What's in Store for EBay?

This is what we know about eBay's current state of affairs based on recent news: a) CEO Meg Whitman is apparently following Mitt Romney on the campaign trail; b) John Donahoe, head of eBay's marketplace division, has been fingered as a potential CEO successor, and he's complaining to anyone who will listen that the site looks like a flea market; and c) eBay users are mad as hell and they're writing to the New York Times to complain about it.

From where we're sitting, it looks pretty chaotic. eBay's CEO is out playing politics; one of the highest-ranking executives is publicly trashing the business; and customers are apparently planning a revolt. There are roughly 248 million registered users on eBay -- and while not all of them are going to be happy, the company's listings fell 3 percent during the first nine months of 2007, which indicates that a huge chunk of its customer base is taking its business elsewhere.

It's a funny thing, though: Shares of eBay are holding up fine in what has been a fairly shaky market. The stock is up 6 percent year-to-date. And while consumer sentiment seems deeply negative, investors are pretty mixed on the matter.

"I think that there's an increasingly divided view of eBay's fortunes," says Derek Brown, an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald. "There are some, like myself, who believe the company is far from fixing its problems. And there are others who believe they are well on their way to fixing their problems."

Steve Jurvetson, venture capitalist (featured in the above photo) and managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson seems to fall into the latter category.

"I think the eBay for services will one day be a bigger opportunity than the eBay for physical goods . . .," Jurvetson told EPICENTER. "Skype lets them get into a really big business; it is early days still for Skype's potential. Wifi dual-mode phones are a key next step... Skype on PCs was an accident. It was always designed for mobility... And a trillion dollars of global telecom services are ripe for restructuring."

Digg up for sale for USD300m - Rumour

Social news site, Digg, is looking to sell itself for USD300m, having hired an investment bank to handle the sale, according to VentureBeat. The financial news site claims a reliable source confirmed the firm's plans, saying Digg is employing investment bank Allen & Company to negotiate a sale with potential buyers. This is the second time in the last two months there have been rumours that the US social news network, which claims over 20m users, is looking to sell up. Last month, Valleywag claimed that Digg was looking to sell itself for between USD300m and USD400m to a major unnamed media company. In the past two years, there has been plenty of speculation about the fate of Digg, with many rumours that it failed to sell itself on a number of occasions, including a time when it offered itself for between USD20m and USD30m to Yahoo! in May 2006. However, commentators think a USD300m valuation is not unreasonable and may attract interest for the firm, given that its ad deal with Microsoft guarantees the US news aggregator USD30m in revenue a year.

Ticketmaster and NFL sign secondary ticket sales deal

Ticketmaster has signed a deal with NFL to resell tickets to American football games in a bid to cash in on secondary sales. According to reports by AP, the multi-year deal, for an undisclosed sum, includes branding and advertising for the site, which will be linked from both the main Ticketmaster and NFL websites. The deal builds on existing agreements between Tickmaster and the NFL, and is due to launch for the 2008 American Football season.

"Fans expect and deserve to be able to resell their tickets in a safe, convenient and legal way," says Ticketmaster VP, Eric Korman. Currently Ticketmaster's TicketExchange resale platform is used by 18 of the 32 professional NFL teams, with a further four set to use the service in 2008. Ticketmaster already provides primary sales and season ticket sales for 31 NFL teams. The new platform will resell tickets for all NFL teams.

The move is an attempt for Ticketmaster to make a cut on second-hand ticket sales. In Oct, French online ticket company, Digitick, raised USD11.23m in funding, whilst UK-based event ticket marketplace, Viagogo raised USD30m in Series C funding in Aug. Meanwhile, in Jan Ebay bought online ticket exchange, Stubhub, for USD310m cash. Stubhub provides a forum for users to buy and sell tickets for sports and entertainment events, collecting 25% of the value of any ticket sold over its service. Ticketmaster claims to be one of the largest e-commerce sites on the internet, claiming to serve more than 9,000 clients worldwide. In 2006 the company claims to have sold more than 128m tickets valued at over USD7bn for its clients.

PlayFirst secures USD16.5m and signs new distribution deal

Games startup, PlayFirst, has raised USD16.5m in Series C funding led by VC firm, DCM. Also contributing to the round were existing investors Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon Partners and Mayfield Fund. The deal comes on the same day that PlayFirst signed a new partnership, for an undisclosed sum, with widget maker, RockYou. The deal will see RockYou distribute PlayFirst games through its widget and social network service.

San-Francisco based PlayFirst was founded in 2004 to create shared casual games. Its titles include 'Wedding Dash' - which will be the first game available through RockYou and on RockYou's Facebook app platform - and 'Dream Chronicles'. The new funding round brings total investments in PlayFirst to USD26.5m since it was first founded. According to the Casual Gaming Association, globally the casual games market is worth USD2.25bn, and is growing 20% each year.

MTV partners with Bruckheimer to launch game studio

MTV is partnering with movie mogul Jerry Bruckheimer to launch a game development studio tasked with creating new interactive games. Financial details were not disclosed, but the partners say that with the launch, they hope to create new, groundbreaking interactive video games, which have a storytelling component. Van Toffler, President of MTV Networks, says he hopes that some of the games created will result in TV and movies based on characters within the games.

In Aug, Viacom's MTV announced that it had set aside USD500m for investments in gaming ventures in the next two years. USD100m of that figure is for developing and distributing casual games across its Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group-branded websites. The cable giant has been encouraged to invest more in game development following the launch last month of its music simulation game, 'Rock Band', which features 45 tracks from the likes of Nirvana and Metallica, and is considered a success. At the time, MTV also said that it plans to incorporate its game development into future programming plans.

TorrentSpy loses copyright case over false testimony

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.