I’m sure I’m not the only one that saw this coming.
July 10, 2008
Dear eBay member,
In May, we made significant changes to the eBay Feedback system to increase buyer confidence and improve buyer and seller accountability in the marketplace. I encourage you to review the changes, especially those designed to hold buyers accountable and provide sellers protection in the new system.
When we made the changes, we said we would closely watch the impact and, if needed, make adjustments. Today, we announced the following two adjustments:
- Neutrals will no longer count as part of the Feedback percentage. Since we introduced changes to the Feedback system in May, 2008, buyers have significantly decreased the amount of neutral Feedback they are leaving for sellers. Now less than 0.5% of all Feedback left is neutral, and this percentage continues to decline. Since we have removed the ability for sellers to leave negative Feedback, we are confident that buyers are leaving neutrals to represent a neutral experience and not to avoid retaliatory negative Feedback.All customer Feedback percentages will be recalculated retroactively by late August.
- We will provide buyers with the ability to revise Feedback left for sellers. Everybody makes mistakes—buyers and sellers alike. Buyers should be able to change Feedback if they make a mistake or if the seller rectifies a problem in a timely manner. Unlike Mutual Feedback Withdrawal, buyers will be able to revise the Feedback, with this new process not just withdraw the rating.There is a difference in the buyer experience when a buyer receives the item as expected the first time, so, we will limit the use of the tool so that sellers who make fewer mistakes can be differentiated from sellers who make more mistakes.
More detailed information will be available this fall.
The Feedback system will continue to evolve as a tool that helps buyers evaluate sellers and helps sellers to improve their performance.
Brian Burke
Director, Global Feedback Policy
Gmail is rolling out a new feature that allows you to view information about the last time your account was accessed and whether it is currently open on another computer.
At the bottom of your inbox, you’ll see information about the time of the last activity on your account and whether it’s still open in another location:
You can view more information about your recent activity by clicking on the details link
You can see open sessions, when they were accessed and how the were accessed, by browser, POP, phone.
It is not yet activated on all accounts. I will be really excited when it is activated on Google Apps.
Yahoo was hit with a one-two punch Monday–first a right jab from Carl Icahn, which is calling for the removal of Yahoo’s entire board, and then a left hook from Microsoft, which confirmed its support for Icahn’s proxy fight and said it’s interested in negotiating a deal with a “new” Yahoo board.
Yahoo!’s Board of Directors continues to stand ready to enter into negotiations with Microsoft Corporation for an acquisition of Yahoo!. Indeed, as recently as June, Yahoo!’s independent directors and management approached Steve Ballmer about just such a transaction, only to be told that Microsoft was no longer interested even in the price range which they had previously proposed. Now Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Icahn have teamed up in an apparent effort to force Yahoo! into selling to Microsoft its Search business at a price to be determined in a future “negotiation” between Mr. Icahn’s directors and Microsoft’s management. We feel very strongly that this would not lead to an outcome that would be in the best interests of Yahoo!’s stockholders. If Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo!, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately. And if Mr. Icahn has an actual plan for Yahoo! beyond hoping that Microsoft might actually consummate a deal which they have repeatedly walked away from, we would be very interested in hearing it.
This is a repost from a Cnet news story, Yahoo: We’re ready to do a deal with Microsoft
I heard the news and read a few blogs about the new Microsft Live Search Cashback program where you can get up to 25% of your purchases back if you use Live Search and click on a sponsored listing with the Live Search Cashback Logo.
I was looking at an eBay auction for a HP tc4400 tablet pc and in the auction the owner outlined the steps to take to get cash back.
I went to Live.com, did a search for “cheap tablet pc”. I saw an ad on eBay with the cashback logo. I clicked on it and went to an ebay search page for tablet pc. Once you get into eBay from the cashback link, you can make any purchase and still be eligible for the cashback. I browsed to tablet pc, clicked on my auction, used the buy it now, all throughout the checkout process they assured me that my purchase was eligible. Once I was finished sending payment with Paypal, I was asked to create or link my current Microsoft Live account in order to see my rebate status.
So for an $850 dollar laptop my refund amount is $212…..not bad….
Well my current status says I will receive my rebate in 60 days. I’ll will update this post when I actually receive the money
Tags: livesearch, live cash back
Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced the company is teaming up with search industry leaders Google and Yahoo to dramatically improve the search results of Flash based content. Adobe is providing optimized Flash player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines. This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of flash based websites and other dynamic content.
The improvement is the result of efforts by software engineers at Yahoo, Google and Adobe. In the past, web designers faced major challenges if they chose to develop a site in flash because the content they included was not indexable by search engines. They needed to make extra effort to ensure that their content was also presented in another way that search engines could find.
