OK, I’m not sure how I’d feel about this one if I got it on my eBay profile!   Is it a compliment?   Ha! Ha!

Technorati Tags: eBay, humor, Humour

I despair of eBay these days, I really do. No sooner has the new eBay CEO, John Donahoe, got into the hot seat than he makes his first blunder. He announces that from May, no seller on eBay will be able to leave a negative or neutral feedback about a buyer. This has obviously got the entire eBay community into an uproar.

That’s right, deadbeats. You can now buy things on eBay with no intention of paying for them. You can buy something then demand the price be lowered to suit yourself, in fact you can do whatever you want as the buyer - and the seller has absolutely no recourse. Oh sorry, I forgot - the seller can file a complaint with eBay - for all the good that will do. eBay couldn’t care less if a seller has a problem with a customer, as long as the money keeps flowing in. Meanwhile, the buyer can leave negative comments about the seller if they wish (question : can the seller respond to the negative? At the moment, you can leave a reply to a negative).

My initial response is : is Donahoe smoking something? And if so, can I have some?

How can he possibly think that such a move will restore user confidence in the eBay marketplace? Why would sellers want to go through so much grief and hassle with deadbeat buyers if they don’t have the ability to make negative complaints about them? I can just visualise now the deadbeat buyers rubbing their hands in glee - and the number of sellers who finally give up on eBay as a lost cause. I may be one of them. eBay obviously doesn’t care about us and support us, so why should we care about and support them?
I was a columnist on Auctionbytes for two years covering eBay stories and I did it because I loved eBay (both buying and selling). But I am glad I don’t write those kinds of stories anymore because I would be honestly hard-pressed to find good things to say about eBay anymore. My stories would just end up sounding like bitter ranting and if I said anything nice, I would feel like a hypocrite.

In the past few years, eBay has made some really crazy decisions that have turned it into a shadow of its former glorious self. Raising fees to absurd new levels is just the start of it. Looking at the whole thing in hindsight, it is obvious that eBay has become a victim of its own greed and arrogance.

I can’t begin to describe how I wish a serious competitor to eBay would emerge to give them a good kick up the ass. Personally I am now looking at Amazon Marketplace to sell my books.

Technorati Tags: Amazon, donahoe, eBay, feedback, fees, negative

I have been buying and selling on eBay since 2001 (here is my current user ID). Back in 2003, my username was featured in the German Bild newspaper as one of a huge list of auction consignment sellers in Germany, and ever since then I seem to have got myself onto some kind of eBay mailing list. Hardly a month goes by without getting some kind of junk mail (sorry, I meant “informative customer announcements”) from eBay, and sometimes, like today, I get little gifts like the fridge magnets above. A few months back, I got a mousepad and I also occasionally get free eBay magazines.

The leaflet that came with the stars promises that I will get a different coloured star sent everytime my feedback reaches a certain level. Since my girlfriend likes fridge magnets, I suppose these aren’t so bad, and I am always a sucker for free gifts!

Technorati Tags: eBay, feedback, stars

Rumours about Skype is practically an industry in its own right. Never does a week go by without another rumour floating around about who could be buying them next, why it’s taking eBay so long to integrate Skype into eBay listings and where the company is going (and not going). The latest rumour to start floating around cyberspace is that Google could be interested in buying them.

I actually hope that this is a rumour that will eventually come true. I have been consistently shocked at how eBay bought Skype then threw them in the corner forgotten and unloved like one of their trashy auctions, where they made an impulse buy then regretted it the next day. I mean, look at how they have neglected Stumbleupon. They buy it then ignore it, except for putting a Stumble link on the eBay tools page. Gee thanks Meg Whitman.

Google on the other hand could integrate Skype into Google in so many different ways. Imagine a pumped up Google Talk, an integrated Google / Skype phone, a Skype application with a powerful Google search facility to find phone numbers in any country in the world (the phonebook on steroids!)

Download Squad speculates that we may even get developer API’s and even the Skype source code, in order for Skype third-party applications to be developed. So it would move from eBay’s Web 1.0 atmosphere to Google’s Web 2.0 atmosphere - and improvements may come as a result.

Wouldn’t it be nice for Skype to finally be properly appreciated by someone? I think it’s time for eBay to start their own auction - to sell Skype to someone who’ll actually do something meaningful with it.

Technorati Tags: eBay, Google, Skype, Stumbleupon, VOIP

Auctionbytes is reporting that eBay will finally allow sellers to advertise their Skype ID’s inside their auctions, so that potential customers can call up and harass them.

Although when I checked my eBay Germany account just now, the Skype option was all greyed out. It seems that internet advances take a long time to come across the Atlantic Ocean!

Saying that though, I’m not sure if I would want to openly encourage potential eBay customers to Skype me. I seem to be meeting a lot of idiots on eBay these days, the kind that threaten a negative feedback because I dared to charge them for an envelope. Do I really want them phoning me up too? I’ll have to seriously consider that one. With emails, I can be diplomatic in my language. Over the phone, I may not be so restrained.

The big question though is why eBay has taken so long to allow sellers to advertise their Skype ID’s, given that eBay owns Skype. They paid an absurd amount of money to own the internet phone company and then basically forgot about them. From a business point of view, it made no sense. Did they suddenly look through the business accounts one day and say “wait a moment! This Skype company…..we own it right?”

Technorati Tags: auction, eBay, phone, Skype, telephone

I was discussing the internet today with a friend in the UK. That friend will remain nameless but let’s just say that she thinks the total sum of the internet is “e-mail, chatrooms and instant messaging”. According to her, everything else is “irrelevant”.

Irrelevant? Excuse me! I beg to differ and I have personal experience to back me up here. When I moved permanently to Germany 6 years ago, I came here to be with my girlfriend. I left a fairly good job with the Scottish civil service and came here with very basic German language skills and very little money. Amazing the things someone will do for love!

Anyway, over the past 6 years, I estimate I have made around $20,000 working through the internet. Now I am not talking about get-rich-quick schemes or affiliate marketing. I am talking about real work by real business contacts that I have built up all over the world due to the limitless reach of the net. I firmly believe that without the internet, I would have been forced to go back to the UK years ago to look for work as it would have been extremely difficult to look for work here while I was still learning how to speak German. But thanks to the net, I have been able to build a good life here in Germany and enjoy my lifestyle as a self-employed person.    The internet even helped to alleviate the initial homesickness that everyone goes through when they move away as I was able to access British newspapers on the net, as well as watch the BBC news and keep in touch with family and friends.

The internet has allowed everyone to set up “virtual offices” and be employed by anyone, anywhere in the entire world. In 6 years, I have become an English teacher with clients in various countries, a consultant with an eBay-connected company in the US, a website columnist, an editor and proofreader with clients in the US and Russia, and I am now blogging for Make Use Of. None of that would have been remotely possible without the internet.

But what are the specific tools that allow us to work with whoever we want, wherever we want?

First, of course, there is e-mail which allows us to communicate instantly with people all over the world.

Secondly, there’s instant messaging which I actually consider more of a hindrance than a help due to its potential to ruin your concentration when the message window suddenly goes “ping!”. But nevertheless, it does come in useful sometimes for quick queries.

Then there is Paypal which allows people from all over the world to pay me for my services.

But the real asset in my quest to find international clients is Skype. Skype allows me to call and IM people anywhere at either free or very cheap rates. If both parties have a webcam, we can also have video conferencing calls. Skype also has a very active forum where I can advertise my services for free. It also helps that I am good friends with the lovely lady that runs the Skype forums.

Most of the internet is irrelevant? I think not!

Technorati Tags: email, germany, IM, makeuseof, paypal, Skype, virtual office, web worker, Working Online

Just when I thought that I had my next mobile phone choice all locked down (the Google phone), along comes news of the upcoming Skype phone which has got me in the unique position of considering having two mobile phones at once.

I use Skype every day and I have accumulated a lot of Skype contacts. I also spend an absurd amount of Skype credit every month on personal and business phone calls. So on one hand, getting a Skype phone would be good, financially speaking, because then I can pay the small monthly charge to the phone company and then the Skype calls will be free (provided the other person has a Skype ID).

But on the other hand, the Google phone has its attractions too - connection to the net which means IMAP access to Gmail, and access to other Google services such as Docs and Calendar. Oh and it can make phone calls too.

But I will have some extra time to think about it as the anticipated release of the Skype phone at the end of this month is only expected in the UK, Italy, Hong Kong, and Australia. No word yet on a German release date.

I suppose the delay will be good in monitoring user reviews of the Skype phone to see if it is a magnificent wonder worth having or a huge metal turkey that should be avoided at all costs. I mean, look at all the complaints from iPhone users. Sometimes it’s good to hold back a bit and wait until all the dust and hype settles.

There’s even speculation that a successful Skype phone will do wonders for the fortunes of Skype’s owners, eBay. If the Skype phone is a huge success, that could pave the way for eBay to start promoting the idea of paying for eBay items through the phone, using a mobile version of Paypal.

Plus a successful Skype phone has the potential to cause a major earthquake through the mobile phone industry worldwide. Why should I pay the equivalent of 20 cents a minute using an ordinary mobile phone when I can ask my contact to set up a Skype ID and I can call them for free? Or if I have to pay normal Skype rates to call a non-Skype user, the rates involved are a fraction of the normal cost of a mobile phone call. So the mobile phone industry is going to have to slash their prices in order to stay competitive - which will be wonderful for everyone.

But what is really curious is the lack of advertising for both the Skype phone and the Google phone. As my girlfriend pointed out last night, in the runup to the launch of the iPhone, we had saturated television advertising announcing the iPhone. But for a Skype phone that is supposedly due out in a few days, Skype has been strangely quiet about trumpeting the great news. And has Google said anything or advertised anything about their phone?

Or are both Skype and Google both hoping that word-of-mouth will be enough?

Technorati Tags: cellphone, eBay, Google, IMAP, mobile, paypal, phone, Skype