"Meg's passion for all things eBay changed the world," said Pierre Omidyar, Founder of eBay and Chairman of the Board. "With humor, smarts and unflappable determination, Meg took a small, barely known online auction site and helped it become an integral part of our lives. We're all enormously grateful that Meg dedicated herself to stewarding eBay through its 10 most formative years."

eBay's Board of Directors voted unanimously to elect John Donahoe President and CEO. Donahoe came to eBay in February 2005 from Bain & Company, where he had served as worldwide managing director since 1999. For nearly three years, Donahoe has been President of eBay Marketplaces, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the company's global revenues. In this role, Donahoe has been responsible for the growth of eBay and its other ecommerce businesses around the world, and during the time he has managed this business unit, both revenues and profits doubled.

"During the last three years, John and I have worked very closely together to arrive at this day, and we'll continue to work together through the transition," said Whitman. "I'm extremely confident in John's skills and the abilities of John’s veteran management team. eBay and its millions of users are in great hands as they head into the future."

Omidyar added, "John is a great choice to lead eBay. He understands our community and is committed to continuing Meg's legacy. The Board and I look forward to supporting John as he takes eBay into the future."

In addition, eBay announced that Rajiv Dutta, currently the President of PayPal, has been named Executive Vice President of eBay Inc. and will also replace Donahoe as President of eBay Marketplaces. Dutta, who will report to Donahoe, has also been elected to the eBay Board of Directors.

EBay Inc., the world's largest Internet auctioneer, will take a charge of more than $1.4 billion, most of it to write down the value of its Skype Internet telephone division. It also said the unit's co- founder, Niklas Zennstrom, quit.

EBay, acknowledging that Skype hasn't performed as expected since acquiring it for $2.6 billion in October 2005, said in a statement today that it will write down the value of Skype by $900 million in the third quarter, as well as take an additional charge of $533 million to pay former shareholders under a provision of the takeover agreement.

Some analysts criticized the company for paying too much for the then-unprofitable Luxembourg-based startup, which allows people to make calls over the Internet. EBay Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman sought the purchase to improve communications and quicken transactions on the auction site. Skype's second-quarter revenue was $90 million, 4.9 percent of EBay's total.

It is not a surprise, that both Google and Amazon want a slice of PayPal's cake. In the most recent quarter, PayPal had net revenues of $454 million, up 34% over the $339 million reported in Q2-06. More importantly, PayPal Merchant Services transactions jumped 57% to $4.92 billion globally from the $3.13 billion reported in Q2-06.

The auctioneer is up against an Internet icon in the privately held Craigslist. The 21-employee company operates on a shoestring budget, is well-entrenched in every major U.S. city and founder Craig Newmark is beloved by users for his reluctance to commercialize the site.

But eBay enjoys an unusual advantage. For three years, executives at eBay have been allowed to peer deep into Craigslist's operations. Since 2004, the year eBay bought a 25 percent stake in the San Francisco-based Craigslist from a former employee, the auction site has held a seat on the company's board of directors.

Newmark, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar once made up the three-person board. Another eBay representative has replaced Omidyar, according to Durzy.

"We've learned a lot from Craigslist," Durzy said. "We think this market has room for several classified services."

Most stores for AT&T, the phone's exclusive operator, have sold out of the 8GB models, but still have 4GB ones in stock.

Meanwhile, only 745 of 8,000 iPhone offerings on eBay have actually been sold. The sellers lucky enough to find a buyer fetched $962 on average, according to a report by Associated Press.

The 4GB iPhone retails at $499 and the 8GB model goes for $599.

More than 32 hours after the iPhone went on sale, most eBay auctions closed around the retail price, leaving the seller to pay for the sales tax and commission.

A $600 closing price carries about $25 in listing and closing fees. Sales taxes vary by county from zero to 8.65 per cent.

"StumbleUpon is a great fit within our goal of pioneering new communities based on commerce and sustained by trust," said Michael Buhr, senior director, eBay. "StumbleUpon's downloadable toolbar provides an engaging and unique experience to its users, but it is the similarities in our approaches to the concept of community that make it such a compelling addition to eBay."

Driven by word-of-mouth, the StumbleUpon community has grown 150 percent year over year and delivers approximately five million new recommendations a day to its large, highly engaged user base. StumbleUpon allows people to discover Web sites, people, videos, product information, communities and other online content based on personal interests. By allowing its community to rate the content, StumbleUpon gets smarter as it is used and provides an increasing level of relevance over time.

Said Garrett Camp, chief architect and one of three StumbleUpon founders, "We're excited about joining eBay, as we share the same values around community and we look forward to working with them to accelerate our growth."

Om Malik points out an interesting scenario for the new acquisiton: "By marrying the toolbar to Skype client, eBay can do an end run around Google's dominance of the search business. A simple search box inside Skype client is all it would take." A great observation, because we all know, no matter how many denials we all hear, the number game in Silicon Valley now is: Find a way to do significant business online "without" Google's involvement, and you'll have found the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Also, eBay is looking to connect to more consumers locally. To that end, Durzy says there is already significant overlap in users. He points to a Dallas Meetup group formed for folks who sell on eBay. Says Durzy, "We see a similarity in philosophy."

Indeed, Meetup plans to use a portion of the investment to launch six conferences across the country not so dissimilar from the eBay Live conference the company holds annually to bring sellers together. Says Scott Heiferman, "We want to help organizers become great leaders." The first Meetup conference will happen in Houston in May.

Also, Meetup will use its new resources to launch an advertising campaign to draw attention to local groups. The first Meetup posters will hit New York City subways on Mar. 24, says Heiferman.

eBay's feedback system is, arguably, their most valuable asset. It provides the grease necessary to make complete strangers comfortable enough to buy and sell from each other. But it's a closed system -- only eBay transactions can affect a user's feedback score. And as much as eBay doesn't like it, these users (and more) buy and sell stuff through services other than eBay all the time, online and offline. There is tremendous demand for third party services to incorporate eBay's feedback system into their applications to make them more usable. But don't expect to see eBay embrace mashups any time soon, or ever.

Rapleaf allows any user to leave feedback for anyone (whether they are a user or not), based on a unique email address or phone number. Type that identifier into the search bar. If no results occur, you can be the first to leave feedback for that person. This can be someone you've bought or sold with, or just a friend that you want to endorse. Like eBay, a free-text area is included for comments in addition to a positive/neutral/negative rating.

A person's feedback rating is a raw score, with a point added for a positive review and a point subtracted for a negative review (just like eBay). Non-transaction endorsements are calculated and shown separately. Various stats are calculated and displayed based on feedback ratings by others (see screen shot below).

When introduced, mobile phone users will be able to send a text message to 729725 (the spelling of PayPal on a numeric handset keypad) with the amount of money the sender wishes to transfer and the recipient's phone number. On the PayPal website, the company uses the example: "Send 5 to 4150001234"

A PayPal computer then calls back the text message sender on the phone and asks the user to enter a secret PIN to confirm the transaction. PayPal immediately notifies the recipient and tells it how to claim the payment online.

The website shows a second option where the customer calls 1-800-4PAYPAL, enters a secret PIN, the amount of the transfer and the phone number where the payment is to be sent.

PayPal has been testing the service with eBay employees and on a handful of customers. It plans to charge no special fees for text payments, but cautions users to check with their mobile phone companies to see if special charges may apply.

eBay rolled out its Ad format beyond the real estate category, for which the feature has been available exclusively for years. The Ad format is similar to online classified listings in that there is no binding transaction involved. Sellers can post an ad for $9.95 for a 30-day listing; $19.90 for a 60-day listing; or $29.85 for a 90-day listing. The new categories in which Ad format is now available are Websites and Businesses for Sale; Trade Show Booths; Prefabricated Buildings; Travel; Specialty Services; and Everything Else.

In a few short years, users can expect to make telephone calls for free, with no per-minute charges, as part of a package of services through which carriers make money on advertising or transaction fees, eBay's chief executive said on Wednesday.

Seeking to justify eBay's $4 billion purchase last week of Web-based communications phenomenon Skype Technologies, Meg Whitman countered criticism by a financial analyst during the company's quarterly conference call by agreeing with some of his points.

"The percentage of users that you can actually charge for (phone services) will actually go down, so I actually agree with that and we understood that when we looked at Skype," Whitman said in responding to the analyst's question.

"In the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the 'Net will trend toward zero," eBay's top executive said.

To sell things over eBay, Mark Nichols may be required to take instruction in rapid-fire speaking, breathing control and reading hand gestures, even though the transactions are done by computer keyboard and mouse.

MSNBC.com reports that North Dakota's Public Service Commission is exploring whether people like Nichols, who runs a small consignment store in Crosby, must obtain auctioneer licenses before they can legally use eBay to sell merchandise for others.

To get a North Dakota auctioneer's license, applicants must pay a $35 fee, obtain a $5,000 surety bond and undergo training at one of eight approved auction schools, where the curriculum includes talking really fast.

One of those methods is to leave feedback immediately after completing your transaction, even if to opt for the selection "will leave feedback later".

At least this way you've notified the buyer and/or seller that you've acknowledged the transaction and will follow it up after the sale.

Another alternative is to send a gentle reminder to the buyer notifying them that you have left feedback regarding their part of the transaction and request that they do the same upon receipt of their order. This method is generally well accepted and typically yields the desired results.

Let's face it, with today's busy schedules not everyone remembers these details until the next time they decide to buy or sell on eBay. Since feedback is how many buyers and sellers are evaluated for their ability to pay or ship items, it is equally important to provide it after your eBay transaction.

Once a buyer makes a purchase from you, they will first see promotions for your other items in places such as the Bid or BIN Confirmation page and the closed item page as they do today. And now, in a separate section, they will also see up to 5 items from sellers you have added to your connection network. This separate section will only display if you have added other eBay sellers to your connection network.

You can manage which sellers you are connected to, how their items are selected, and end a connection at any time within the My Account section of My eBay. If you don't want to receive any requests from other members, you can opt-out within your Preferences in My eBay.

Depending on the exact details, Google's move could potentially threaten eBay's successful PayPal service, which generated $233.1 million, or 23% of eBay's revenue in the first quarter. PayPal has been widely adopted by buyers and sellers on eBay's auction marketplace as a way to pay for purchases. Recently, eBay has been trying to expand PayPal's presence as a payment system for other Web sites. In the first quarter, 71% of PayPal's revenue came from eBay auctions, the company says.

"It could be a pretty big negative for eBay if it happens," says Safa Rashtchy, Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Mr. Rashtchy said he believes Google is also working on a classified-listing service, which also would compete with eBay, San Jose, Calif.