this is just a trial balloon, that these two companies are really competitors, etc.  But in the face of Google's success and Microsoft's largess I can't imagine that Yahoo and eBay wouldn't be able to work out some really powerful collaboration.  The fact that Yahoo gets more page views than any other site online, has acquired so much hippness and yet is the dark horse in this space is amazing.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: wireless media

FON, the experiment in shared wireless internet access that allows members to use each others' connections and nonmembers to pay for access, has announced a key software adaptation that responds to users' concerns about security.  The company just announced on its blog that its next release will include two different environments using the same router, one public and one private.  By using two separate SSIDs, or service set identifiers, FON appears to be making a technical response to widespread member concerns about sharing internet access with strangers.  I can imagine this will make the system much easier to promote to prospective new members.  Apparently non-anonymity of FON community members and assurances that hosts wouldn't be held liable for activities through their connection weren't assurance enough.  I'm not surprised.

Though funded by some heavy hitters like Google and eBay/Skype, FON seems to be acting like a good Web 2.0 company should - agile, responsive and with frequent updates to its service.  The hardware end of the social web acting just like the software sector Web 2.0 evangelists say should be the modus operandi.  Yet this development demonstrates that it's not all a happy picnic of sharing and love.  Some technical means of user control are still needed at the same time all this sharing is going on.  That's what this looks like to me.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: wireless media

FON, the experiment in shared wireless internet access that allows members to use each others' connections and nonmembers to pay for access, has announced a key software adaptation that responds to users' concerns about security.  The company just announced on its blog that its next release will include two different environments using the same router, one public and one private.  By using two separate SSIDs, or service set identifiers, FON appears to be making a technical response to widespread member concerns about sharing internet access with strangers.  I can imagine this will make the system much easier to promote to prospective new members.  Apparently non-anonymity of FON community members and assurances that hosts wouldn't be held liable for activities through their connection weren't assurance enough.  I'm not surprised.

Though funded by some heavy hitters like Google and eBay/Skype, FON seems to be acting like a good Web 2.0 company should - agile, responsive and with frequent updates to its service.  The hardware end of the social web acting just like the software sector Web 2.0 evangelists say should be the modus operandi.  Yet this development demonstrates that it's not all a happy picnic of sharing and love.  Some technical means of user control are still needed at the same time all this sharing is going on.  That's what this looks like to me.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

Filed under: wireless media

FON, the experiment in shared wireless internet access that allows members to use each others' connections and nonmembers to pay for access, has announced a key software adaptation that responds to users' concerns about security.  The company just announced on its blog that its next release will include two different environments using the same router, one public and one private.  By using two separate SSIDs, or service set identifiers, FON appears to be making a technical response to widespread member concerns about sharing internet access with strangers.  I can imagine this will make the system much easier to promote to prospective new members.  Apparently non-anonymity of FON community members and assurances that hosts wouldn't be held liable for activities through their connection weren't assurance enough.  I'm not surprised.

Though funded by some heavy hitters like Google and eBay/Skype, FON seems to be acting like a good Web 2.0 company should - agile, responsive and with frequent updates to its service.  The hardware end of the social web acting just like the software sector Web 2.0 evangelists say should be the modus operandi.  Yet this development demonstrates that it's not all a happy picnic of sharing and love.  Some technical means of user control are still needed at the same time all this sharing is going on.  That's what this looks like to me.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

---

Sponsored by: Userplane Apps: Live communication applications powering the world's leading online communities.

School administrators are increasingly asked what kind of cyberspeech causes campus disruption.

Bethel police have arrested a 25-year-old Newtown man, accused of having sexually oriented conversations with two girls on the Internet.

With its easy sharing of jokes, gossip, photos and videos within a virtual community of young people, the Web site MySpace.com has rocketed to second place in worldwide popularity, with an estimated 78 million ...

A couple of weeks ago, this BusinessWeek piece provided a good background on the recent hyperactivity around social networks especially when it comes to VC investments.

Benchmark Capital, owner of Irish pay-TV group Setanta, is to invest 8m in network website Bebo in an attempt to overtake MySpace as the internet's number one social networking portal.

TARA M. MANTHEY; The News Tribune Published: May 22nd, 2006 01:00 AM Teens communicate with each other quickly.

During the nineties boom days, one of my friends told me: Soon your refrigerator will be connected to the Internet.

"Sex and the City" meets MySpace. That's how local entrepreneur Allie Savarino describes her latest venture, Sisterwoman.com, a social- networking Web site at which women of all ages are invited to share ...

MySpace.com, which began as an online community for user-generated content like music and videos and quickly developed into a launching pad for new bands , has struck a deal for exclusive access to the next ...