billso.com

Meg Whitman, eBay’s CEO, is stepping down after a brutal year for the company. The New York Times reports that John Donahoe will be promoted from president of the Marketplace division, and will assume his new role on 31 March. The Times ran a story about Donahoe on 21 February 2007.

It has been a brutal year for eBay. The company’s stock price has dropped by a third in the last 90 days. The e-commerce sector continues to grow, but eBay’s market share is shrinking. This interview published today by Reuters, Donahoe claims that eBay will rebound in a recession as casual sellers return to eBay to earn additional income.

eBay’s acquisition of Skype has been a disappointment, even with an additional 30 million subscribers in the last quarter of 2007 – see IP Democracy for more details. Last August’s outage damaged the VoIP’s service’s reputation and customer standing. In this 2 October 2007 article, I discussed how competitive rivalry was increasing in the VoIP industry. eBay may never recover its investment in Skype.

Another eBay acquisition has attracted attention in Hawaii. StubHub, which was mentioned in this 12 December 2007 article in the Star-Bulletin, became an important secondary market for 2008 Sugar Bowl tickets.

24 January 2008: Here’s an article about Donahoe from yesterday’s BusinessWeek. He’s committed to an eBay turnaround, even if it hurts the stock price. First task: reduce the seller fees. Next: make eBay an easier and safer web site for buyers and sellers. As the New York Times points out, better search tools may be an important part of the second task.

I’ve posted a PDF file with the syllabus and schedule for my online IS 6100-AO course. Just click the preceding link and look for the PDF file icon.

The course starts on Tuesday, 22 January 2008.

I’ll post a link to the Paper 1 assignment by then on the course web page. That assignment is a brief introduction paper that requires no textbook reading.

In the meantime, please check the syllabus. There are a couple of chapters to read before the end of the month. I’ll start posting some additional links and articles next week, too.

I do require students to sign up for TurnItIn.com. it’s a free service for HPU students. I use that system to receive and return assignments, as well as keep the gradebook. The service works with Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox browsers.

Students should send me an email indicating what email address they want to use as their log-in ID for TurnItIn.com. I recommend using a personal e-mail address that gets checked every day. Mobile email and webmail addresses are fine. Some students use their Pipeline accounts, and that’s OK, too.

Students who already have a TurnItIn.com account should email me their address, so I can add them to the TurnItIn.com section.

23 January 2008: I updated the syllabus – the wrong textbook was listed on page 11. We are using the 8th edition O’Brien & Markas textbook again this term.

USA: John McCain has finally convinced W take legal action against the Swifties and other groups. Of course, most of the top 527s are working for Kerry and against W. The Republicans are kicking themselves because they missed an opportunity to get even more campaign money, and will now sue 527s to hurt Kerry’s chances.

Kerry is pressing his argument that the GOP is conducting a smear campaign. This could help derail W’s momentum. It could also alienate young people who don’t remember Vietnam, and undecided voters who care about real issues.

Meanwhile, the W campaign has ignored the IOC’s request to pull an ad that mentions the Olympics. The W campaign never asked the International Olympic Committee for permission to run an ad that violates US law: “An act of Congress, last revised in 1999, grants the USOC exclusive rights to such terms as “Olympic,” derivatives such as “Olympiad” and the five interlocking rings. It also specifically says the organization “shall be nonpolitical and may not promote the candidacy of an individual seeking public office.”“