EBay Inc.’s PayPal plans to unveil a new system that makes it easier for software developers to integrate the online payments system right into their programs–as the company takes new steps to protect its turf.
With the new open software, called Paypal X, users won’t have to type their username and password into a separate PayPal Web site in order to complete a payment.
Five months ago, a group of media executives including Steven Brill seemed to have the field to itself when it said it was building a system for newspapers to charge readers for access online.
The hacking of Twitter CEO Evan Williams’s email account has sparked an ethics debate after TechCrunch said that it would publish some of the confidential documents that the hacker leaked.
EBay this afternoon announced that it plans to spin off Skype via an initial public offering in the first half of 2010. The company said specific timing of the IPO will depend on market conditions. The announcement did not say whether eBay would maintain a stake in the company.
EBay is on a mission to woo developers at the Web 2.0 Expo this week in San Francisco.
During a keynote speech Wednesday, eBay CTO Mark Carges told an audience filled with Internet start-ups that “nothing matters more than getting paid for the hard work that you do.” EBay knows a thing or two about making money, he said, before unveiling a new program to open up the company’s marketplace platform and PayPal services to outside developers.
EBay’s PayPal kicked off the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco Wednesday with a frightening presentation on the “arms race” between online fraudsters and online retailers and shoppers.
Online fraud is becoming so lucrative, said Katherine Hutchison, PayPal’s senior director of global risk management, that it has developed into an industry with specialized players that hire each other in areas such as harvesting credit card numbers and freight forwarding. “A single professional thief doesn’t have to have all of the skills needed to commit fraud,” she said.
The fundamental debate over eBay boils down to this: The stock certainly looks cheap–trading at around eight times Street estimates for 2009 earnings. But the core business still appears to many to be fundamentally broken.
At a time when most companies aren’t willing to offer guidance on the March quarter, eBay is laying out its vision for 2011.
And what it sees is a big opportunity for PayPal.
In connection with the company’s analyst meeting today, eBay said its growth will be driven by its two core businesses: PayPal and e-commerce. In something of a repositioning, the company says that PayPal “has become a second core business,” with an opportunity to become even bigger than eBay Marketplaces.
Ever wonder what happens to your Facebook account after you die? Someone does.
That someone is Legacy Locker, a new online service announced Tuesday that allows people to securely store usernames, passwords and other access information for all their digital assets–from Facebook and MySpace accounts to Gmail and PayPal–and pass that information along to beneficiaries in the event of their death.
On Wednesday, eBay will hold a meeting with analysts to discuss the current business and strategy. There is little expectation that the company will announce any dramatic moves, and concern about the health of the business remains high, as expressed by eBay’s surprisingly low P/E–the stock trades at just seven times expected 2009 results. Of the 29 analysts tracked by Thomson who follow the company, only four rate the stock a Buy or Strong Buy.
Last year, here on the Voices blog, I asked you all for your thoughts on how to finance and put out my next record. I got some swell advice, as well as some good wishes. Many agreed that the patronage system–asking fans to donate money–was a promising idea.
Amazon.com (AMZN) has quietly launched “Checkout by Amazon,” an e-commerce checkout service for online merchants that is taking on eBay’s (EBAY) PayPal Merchant Services offering, several analysts noted today.
Amazon.com (AMZN) has been aggressively rolling out a variety of Web-based services, including on-demand computing power and data storage. Could the company’s next move be to go after eBay (EBAY) subsidiary PayPal’s dominant franchise on online payments?
Is Microsoft (MSFT) interested in taking a stake in eBay’s (EBAY) PayPal and Skype units?
Stifel Nicolaus analyst Scott Devitt asserts in a research note this morning that he has “thought it possible for Microsoft to attain an equity ownership interest in PayPal/Skype.”
Tired of the United States and the other 190-odd nations on Earth? If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.
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