Technology

Some excellent news for friends and former colleagues from eBay –

Jeff Jordan is the new CEO of OpenTable. I loved working with Jeff at eBay – he has a fabulous mix of product, business and people skills. Jeff was one of the most well-respected and approachable executives around. He was an endless-well of energy who made stuff happen!

OpenTable is very lucky to have him. Good luck in your new gig, Jeff!!

Also today, eBay confirmed that it acquired StumbleUpon. To my two former eBay colleagues who are there – the incredible UI god, George, and the excellent marketer, Dave, congratulations on being back in the fold!

I love StumbleUpon – the incredible traffic driving capabilities and the unique discovery engine. I can’t wait to see how StumbleUpon is integrated into Skype.

It is a wonderful thing when good things happen to good people!

I’ve been reading Jeff Jarvis’ blog for years and have always found that he has the rare ability of being pithy while hitting the nail on the head.

Here’s a perfect example — he was on CBS being interviewed about the Don Imus brouhaha and more specifically the reaction in the blog world. Apparently there is some concern that people are out of control, saying mean, horrible things… and in light of the other bad publicity the blog world has been getting, should there, in fact, be some regulation of what people can say on the internet? Jeff’s answers could not be more perfect!

I’ve used MyBlogLog for a little over three months. I love the product – so well executed! In addition to the community features, I also use it to view the stats on my blog – it is very quick and easy.

I recently had cause to write in to their customer service. Immediately I got an auto response email that has to be one of the funniest I’ve seen in a long time:

Business opportunities

Please email [email] with details. Please keep in mind that we’re now a part of the Yahoo! team, so if you want to sell ads on our site, you’re SOL.

Spammers

Piss off.

When was the last time you’ve seen SOL and Piss off in an email? Hilarious. Please Yahoo lawyers, don’t squash this free-spirited email with legalese – please!

Later the same day, a customer support gentleman, Steve H., wrote to me asking me for more information. When I provided it, he replied with a detailed explanation of why I was facing the problem. And then, he fixed it – by going way above and beyond what he needed to do. Wow! When was the last time someone did that for me? God, I can’t even remember.

We have become used to terrible service. So even when you get the service you deserve, you feel thankful.

However, there are very few companies who exceed expectations. Steve H. and MyBlogLog just did that and for that they have a loyal customer who will be sticking with them for a long time. I really hope that as Yahoo integrates them, they keep the wonderful aspects that MyBlogLog has going for it. Thanks again, Steve!

I recently turned on the ability for people to get my blog posts delivered to their email, through Feedburner.

I just noticed footer at the bottom of the email that gets sent out –

Notice the last line. How… quaint!

What happens if you lose your gloves towards the end of winter? It is still cold outside – freezing in fact. So, you need to wear gloves even though spring is just a few promising weeks away.

Well, you could go over to the nearest general retail outlet and buy yourself a pair, right? Wrong. Oh so wrong. I lost my gloves (or rather just one glove which makes the other one a decorative plant warmer). My first inkling was to look on eBay – whatever it is, you can get it on eBay, baby! But in addition, I decided to check out the retail stores as well.

I trekked to Macy’s – “Gloves? Oh no, we’re out of gloves, we have our spring season in already. Try H&M or The Gap.” Same story at H&M. Same story at The Gap where I got “Try H&M, they always have it. No?? Well, then Macy’s!!”

Regular retail is messed up beyond belief. Really long product planning cycles are the key problem. Lead times are so long that what gets sold for spring (not *in* spring) is probably decided in the fall of the previous year and all orders are placed.

But the consumer is made to pay for this silly process. Spring season items arrive in late Feb when most of the country is still covered in snow. Can you really think of buying that short pink skirt when you walk into the store in three layers, a scarf, ear warmers and a winter coat? I can’t. And on the flip side, you have to buy your winter boots when it is 80 degrees outside and the last thing you can think about is trudging through snow.

To save you from this messed up world, eBay to the rescue. I got online. Did a search for the brand of glove I had. I immediately found a pair that was just a couple of shades lighter than what I had, but otherwise exact. It was listed with Buy It Now. Hit buy, paid via PayPal and was done in exactly 2 minutes and just a few clicks. Amazing. The gloves cost a third of what they would at retail and arrived in perfect condition four days later, brand new with tags still on them.

When we were doing user research for eBay Express, this point kept coming up – off-season retail. It is such a critical market. Why should retail stores dictate when you can buy gloves? What happens if you really need them like I did? They just don’t care because their economics will not let them care. But with eBay’s distributed warehousing, where each seller has a pair or five, the cost structure is very different. Even all these years later, even having worked there for so long, I am still amazed by the power of the model.

So, if you ever want to buy boots when you really need them or a bikini when you really want it, head on over to eBay.

The RIAA could kill music. Left to themselves, they will kill music. All their purported efforts to protect music and artists is a load of junk.

The latest effort is the per-stream fee being imposed on webcasters. This will bascially kill off most, if not all music streaming on the internet.

Yup, RIAA – that should really drive up sales – not!

An excellent overivew and review of economics and potential impact can be found here.

UPDATE: It is RIAA boycott month. Show your support – buy no music from any RIAA affiliated label. Gizmodo’s leading the way. I’m signed up – no new music in March.

I should have been flying out to California today. The plan was to spend the weekend with friends and then head to TED on Tuesday. Very sadly I had to cancel going to TED this year.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is a conference that is described by attendees as “brain candy”. And it is. I remember my first TED. James Watson kicked it off. Almost every speaker is enthralling. Imagine four days hearing from amazing people – physicists, environmental scientists, chemists, writers, molecular biologists, environmental scientists, space explorers, land explorers, under-water explorers, filmmakers, architects, designers, Nobel laureates, video game designers, presidents, presidential candidates, heads of NGOs, researchers in every field, Oscar-winning producers, health policy leaders, sports stars, inspirational speakers, religious evangelists (and their detractors), adventurers…

The conversations are fabulous, the people are great. I will truly miss it. Next week when tons of friends will get together in Monterey, I will be in NY! Oh, then, there are the 3-minute talks, musical performances,… ok, I gotta stop! Or I will send myself into further depression. It is the right decision and there’s always next year…

Four days of mind blowing information, fabulous people, lots of friends – I always left refreshed, believing there is hope for the world. Have a great TED 2007, folks.

_{Photo from: TED website, which owns and retains all copyright.}

eBay India have gotten into the craze around the Cricket World Cup. If you check out their Cricket Craze splash page, there is a lot going on.

But the item that is getting the most coverage is the auction of saris worn by Mandira Bedi and signed by the entire Indian cricket team. Mandira Bedi is a “color commentator” and was also the first every woman commetator (as far as I know). She’s very rah-rah and somewhat annoying, but apparently the eye-candy factor more than makes up for it… Plus she says stuff like “Dravid across my chest” (meaning Indian captain Rahul Dravid happens to have signed the sari section which happens to drape across her ample bosom). Watch the video here.

Btw, eBay.in folks – the splash page is almost static now (there are only three links – two go back to the eBay India homepage and one goes to PaisaPay). Even if the auctions aren’t live yet, at the very least, put up a marketing splash page where users can learn more and see all the World Cup related auctions. That way when all the press events drive traffic to eBay, they’ll have somewhere to go.

_{[Story and video hat tip: Great Bong]}

The New York Times has an interesting piece on flaming.

Flaming has a technical name, the �online disinhibition effect,� which psychologists apply to the many ways people behave with less restraint in cyberspace.

In a 2004 article in the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior, John Suler, a psychologist at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., suggested that several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an e-mail message and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Dr. Suler notes that disinhibition can be either benign � when a shy person feels free to open up online � or toxic, as in flaming.

The emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of what goes on in the brains and bodies of two interacting people, offers clues into the neural mechanics behind flaming.

This work points to a design flaw inherent in the interface between the brain�s social circuitry and the online world. In face-to-face interaction, the brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move so that the encounter goes well. Much of this social guidance occurs in circuitry centered on the orbitofrontal cortex, a center for empathy. This cortex uses that social scan to help make sure that what we do next will keep the interaction on track.

I would say anonymity exacerbates this even more. If being locked in your house, your face gleaming in the pale light of your monitor, deprived of all sensory feedback is not enough, add the ability to communicate anonymously into the mix. Even more dangerous. No wonder a lot of blog flamers are “anons”.

:

Socially artful responses emerge largely in the neural chatter between the orbitofrontal cortex and emotional centers like the amygdala that generate impulsivity. But the cortex needs social information � a change in tone of voice, say � to know how to select and channel our impulses. And in e-mail there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person who will receive what we say.

True, there are those cute, if somewhat lame, emoticons that cleverly arrange punctuation marks to signify an emotion. The e-mail equivalent of a mood ring, they surely lack the neural impact of an actual smile or frown. Without the raised eyebrow that signals irony, say, or the tone of voice that signals delight, the orbitofrontal cortex has little to go on. Lacking real-time cues, we can easily misread the printed words in an e-mail message, taking them the wrong way.

Hmm… I think cute/lame emoticons and smileys, while they may “lack the neural impact of an actual smile or frown”, are better than nothing. I tried giving them up after reading Jai’s rant against them. But my emails felt lifeless. My IMs felt depressed. So, I’m back to the full barrage of smileys, winkeys, dinkeys, animaticons and emoticons. Hopefully that calms down anyone who feels the burning need to flame me. 🙂

On Valentine’s Day, you can determine if you have “true romance and poetry” in your soul. Ready? Look at the Google logo on the left. Do you see the L?

According to Google’s Doodle creator, he didn’t forget the letter, the stem is supposed to be the L. If you don’t see it, don’t worry – most of the world is with you. If you do see it, congratulations.

And to all – I hope you helped the economy with cards, flowers and chocolate. Happy V-Day folks!

And thanks for the mid-day entertainment, Googe!