Author: admin

Amazing figures from eBay via Reuters, even more reason why we need net neutrality, because it a world without net neutrality, the eBay’s of this world wouldn’t exist:

EBay Inc. has now registered 200 million users of its online auction services, which would make it the fifth-largest country in the world if its members could form one nation, its CEO said on Tuesday.

Speaking to thousands of the company’s most loyal buyers and sellers at its annual user conference here, Chief Executive Meg Whitman said eBay achieved the milestone on Saturday.

Only, China, India, the United States and Indonesia are larger in terms of population, Whitman said.

As of March 31, the company had reported it had 192.9 million registered users worldwide, and 75.4 million “active” users in the March quarter. EBay’s biggest markets are the United States, Germany, Britain and South Korea.

Tags: eBay

An incredible story from Boston.com:

A venture-backed Waltham company that’s quietly amassed more than 650,000 Internet domain names is stepping out of stealth mode today and unveiling its plans to build a substantial Boston-area Web 2.0 business around the emerging field of “direct navigation.”

The company, called NameMedia, is being led by Kelly P. Conlin , 46, a veteran media executive who previously had been chief executive of International Data Corp. in Boston and Primemedia Inc. in New York. NameMedia has already hired 75 people in its office near Route 128 to buy, sell, and develop businesses around Internet domain names.

Yep, all those crap sites you land on with nothing but ads, and I’m not talking splogs or made for Adsense sites here, at least these guys try, I’m talking site with nothing more than ads here, have become big business, and by all accounts, if you read the Boston.com article, legitimate businesses.

Sad really that these sorts of people are able to pollute the internet this way.

And wondering why it’s getting near on impossible to get a decent domain with the word “blog” in it, or related to blogging, check this page out from the same company. Boston.com says that they are different to domain squatters. Bullsh*t. They’ve got Blogspot.net, a name trademarked by Google listed for $58,000. Now like anyone I’ve bought domains I’ve not developed yet, but I don’t make a business from it, these guys do, and they are making it harder for the little guy…

I’m having serious issues connecting to the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, anyone else? Really, really slow. Given the morning print media have no news on the historic win I’m wondering whether everyone is jumping online for news?

I did read earlier (after waiting for the page to load) that 20% of the Australian workforce is expected to call in sick to work or rock up late today as the match finished at 1am eastern…only in Australia! 🙂

Tags: SMH, Word Cup, Socceroos

This is very cool, from el Reg:

A little-known company called BCM used Computex to show a multi-format VoIP Wi-Fi phone based on the Windows CE kernel. The WLAN800I is compatible with Skype, SIP services, MSN Talk and MSN Messenger….There’s no need for a PC for it to function, all you need is an 802.11b/g wireless access point connected to the internet. Claimed battery life is 60 hours in standby and up to three hours’ talk time. It’s charged via a mini-USB connector and has a stereo headphone jack as it can also be used for streaming music since it features a built in media player.

Noticed this media release on one of my Google feeds this morning, this goose is trying to flog 600 names for “blog portals” that include the name BlogSpot….yep, the very same name trademarked and owned by Google, and he wants $699 USD per domain for each one….I can feel Google’s lawyers sharpening their pens already 🙂