Luckily for me, and consequently you, I was able to get reports back from colleagues attending both events. As a result, here is a recap of John’s onstage discussion from the Brainstorm: TECH event. A huge thanks to Young Mi Kim for providing me with a recap of the proceedings…

There were about 250 people in the room consisting of technologists and business leaders. A poll at the beginning of the session showed that 57% of the audience use eBay; 65% use PayPal; and 59% use Skype.

Overall, John re-emphasized that eBay has changed… and that change had to happen because of consumer expectations and the way in which people now shop online. Again, reiterating the fact that eBay is no longer just about auctions, he stressed that everything we do is in consideration for long-term success: investing in technology and the customer experience.

John speaks to FOX Business News live from the FORTUNE Brainstorm: TECH 2009

In addition to referencing the PayPal platform news of yesterday – and that there is now the ability to pay someone via Twitter using TwitPay (PayPal is the payment engine behind that) – he also talked about the probability that one day PayPal will be bigger than eBay (although he did refrain from speculating on a possible new company name). PayPal currently represents 35% of company revenue, and off-eBay business grew 32% in Q2. In fact, every area of our business except for the auction format grew this last quarter, and is outpacing e-commerce.

Moving forward, we have two core areas of focus: e-commerce and payments… and we’re in the early days. But we also recognize that we’re at an inflection point … we need to reinvent ourselves and evolve into a truly global e-commerce company.

John speaks to CNBC live from the FORTUNE Brainstorm: TECH 2009

Bottom line, it’s clear that there is an emphasis on elevating the role of technology at eBay, and we’re building out the platform as a result. I hear it and see it in pretty much every meeting I attend. Some of the results of that are yet to see the light of day and until they do, I’m holding off judgment but am not-so-secretly excited to be here as they take place.

No one could say that reporting from eBay HQ for the past year and a half has been boring. eBay is 18 months into a 3-4 year turnaround and I’m very much looking forward to reporting on the next 18 months. Stay tuned.

Cheers,
RBH

According to PayPal, there were 34% more transactions than 2007 and there was a 26% increase in online payment volume on Black Friday.

I found all of this information at the “eBay Holiday Media Source”. The site has been up for a few weeks now and is aimed at providing press and media with information, stats and news around eBay’s holiday offers, traffic, promotions and tips. This weekend, they posted the following media release with data coming out of Black Friday.

All great info of course but I’d like to see more. Especially more than just consumer electronics. Let’s see all the categories. Which are up? Which are down? How did Fixed Price fair vs Auctions? I’ll dig around to see if can find out more on that front.

I also saw that the Nielsen Online Holiday Shopping Index had eBay as the top online retail destination on Black Friday with 9.8 million unique visitors (Nielsen also had eBay as the top online retail destination for the month of October). However, with a number of conflicting traffic reports out there for online retail traffic that cropped up over the past week (some blogs were citing ComScore numbers, others use Nielsen as a benchmark), I want to see more information behind the figures before drawing any definitive conclusions.

In related news, eBay President of Marketplaces, Lorrie Norrington appeared on Fox Business News yesterday alongside Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne to discuss Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the rest of the holiday shopping season.

Cheers,
RBH