eBay Archive

As most of the world knows by now, Facebook began rolling out new “features” on their social networking service this week. Besides the ability to go back to 1950 and note the first time you drove an Edsel, the other big change is that now you will be able to share what you are doing without clicking anything – it’s “frictionless”. You should take a moment and read Dave Winer’s post which looks at why you should logout of Facebook and Dan Lyons hilarious post about how all of our lives have been changed forever.

When I watched the livestream of the Facebook announcements, I immediately commented wondering how long before a wife divorces a husband because she sees that he is browsing Victoria’s Secret for panties that are a different size than she wears. I still give it about a week before the first stories of inappropriate business are posted. Back in 2007, a man was fired because his employer-provided GPS showed him leaving work early.

It looks like an example of what is to come on Facebook hit eBay this weekend. Found via Darren Stuart, a man in Swindon in the United Kingdom is selling a Tom Tom Go model 700 GPS receiver on eBay. This might be the most hilarious auction I’ve seen – of course the story is a bit emotional as the man found out that his wife is/was cheating on him. The auction is currently at a price of £10,000,000 which is just over 15 million USD.

From the auction (read the full description on eBay):

This was my wife’s, may her knicker draw be infested with the fleas of a thousand Camels…The Go 700 was once the top of the range Sat Nav from TomTom, with an internal Hard Disk Drive instead of the traditional SD Card, and had full Bluetooth and Wireless capabilities.  I bought this for the back-stabbing harlot, some four or five years ago, before she met Nigel with the Little Penis, and it cost me over £400…

Her infidelity was discovered when I took her car for an MOT, and while waiting, I was tinkering with the Sat Nav and noticed that all her recent journeys had all been to Nigel’s…So, like any normal human, I reprogrammed Nigel’s address to one in a town far far away…

There are over 100 questions posted on the auction and the seller has responded to all of them. The auction ends on September 28th so you have a few days to decide if you want to up the bid from $15 million.

As soon as the announcement was made at Google IO this morning that all 5,000 attendees would be received the yet-to-be-released Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1″ tablet, I joked around with some friends that tonight we would see the first batch listed on eBay. I figured they would be priced at about $1,000 if we assume that a “limited edition”, “not for sale” version would bring in about a 30% premium.

Well I was wrong on both fronts…the first two auctions are now online on eBay for the tablet.

The two auctions are:

• Auction 1 – A buy-it-now price of $1,699 plus $10 shipping, currently with no bids. This is a one-day auction. UPDATE: This auction has ended with a final price of $1,358 with 25 bids.
• Auction 2 – A buy-it-now price of $1,999 or make best offer with free expedited shipping. This is a three-day auction.
• A few more tablets have started to appear on eBay – ranging from $900-$2,000.

Update #1 – the first tablet has hit Craigslist – the best deal so far for $800.

I will update this post as I see more auctions and listings appear online. My guess is that we will see about 100 of the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets appear for sale within the next 24-48 hours.

If you have been wanting an Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) MacBook Air, today might be the best day to pull the trigger. MacMall through eBay is offering the base model 11″ MacBook Air for $849 with free shipping. This is the best price I’ve seen on the MacBook Air since Amazon dropped their price to $899 last November (their price is back up to $990). Also, it seems if you aren’t located in New York State, there is no tax on this unit.

Purchasing this unit at Apple.com, the total price will be about $1,080. If you are not in NYS, this deal will save you a huge $231.

In speaking with a few Apple fanboys, the only real downside to this unit is the low 2GB ram which cannot be upgraded since the ram chips are fused to the motherboard using a 50,000 ton press. You should also note this machine only has a 64GB flash hard drive which Engadget noted yesterday on a review of a different laptop was somewhat small. Lastly, I will note that it seems you need a lot of dongles to make this unit effective.

Specs on this MacBook Air from the auction, “1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 SDRAM, 64GB Flash Storage, NVIDIA GeForce 320M, 11.6″ LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1, FaceTime camera, Built-in battery, Precision aluminum unibody”

NY-based SeatGeek describes their service as, “Bing Travel for concert and sports tickets.” The company provided an overview of their ticket forecasting service and I’ve posted the video below. The goal of SeatGeek is to tell you when is the best time to purchase tickets to sporting events and concerts.

SeatGeek displays maps of the arenas and stadiums and color-codes the seats based on the best available tickets. SeatGeek analyzes millions of tickets from the secondary markets and then apply their own values for things like winning percentages and weather forecasts to determine when is the right time to buy. The company says they are 80% accurate on forecasting ticket prices.

Tickets are offered for the top 2,000 artists and all major sports events except hockey which they note will be available soon. SeatGeek generates revenue from affiliate commissions anywhere from 7-10%. They work with StubHub, eBay, RazorGator and a variety of other small broker firms.
Continue reading “SeatGeek Forecasts Ticket Prices” »

Online auction service eBay has announced the launch of a new online game today, “Let’s Make a Daily Deal”. The only reason I am mentioning this is because they will be in Times Square over the next three days. It seems like Broadway closing to traffic has brought out lots of companies who want to use the new space for marketing and promotion.

From the release, “Mario Cantone will host “Let’s Make a Daily Deal!” on June 22, 23, and 24 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Times Square Studios (44th Street and Broadway). eBay is taking over Times Square with digital billboard advertising and street teams who will recruit players for the “Let’s Make a Daily Deal” game. The digital billboards will feature a live, mobile text-based game engaging Times Square crowds who can play along for a chance to win great prizes.”

I wonder how the rain this afternoon will affect participation.

Update: I’ve just learned that Steve Rubel will be the official tweeter for this event. Steve works for Edelman and eBay is one of their clients.

During NY Entrepreneurship Week, I was in New Work City and two women came into New Work City (our coworking space) looking for Jeevan Padiyar (who is part of NYCENT) to confirm their business plan had gotten submitted. In the course of helping them resolve this issue, I learned about their company and efforts – and was intrigued by the two women, Nicole Basabe and Alma Sehovic, and their incredible energy. If every entrepreneur in NY had these ladies smarts and drive, I am certain NY Tech and Entrepreneurship will life NYC to new heights.

As Nicole told me, Tribal Societe is “a online global bazaar whose concept is as fashion forward and green as the company is socially responsible and its products are a la mode”. What I took from the “pitch” was that TS is a portal for creating another channel for entrepreneurs in other lands (in this case Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, South Africa to name a few) deliver natural accessory products to the US and international market.

Nicole, who was born in Manhattan, but raised in Ecuador and Miami, got an early start at entrepreneurship – starting and successfully growing her first trading company at age of 20. After spending 8 years on her business, she took someones “advice” and decided to get an MBA at NYU Stern, thinking that the financial sector was where it was at.

At Stern, Nicole met Alma, a former banker who was looking to become an entrepreneur. As the two of them spoke, Alma convinced Nicole to return to her entrepreneurial roots and launch TS.

Continue reading “Tribal Societe Offers a Global Online Bazaar” »

eBay has announced the launch of eBay Motors Local Classifieds for individual sellers today.  The idea of this program is to bring together local buyers and sellers within a 100 mile zone of their local market.

Sellers can list up to six vehicles for a seven day period with no insertion or successful listing fees through July 15.

Considering the launch is for individual sellers, wouldn’t most transactions be local anyway? eBay is pushing the idea that you can go kick the tires and really investigate the car in-person via only online.