No, these really aren’t any different from regular red-blue 3D glasses. If anything, they’re of lower quality. But it’s just fun to revel in the fact that you could do 3D back in the day (in such an awesome game, no less, plus these worked on 3D WorldRunner), so that makes these glasses just plain sweet. [via GameSniped] → Read More
While this particular item, like most electronics in the 80s, probably overstates its capabilities to some degree, it does seem like a pretty great little testbed for up-and-coming roboticists — at least in the early 80s. Time has rendered this little guy’s 8K of RAM rather inadequate, and I’m not sure people want to program their robot in BASIC any more. → Read More
Last month we wrote about The Gifts Project’s closing of a $1 million funding round. Today the company is finally able to lift the veil on a major accomplishment … turn out it is its gifting platform powering eBay Group Gifts.
The upstart also managed to have Index Ventures join the round, with Saul Klein actively advising. The actual amount is undisclosed. → Read More
eBay just posted strong fourth quarter earnings, announcing that revenue for the fourth quarter ending in 2010 increased a 5% to $2.5 billion, or up 10% excluding Skype, compared to the same period of 2009 (eBay sold Skype in Q3 of 2009). On a GAAP basis, eBay reported net income of $559.2 million, or $0.42 per diluted share. The company’s non-GAAP net income for the quarter was $638.8 million, or $0.52 per diluted share, representing a 24% increase excluding Skype, compared to the same period of 2009. eBay beat analyst expectations of $0.47 per share.
The company’s PayPal business ended the quarter with 94.4 million active registered accounts, adding approximately one million active accounts per month. PayPal’s net total payment volume was $26.9 billion in the fourth quarter (up from $21.3 billion in the same quarter in 2009), with nearly half of PayPal’s revenue in the fourth quarter was generated outside the United States. eBay’s marketplaces segment $15.0 billion in gross merchandise volume, with the number of sold items up by 10%, thanks to the strong holiday shopping season. → Read More
Shiply, the online transport marketplace, has signed an exclusive agreement with eBay Motors UK that will see it become the site’s transport partner.
Like uShip, which entered the UK via its purchase of competitor Boxby last year, Shiply matches those requiring goods to be transported with transport companies that have spare capacity and are heading to the same destination anyway. And by doing so, prices are driven down and it’s a win for the environment. That’s the pitch, anyway. → Read More
eBay has announced that global mobile sales generated nearly $2 billion in 2010, up from $600 million in 2009. To be clear, we’re not talking revenues here but gross merchandise volume. Nevertheless, a clear sign that mobile ecommerce has reached a tipping point.
eBay earlier announced that global sales were up 166 percent to $230 million from Nov. 25 to Dec. 25 from the same period last year, so the holiday season was a clear catalyst for much of that growth. → Read More
Facebook’s latest round of financing from Goldman Sachs at a $50 billion valuation, which is about the same valuation its shares are trading on SecondMarket, clearly puts it in the pantheon of the most valuable Internet companies. At $50 billion, Facebook is now worth more than Yahoo (which has a $22 billion market cap) and eBay ($37 billion), and almost worth more than both of them combined—and that is before it has even gone public. On the valuation scale of publicly traded Internet companies, however, it is still smaller than Amazon ($83 billion) and Google ($193 billion).
Facebook passed Yahoo in implied valuation last summer. And that feels about right. But is Facebook actually worth $50 billion? Its revenues for 2010 are rumored to be around $2 billion, which gives it a multiple of 25 times revenues. Google, in contrast, is trading at about 9 times estimated 2010 revenues. Of course, Facebook is growing much faster. And what really matters is profits. Facebook is believed to be profitable, but nobody really knows how profitable and there is still a sense that it hasn’t quite perfected its monetization model for social ads. → Read More
With eBay handling more than 2 billion U.S. product searches a quarter, the marketplace can show what items are most desirable in a given time. We recently wrote about what was trending on eBay during the holiday shopping period, and today the market place is releasing its most popular product searches in 2010.
Apple dominated the list, with the iPad and iPhone 4 taking the top two spots, respectively. These gadgets were followed by Victoria’s Secret, Nintendo Wii Games, Nintendo DS, Playstation 3, Nikon d90, diamond ring, sunglasses and laptops. → Read More
eBay’s mobile sales continued to grow during the holiday shopping season, according to a release issued by the company today. eBay is reporting that gross merchandise value (also known as GMV, the total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through eBay) was up 166 percent to $230 million from Nov. 25 to Dec. 25 from the same period last year.
In the U.S., sales from eBay’s mobile apps grew 134 percent over the same period last year, generating nearly $100 million in GMV. → Read More
In rather unsurprising news, the world’s most popular smartphone was the most popular item on eBay this year — or rather, it was likely the most popular search term. I suspect a vast majority of iPhone 4s were bought by more traditional means — but accessories like cases, headphones, and car kits thrive in the eBay environment.
The rest of the items seem to follow larger trends, but incredibly, only one item is shared with last year’s list: The Beatles.
Here’s the rest of the eBay “Top Shopped” items list. → Read More
Those wacky Aussies! Apparently the heat has gotten to “Koolguitar” because he (or she, to be fair) has decided to sell a 1976 Gibson Les Paul Custom, which it super rare. I’m not so sure about the guitar (however it is up to $5,400 at the time of this post), but the first picture he’s using to post is certainly rare. Since it’s kinda NSFW, I’ll put it up after the jump. → Read More
E-commerce giant eBay sees a massive amount of searches every day—the company just announced that it handled more than 2 billion U.S. product searches in the third quarter alone. For the same time period, comScore reports that Amazon saw 847 million searches, while Google handled only 226 million product searches. Similar to the fact that top Google searches can show what’s trending during a specific time, eBay’s searches can show us what is popular in terms of e-commerce at a given time.
The company has releases data on the top product searches on the marketplace during the holiday shopping season (Dec. 1 through Dec. 22). During the time period, the top three products that saw the largest spike in searches (in order) are the Nintendo Wii Console, Xbox Kinect, and “Ugly Christmas Sweater.” → Read More
After picking up local product inventory and shopping site Milo.com for $75 million, eBay has been fairly quick to start integrating the startup’s technology into its products. With the holiday shopping seasonin full swing, eBay added Milo’s local results in its barcode scanning apps, RedLaser for iPhone and Android, as a comparison shopping tool. Today, eBay is debuting its most significant Milo integration thus far—local shopping tool GiftsNearby.
GiftsNearby essentially shows shoppers gift options available for pick up at local retailers in their neighborhood. From electronics to home appliances to toys, shoppers can access products that are available at local retailers nearby their zipcode. GiftsNearby shows local retail prices for each item, directions to the closest store with inventory availability, and an option to browse eBay for the gift. And eBay assures that GiftsNearby will only show items that are actually in-stock and using Milo’s existing partnerships, shows products from 25 national retailers including Target, RadioShack, Toys R Us, and Sears. → Read More
Here’s a funny video that is bound to make the rounds in the next couple of days and weeks in many a Western country, considering the season: THE DIGITAL STORY OF THE NATIVITY (though I think this portuguese version was actually online first).
Behold, the Nativity of Jesus 2.0, featuring Internet sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay and yes, iPhone text messages.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go #worshipthebaby. → Read More
eBay is setting records in terms of mobile sales this holiday season, announcing that yesterday was the marketplace’s biggest shopping day ever via mobile phones in terms of gross merchandise value (also known as GMV, the total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through eBay). eBay mobile GMV grew by 127 percent to $5 million in the U.S. and 165 percent globally to $13 million on Sunday, Dec. 12 from the same Sunday last year.
In the U.S., eBay mobile GMV was up 38 percent on what eBay is now referring to as “Mobile Sunday,” compared to sales on Cyber Monday this year. In terms of which products performed the best in terms of volume of sales, clothing and accessories topped the list followed by Cars & Trucks and Jewelry & Accessories. → Read More
Well, that didn’t take long. Ecommerce giant eBay is already adding local shopping results from Milo, a startup it has just acquired, to its RedLaser iPhone and (freshly released) Android applications.
RedLaser is eBay’s very own barcode-scanning application (at least since they acquired its makers), and thanks to the integration of Milo, people can now use it to instantly discover, through a single scan, which nearby retailers have which products in store, and at what price. → Read More
Yesterday brought the news that eBay acquired in-store product inventory search startup Milo for $75 million. eBay said that it plans to integrate Milo into both its online marketplace and its mobile applications, including barcode scanning app RedLaser. But tucked away in the press release eBay issued about the acquisition were a few surprising stats about the number of product searches eBay and its competitors are handling.
According to comScore, eBay handled more than 2 billion U.S. product searches in the third quarter. For the same time period, Amazon saw 847 million searches, while Google handled only 226 million product searches. → Read More
An update to our post earlier today: We’ve confirmed that local shopping startup Milo has in fact been acquired by eBay, for $75 million. Business Insider first reported on the possible deal earlier today. Milo CEO Jack Abraham confirmed the acquisition via a Tweet and eBay issued a press release.
Investors in the company certainly did well. They raised just $5 million in venture capital. We’ve heard that True Ventures, which led the Series A round, owns some 25% of the company prior to acquisition. If accurate, they just pocketed nearly $20 million, a 10x or more return on an investment made a year ago. → Read More
According to The Business Insider, ecommerce juggernaut eBay is acquiring up-and-coming local shopping startup Milo.com for a reported $75 million.
We’re independently confirming the acquisition and trying to get details of the transaction, but the deal would certainly make a lot of sense. → Read More
There’s no question that mobile sales are rapidly growing from eBay, who saw sales in the U.S. from its suite of mobile apps nearly double on Black Friday. Today, eBay is releasing its Cyber Monday data, reporting that mobile sales for the Monday after Thanksgiving were up 146 percent. In conjunction with the announcement eBay is also releasing a new infographic application that provides a visualization of mobile shopping trends from Nov. 22 to Nov. 29 within the top 20 eBay product categories across the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia.
eBay also reported that consumer adoption of its mobile suite of apps increased more than threefold based on items purchased during the week of Thanksgiving and “Cyber Monday” compared to the same period in 2009. Consumers shopped on eBay’s mobile apps primarily for cars & trucks and clothing & accessories during the period. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
