About Me 0077: Making Money Ebay

EBay is getting more serious with its mobile payments ambitions with PayPal, announcing today that it is buying Zong for $240 million in cash. The move bolsters PayPal’s existing payment system and allows it to offer users an additional way to pay via carrier billing. Mobile payments are a vast and growing opportunity for PayPal, which has built its business off mostly online transactions and person-to-person payments but is increasingly looking to enable payments by phone.

Zong, which was backed by Matrix Partners, Advent Venture Partners and Newbury Ventures, works with 250 carriers around the world to enable transactions that are placed on an operator bill. The systems is used to facilitate payments for digital goods and services in 45 countries.

The pickup signals how PayPal is bulking up to take on the mobile payments market. It recently said it expects to do $3 billion in mobile transactions this year and has hit 100 million accounts. It said it has more than 8 million customers making purchases on their mobile phones through PayPal, with $10 million in mobile payments a day.

“Commerce is changing. With mobile phones, we walk around with a mall in our pockets. PayPal helps to make money work better for customers in this new commerce reality — no matter how they want to pay or what device they’re using,” said Scott Thompson, president of PayPal. “We believe that Zong will strengthen this value by helping us reach the more than 4 billion people who have mobile phones, giving them more choice and security when they pay.”

EBay has been on a buying spree as it sharpens its mobile and local ambitions. It recently bought Magento to launch to a commerce platform. And it previously bought WHERE, GSI, RedLaser, Milo and others to help the company move into local commerce. It shows that e-commerce is increasingly turning into mobile commerce and that the big opportunity is in tying together online and offline actions and purchases. While online commerce is big, the larger market by far is real-world transactions. Those are increasingly influenced by smartphone-wielding consumers, and now the next step is to facilitate more transactions through the phone. It’s a market that Google, Square, the carriers and a host of others are vying for.

The purchase of Zong suggests that we’ll see more acquisitions and mergers as the mobile payments market heats up. Juniper Research just predicted that mobile payments will be a $670 billion market by 2015. Others competitors like Boku could be ripe for acquisitions as companies look to prepare for the boom in mobile payments. The Zong acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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We all know by now about CM Punk's worked shoot on the WWE from this past Monday Night Raw.

We all know how epic it was and how it showed the talents of Punk by making us doubt if his promo was "worked" or a "shoot."

But the thing that made it great was not Punk himself but what he said in that promo.

He crossed the line on so many boundaries and delivered what most believe to be a gutsy promo as he basically took down the WWE with his words.

He mentioned many "forbidden" names and basically went on about his thoughts and why he wanted to leave in the first place.

I won't go into details but in case you don't know, here's what he said in his promo. (Courtesy of Wrestling Inc.)

"John Cena, while you lay there, hopefully as uncomfortable as you possibly can be, I want you to listen to me. I want you to digest this, because before I leave in three weeks with your WWE Championship, I have a lot of things I wanna get off my chest.

"I don't hate you, John. I don't even dislike you. I like you a hell of a lot more than I like most people in the back. I hate...this idea...that you're the best...because you're not. I'm the best. I'm the best in the world. There's one thing you're better at than I am, and that's kissing Vince McMahon's ass. You're as good at kissing Vince's ass as Hulk Hogan was. I don't know if you're as good as Dwayne...he's a pretty good ass-kisser...always was and still is. Oops...I'm breaking the fourth wall. [Punk waves to the camera.] I am the best...wrestler...in the world. I've been the best ever since Day One when I walked into this company, and I've been vilified and hated since that day because Paul Heyman saw something in me that nobody else wanted to admit. That's right, I'm a Paul Heyman guy. You know who else was a Paul Heyman guy? Brock Lesnar...and he split, just like I'm splittin', but the biggest difference between me and Brock is that I'm going to leave with the WWE Championship.

"I've grabbed so many of Vincent K. McMahon's imaginary brass rings that it's finally dawned on me that they're just that. They're completely imaginary. The only thing that's real is me, and the fact that day in and day out, for almost six years, I've proved to everybody in the world that I am the best on this microphone, in that ring, and even on commentary. Nobody can touch me. And yet, no matter how many times I prove it, I'm not on your lovely little collectors' cups, I'm not on the cover of the program, I'm barely promoted, I don't get to be in movies, I'm not on any crappy show on the USA Network, I'm not on the poster of WrestleMania, I'm not on the signature that's produced at the start of the show. I'm not on Conan O'Brien, I'm not on Jimmy Fallon, but the fact of the matter is I should be, and trust me, this isn't sour grapes, but the fact that "Dwayne" is in the main event of WrestleMania next year and I'm not makes me sick!

"Oh hey, let me get something straight, those of you who are cheering me right now...you are just as big a part of me leaving as anyone else, because you're the ones sipping out of those collector cups right now, you're the ones that buy those programs that my face isn't on the cover of, and then at five in the morning at the airport, you try to shove it in my face thinking you can get an autograph and sell it on eBay because you're too lazy to get a real job.

"I'm leaving with the WWE championship on July 17 and hell, who knows, maybe I'll go defend it in New Japan Pro Wrestling...maybe I'll go back to Ring of Honor...[Punk waves to the camera again] hey, Colt Cabana, how you doing? The reason I'm leaving is you people because after I'm gone you're still going to pour money into this company—I'm just a spoke on the wheel—the wheel's gonna keep turning. And I understand that...that Vince McMahon's gonna make money despite himself...he's a millionaire who should be a billionaire...you know why he's not a billionaire? It's because he surrounds himself with glad-handing nonsensical [censored] yes-men like John Laurinaitis, who's gonna tell him everything he wants to hear...and I'd like to think that maybe this company will be better after Vince McMahon is dead, but the fact is it's gonna get taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law and the rest of his stupid family.

"Let me tell you a personal story about Vince McMahon. You know we do this whole bully campaign..."

Now many of you basically know what happens next as well, but this article is not about what happens next, it's about Punk's promo and what he said.

"I don't hate you, John (Cena). I hate...this idea...that you're the best...because you're not."

No truer word could have been spoken. I for one know everyone here has liked Cena at least once in his career, specifically when he had the Doctor of Thuganomics gimmick. You can't deny it.

He was once a rising star that everyone loved. Everyone wanted him to appear on TV just so they could see him. But then, something happened.

Creative screwed up.

They started booking him to be the best, a superhuman, if you will.

The whole company started to revolve around him. Raw started becoming "The Cena Show".

Everyone started becoming sick of seeing Cena all the time. He always had to win. It was becoming too predictable.

Then there was this streak that was given to Cena. It was a streak where he held the WWE championship for nearly a year, if not more.

WWE was making him "the best".

Fast forward a few years, and he's still on top, with as many—if not double—the number of haters that he had before.

He has won less matches than before, but his haters were still there, including a new batch of them.

But why is that? Why is the hate still there? Well, like Punk said, it's because of the idea that he's the best.

Ever since Cena became a household name at the top, he was made out to be the best. No one was able to reach the same heights as he did.

People were sick of it. He always won. It was always the same thing. Cena vs (insert any name here,) and the winner was always Cena. Rarely did the opponent win.

It was getting way too repetitive, but no one could do anything about it.

Hence how the Cena-hate reached its peak. Everyone hated the idea that Cena was the best because in fact, he wasn't.

He rarely put over anyone, and whenever they were reaching superstardom, he somehow had to win the battle that ended it all. He always won in the end.

People hated seeing Cena win all of the time. They wanted to see something fresh in the main-event scene. When it didn't happen, the hate just kept growing.

People ignored everything he does outside of the ring because of what they saw in the ring.

His whole charity work and help for the community was overshadowed by the persona that people saw on TV.

People just couldn't respect him. While his human side helped the people around him get better, his larger-than-life side didn't.

His "Superman" character wasn't helping the company to grow. In reality, it was altering its growth.

When all of the focus is on Cena, Cena and CENA, there is no focus on the rest of the roster.

Thank you, Punk, for making that clear.

"I don't hate you John (Cena). I hate...this idea...that you're the best".

I think everyone feels the same way.

People don't feel legit hate for Cena because he actually cares and has a passion for everyone and the business. But people do hate that Cena is the best in the WWE's eyes.

They hate the idea that he's the best because it stunts the growth of a company and brings nothing new to the product that keeps getting more stale with each passing day.

John Cena the person isn't hated by any means, but John Cena the wrestler is hated because of the idea that he's the best.

As long as it's there, the people will feel the same hate. Take it away and Cena will most likely be loved again.

"I don't hate you John (Cena). I hate...this idea...that you're the best".

Hopefully, WWE gets the idea that making Cena the best will not help them out in the long run, it will only make things worse.

Get the idea?

This article is one of hopefully a few that I intend on doing which analyzes Punk's promo bit by bit. If you want to see more of these become a fan of my work, give this article "Props," and/or leave a comment below. It will give me even more incentive to do another one of these in the coming days and if you wish, feel free to suggest which statement of Punk's promo you would like to see me analyze next. Or if you'd like, give me any promo to analyze as long as you provide a link to it and I'll try my best to make an article out of it.

About Me 0077

Monday, August 1, 2011

Making Money Ebay

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