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e-commerce
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Baby's first gay porn, courtesy of Google
A tipster tells us his boss searched Google Products for a "'Spit Happens' t-shirt" for his infant. Google found him a suitably innocent bodysuit on CafePress.com. It also found him a pair of gay porn videos, one called Nasty Nasty featuring "a stunning young man, the spitting image of a young Ben Affleck," and another called Bedrock, featuring actors who "take turns pounding each other on a bunch of iron beds," — ouch. We're not sure who to blame for the confusion here. More »
social networks
Facebook makes as much as $42 million off pointless "Gifts"
After too much math, Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners estimates that Facebook earns between $28 million and $42 million allowing its users to buy icons as gifts for each other. Lightspeed came up with the revenue numbers by watching how much users spent on the icons for a week and then multiplying that number by 73.3. Uh, why not 52? Because Facebook Gift sales go up during the holidays, just like real useless merchandise. We'll let Liew explain the rest of his math, below. Bring your coffee: More »
e-commerce
Botched software upgrade costs J. Crew $3 million
Luxer-than-thou retailer J. Crew has mostly avoided the economic pinch, since its customers barely notice that they're paying $4 a gallon for gas. Instead, the retailer has been laid low by buggy software, reports the Business Technology blog. One outraged customer, shown here, was billed $9,208.50 and shipped baby-size shirts, not the mediums he'd ordered. J. Crew's net income in its most recent quarter fell 12 percent from the same period last year to $18.1 million, and the company said it spent $3 million to fix the problem. Do the math: Had J. Crew not had the software problem, its income would have been up 2.5 percent. It's a shameful comeuppance for J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler. More »
breakdowns
Netflix shipping system crashes for two days running
Woe be unto Netflix if my parents don't get the latest installemnt of Foyle's War. In an email sent out to customers and a notice posted to the site, the DVD-by-mail company says it is having problems with its shipping system affecting around a third of the company's customers. It has now persisted for two days. So if your friendly mail carrier doesn't show up with a red envelope or three today, don't blame it on a Postal Service "blue shorts of death" error. Graciously, the company has preemptively offered a credit for any delays. Why not tout its online-video offerings, like Watch Now streaming on its website or the Roku set-top box? Oh, right, website outages and inventory problems. But hey, at least if your request gets returned "404 Not Found," it won't cost you a stamp. Netflix's alert, after the jump: More »
acquisitions
eBay trying to buy into billion-dollar Korean auctioneer
eBay, having failed to catch on in the heavily-wired nation of South Korea, is in talks with Korean site Gmarket. A few days ago, Gmarket announced Q2 sales of nearly $1 billion, which generated $35 million in revenue. Yahoo bought 10 percent of the company in 2006 for approximately $60 million. [NYT]
Tiffany, eBay extend unstylish spat
Luxury goods-maker Tiffany — you know, the one which sells the gays their wedding rings — is appealing a federal district court's decision clearing eBay of responsibility for counterfeit product listings. The jewelry company sends eBay 135,000 takedown notices a year, and wishes eBay would do more of the work for it. eBay's play-it-cool response: "Tiffany's decision to carry this litigation on after the District Court's decision doesn't do anything to combat counterfeiting." Much like eBay itself. [Atlanta Business Chronicle]
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e-commerce
Amazon offers 1-Click, PayPal-like services to other online stores
Checkout by Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay are two different levels of PayPal-like services Amazon.com quietly launched on Tuesday. No press release, no front-door promo. Simple Pay works a lot like PayPal — customers at another e-commerce site can use it as an alternative to entering a credit card number. Checkout by Amazon goes further, letting websites make use of Amazon's 1-Click ordering and allowing shoppers to put Amazon.com purchases in the same virtual cart. Previously, Amazon had required retailers to set up on Amazon.com itself. Now, the company is looking to get a piece of the action any way it can.
Amazon.com and TiVo enable couch-potato lifestyle
Finally realizing the dreams of advertising professionals since the 1950s, Amazon.com and Tivo announced new features to closely integrate shopping with TV watching. Viewers of talk shows — where pitching movies, music, or books vaguely masquerades as entertainment — will now have an opportunity to buy exactly what's being discussed on TV! Fancy the newest obsession of Oprah in her book club or like the CD being flogged by David Letterman's new favorite band? Just buy it with one click of TiVo's remote, and Amazon will deliver. If you like obvious product placements now, you're going to love the future. [NYT]
Finally realizing the dreams of advertising professionals since the 1950s, Amazon.com and Tivo announced new features to closely integrate shopping with TV watching. Viewers of talk shows — where pitching movies, music, or books vaguely masquerades as entertainment — will now have an opportunity to buy exactly what's being discussed on TV! Fancy the newest obsession of Oprah in her book club or like the CD being flogged by David Letterman's new favorite band? Just buy it with one click of TiVo's remote, and Amazon will deliver. If you like obvious product placements now, you're going to love the future. [NYT]
lifecasters
