Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » eBay

PayPal Mobile VP David Marcus Promoted To President

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:29:14 +0000

Former PayPal president Scott Thompson has left the company to become the CEO of Yahoo! This left an empty spot for eBay to fill at PayPal. That spot has been filled by David Marcus, the former CEO of Zong and the former PayPal Mobile VP. PayPal acquired Zong for $240 million.

“He’s going to lead PayPal with that “founder’s perspective,” to bring start-up energy to PayPal’s unmatched global reach and digital payment capabilities. With David at the helm, we will have an even deeper commitment at PayPal, and across eBay Inc., to be a leading technology-driven and customer-focused product innovation company. We’ll continue to focus on accelerating product innovation, driving consumer engagement and creating a world where paying anytime, anywhere and any way is synonymous with PayPal,” wrote PayPal acting president John Donahoe.

Marcus’ first company was a telecommunications company called GTN in 1996, which was acquired by World Access in 2000. That same year he launched Echovox, a mobile media monetization company that allowed large media companies to connect with their mobile audiences. Zong spun out of Echovox and offered a mobile payments platform. After PayPal acquired Zong last year, Marcus became VP of Mobile Payments at PayPal.

PayPal processed $4 billion in mobile payment transactions last year and they expected $7 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012. Marcus has been hard at work to create a Square-like mobile payments hardware and software platform.

PayPal To Launch Daily Deals Service Next Year

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:59:44 +0000

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) subsidiary PayPal is going to start competing head-on with Groupon and LivingSocial by offering daily deals starting next year. The coupons will be based on the buying habits and mobile locations of their users. PayPal has partnered with 200 U.S. merchants on this initiative said PayPal President Scott Thompson.

Thompson said that PayPal can use customer preferences better than LivingSocial and Groupon because of all the data they have. By moving into the daily deals market, PayPal will be able to take more money from their already existing 103 million members. Some of the daily deals may include groceries, salon visits, yoga classes, etc.

As of right now, Groupon and LivingSocial have a 73% market share in the daily deals market. Groupon is expected to make revenues of about $2.35 billion next year, which is a sevenfold increase from 2010. These daily deal coupons are supposed to keep customers using eBay beyond just the payment process. eBay bought PayPal in October 2002 for $1.5 billion.

[BusinessWeek]

eBay Subsidiary StubHub Acquires Zvents

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:44:38 +0000

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) subsidiary StubHub has acquired Zvents.com. Zvents is a local event-discovery and promotion service. The terms of the deal were undisclosed. Founded in 2005, Zvents has over 600,000 current event listings at any given time. Zvents will be integrated into StubHub’s own event listings, which has about 30,000 events. Zvents had raised a total of $31.2 million in funding. [VentureBeat]

HP Sells Less Than 8,000 TouchPads In eBay Fire Sale, Frustrating Many People

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:42:54 +0000

As part of a way to phase out the HP TouchPad, Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) held a fire-sale of the tablet on eBay. The company ended up selling less than 8,000 of the tablets. HP sold about 2,316 of the $99 refurbished 16GB TouchPads and 5,534 of the $149 32GB TouchPads. All of these TouchPads were sold in under 25 minutes. eBay and PayPal was slammed by the orders causing many people to be unable to complete their orders once the process started. [SlashGear]

eBay Mobile Hitting One Million Listings Per Week

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:50:06 +0000

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) is hitting one million listings made per week through the eBay Mobile app [iTunes link]. Last year eBay made the right move by consolidating their buying and selling iPhone applications. Now it is simple to take photos of your goods and quickly list them through the app. The company has also launched a new video series called eBay MoneyMakers, which features videos of people making money on eBay. [TechCrunch]

eBay Acquires Hunch For Roughly $80 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:20:04 +0000

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) will be announcing that they have acquired Hunch for around $80 million according to Michael Arrington. Hunch was started by Chris Dixon, Caterina Fake, Tom Pinckney, and Matt Gattis. Hunch has raised about $20 million in total funding since they launched.

Hunch is a start-up company that allows users to answer questions using crowd-sourcing techniques. Hunch will be used on eBay for recommendation technology to revamp their own e-commerce recommendations. Dixon will be responsible for the existing 50 person recommendations team and will be opening an office in New York.

The New York office will grow to about 200 employees that will focus on recommendations. The team will analyze a lot of eBay purchase and sales data to predict inflation or a potential recession.

Hunch was founded in 2008. In mid 2010 Google was rumored to be in talks with Hunch for an acquisition. Investors in Hunch includes General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, SV Angel, and Khosla Ventures.

[Uncrunched]

Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, Twitter, AOL, and eBay Oppose Proposed Legislation About Copyright Regulation

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:32:29 +0000

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) executive chairman Eric Schmidt has been vocal about proposed legislation regarding online copyright regulation today and said that the PROTECT IP Act in the U.S. Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S. House of Representatives would censor the Internet. This bill is intended to combat pirated movies and music and allow copyright holders and law enforcement officials the ability to cut off websites.

“The solutions are draconian,” stated Schmidt at an appearance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “There’s a bill that would require (Internet service providers) to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked.”

As an alternative to the proposed legislation, Schmidt recommends regulations based on tracing payments spent at websites that offers illegal materials. Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, Twitter, AOL, eBay and a few other technology companies have sent a letter to lawmakers opposing the bills.

“We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity,” stated the companies.

[Reuters]

HP Considers Replacing CEO Leo Apotheker With Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:58:54 +0000

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) is highly considering the replacement of Leo Apotheker. One of the potential candidates is former eBay CEO Meg Whitman according to a source with Bloomberg.

Apotheker has been the HP CEO for about 11 months thus far. He would be leaving the company in bad shape too. HP had to cut down their sales forecasts three times since Apotheker became CEO. HP’s stock price also dropped 47%.

After Bloomberg reported the possible change in management, HP’s stock increased as high as 11.7%. Whitman joined HP’s board of directors this past January after a failed attempt to become the governor of California.

The pressure on Apotheker to turn the company around became more intense after he announced a $10.3 billion acquisition of enterprise software company Autonomy Corp. He also said that they are considering the option of spinning off their PC division.

You shouldn’t feel bad for Apotheker though because he made at least $9.4 million over the year that he worked at HP. His severance would be two-times his sum base salary of $1.2 million, which is $2.4 million.

[BusinessInsider]

eBay Pays $240 Million in Cash to Add Zong to PayPal

Riley Kennysmith — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:02:26 +0000

eBay paid $240 million in cash for Zong, a mobile payments company that will contribute to upgrades to their PayPal system. Zong is known for its services billing to users’ mobile phones. There is no news yet as to how Zong and PayPal will be integrated or whether Zong will be rebranded. [TechCrunch]

PayPal Sues Google Over Mobile Payment Secrets. Google Says People Have The Right To Choose Better Employment.

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 27 May 2011 19:14:56 +0000

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) subsidiary PayPal is suing Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) as part of claims that Google had stolen trade secrets from PayPal’s mobile payment business. eBay is saying that former PayPal executive and current Google VP of Payments Osama Bedier stole confidential PayPal information.

PayPal is also accusing Google commerce head and former PayPal employee Stephanie Tilenius of violating contractual obligations by hiring Bedier. According to PayPal’s complaint, Bedier “is now leading Google’s efforts to bring point-of- sale technologies and services to retailers on its behalf.”

“Bedier and Google have misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google and to major retailers,” said PayPal in the statement. Both Google and PayPal are working on launching a storefront business by working with major retailers to develop point-of-sale systems.

PayPal is alleging that Bedier discussed a job at Google at the same time as leading negotiations for making PayPal a payment option on the Android Market. Bedier allegedly did not disclose the job related talks.

Google responded by saying:

“Silicon Valley was built on the ability of individuals to use their knowledge and expertise to seek better employment opportunities, an idea recognized by both California law and public policy. We respect trade secrets, and will defend ourselves against these claims.”

Yesterday Google had officially announced Google Wallet, an app that turns your mobile device into a wallet.

[TechCrunch]