FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Monday, October 24th, 2011
I was fortunate enough to sit down with Oliver Cockcroft, Product Manager for eBay Tablet Web, to discuss the new tablet experience currently in Beta testing from eBay. You can sign up as a Beta tester today at touch.ebay.com/tablet. Here, we chat about the experience and the features involved with the tablet-specific experience.
Cheers!
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Thursday, October 6th, 2011
“How much more complexity can human developers and organizations deal with?” – Tom Fastner, eBay.
I just finished reading an interview with Tom Fastner, senior member of technical staff and architect at eBay on ODBMS Industry Watch with Prof. Roberto V. Zicari. From a technical perspective it’s a great read but more importantly it represents a growing trend I’m seeing more of from our company: the very welcome “under-the-hood” conversations with our thought leaders and key drivers of change about the technology infrastructure of our marketplace.
Q1. What are the main technical challenges for big data analytics at eBay?
Tom Fastner: The primary challenges are:
I/O bandwidth: limited due to configuration of the nodes.
Concurrency/workload management: Workload management tools usually manage the limited resource. For many years EDW systems bottle neck on the CPU; big systems are configured with ample CPU making I/O the bottleneck. Vendors are starting to put mechanisms in place to manage I/O, but it will take some time to get to the same level of sophistication.
Data movement (loads, initial loads, backup/restores): As new platforms are emerging you need to make data available on more systems challenging networks, movement tools and support to ensure scalable operations that maintain data consistency
To read the full interview, please visit odbms.org. You can also follow @odbmsorg on Twitter.
Cheers!
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Thursday, July 21st, 2011
It is my great pleasure to announce the newest addition to the official eBay blogging family. Authored by Joe MacFarland, the eBay stories Blog‘s charter is to inform eBay Marketplace members of eBay.com product and features, surface “remarkable listings,” and to highlight weekly search trends. You can read more in his eBay stories Welcome post.
I have been following the development of the blog closely and have met regularly with Joe as he ramps up towards today’s launch. I am looking forward to collaborating with him on posts where appropriate and having another resource for eBay users to get information… this time with a link directly from ebay.com! (Don’t worry… I’m trying to find out what I have to do to make that happen for Ink). ;)
I sat down with Joe earlier this week to chat about the blog, his vision for the editorial content, and how he sees this will differ from our focus here on Ink…
Full Name: Joe MacFarland
Nickname: Joe
Official Title: I don’t have one, I am a “non-employee: ☺
What you really do: Write a blog
Education: BA in Sociology from Dartmouth College
Interests: Travelling, reading, cycling, playing with my kids, soccer
Favorite Quote: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. – Vonegut
Most Memorable eBay experience: Selling my 2006 World Cup tickets (soccer) to someone once my team (Brazil) was eliminated…
Most recent eBay purchase/sale: A set of six Pokemon Black and White Figures with Light (for my son’s 6th birthday in August… shhhhhhh)
Favorite Album(s): Too many to mention, who listens to albums anymore – bring me Pandora or Spotify! But anything from the Café del Mar series would work in a pinch.
Favorite Movie(s): Again, to many to mention, but I was intrigued by Before Sunrise
What you wanted to be growing up: A paperback writer (like the Beatles song)Fill in the blanks:
I should have gone to the beach yesterday
I wish that I could visit my family in Brazil.
The first thing I do when I get to work is check to see what the most popular items are being sold on eBay.
RBH: What is your vision of eBay stories?
Joe: 1. To be the place folks come to learn about the amazing product features the entire team at eBay works on every day to make the life of the eBay shopper better. 2. To be the reference point for people interested in finding out more about the amazing products that are being sold via eBay; 3. To keep a casual “history through commerce” view of any given week.
RBH: How does this differ from existing official eBay blogs? Like eBay Ink for example?
Joe: The blog focuses specifically on ebay.com, not on eBay, the company, as a whole. And within this focus on ebay.com, the blog further focuses on eBay product features, the stories behind the remarkable listings that are not surfaced anywhere else on eBay itself, and what people are searching for when they come to the site.
RBH: Who is your target audience?
Joe: eBay shoppers who are interested in, and want to learn more about our products and features, and are interested in the stories behind the remarkable items being sold on the site.
RBH: What do you consider success to be with eBay stories?
Joe: If people enjoy what they are reading.
RBH: What are you most looking forward to with the blog?
Joe: Finally launching it and having a conversation with our readers about the things written on the blog.
RBH: What does it take to get some link love on the ebay.com homepage?
Joe: I don’t know what this question means, and if I did, I wouldn’t answer it. ;)
So with that, please join me in welcoming Joe and the eBay stories blog to the blogging family. Looking forward to reading future posts!
Cheers,
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Tuesday, June 7th, 2011
Griff has started a new series of posts over on the eBay Collectors Blog called “eBay Employee Collectors.”
Welcome to the first in a new series entitled, “eBay Employee Collectors.” Each month we will interview an employee who also has a passion for collecting something unusual or notable.
The first interview is with Pierre Donzier of Customer Strategy as he and Griff discuss his passion to collect anything and everything associated with aviation – specifically with a focus on flight helmets.
I’m looking forward to reading more of these in the future. Enjoy!
Cheers,
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Tuesday, January 25th, 2011
There’s an insightful 15 minute interview over on the Harvard Business Review podcast “HBR Ideacast” with eBay CEO, John Donahoe.
The interview covers (among other things):
* How to balance innovation and execution at scale
* How tech innovaton will lead to more change in the next 5 years than it did in the last ten
* The company’s success in mobile and how it is lowering the boundary between online and offline
* EBay’s acquisition strategy
Check out the full interview with John Donahoe.
UPDATED: February 15, 2011
You can now access the full interview transcript: The HBR Interview: How eBay Developed a Culture of Experimentation
Cheers,
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
Not wasting anytime at all (I literally just said hello to the Milo.com folks as they were getting their welcome tour to eBay HQ), eBay has already added local shopping results from Milo to its RedLaser barcode scanning applications for both iPhone and Android. With the integration of Milo, shoppers on RedLaser can immediately find out, through a single scan, which nearby retailers currently have that perfect gift in-stock and who has the best local price.
** Download the RedLaser App for iPhone.
** Download the RedLaser App for Android.
It has only been two business days since the Milo acquisition was announced.
The following interview with Milo founder, Jack Abraham, was uploaded on Friday.
Cheers,
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Friday, December 3rd, 2010
I was fortunate to visit the Milo.com offices yesterday afternoon on the same day they were celebrating becoming a part of the eBay Inc. family.
In addition to enjoying some good beer and meeting some great people, I also got to sit down for a few minutes with Milo.com founder, Jack Abraham, to talk about the origins of the company, the future of online and local business, and why he felt eBay was such a good fit.
Cheers!
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
As you know we’ve been rolling out a new program here on eBay Ink focused on Social Media Sellers.
There are a number of special projects we’re working on behind the scenes and to kick things off, I thought I’d ask a couple of simple questions to each of our sellers and share their feedback with you folks here. I can’t thank our social media sellers enough for taking the time to think the questions through and provide insightful answers to us here.
I saw some trends right off the bat (you’ll see them below). Primarily, there is a definite focus on “the little things”; all the little details that can be easily overlooked and end up costing you time and, ultimately, money. Secondly, it takes a LOT of hard work, effort, commitment and determination to be successful.
Please let me know what you think. I’m obviously completely open to suggestions and recommendations. Video? Audio? Questions to ask? You name it, please let me know in the comments. For now, here is the first Q&A with our eBay #SMSellers.
What is the biggest misconception you think people have when starting their own online business?
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Thursday, September 16th, 2010
All,
Yesterday eBay announced the formation of a new business development group within eBay Marketplaces. The team will be led by vice president of North American business development, Michael Jones. Jones joined eBay after 10 years at ChannelAdvisor where he was most recently chief revenue officer and chief operating officer, responsible for revenue, corporate development and acquisition strategies.
Joining Jones will be Michael Mosser and Sam Shaffer, who will focus on eBay Fashion, directly engaging industry designers, brands and retailers to participate in Fashion Vault, eBay’s destination for limited-time flash sales, and launching branded outlet storefronts. Mosser previously served as vice president, business development, for Home Shopping Network (HSN). Shaffer joins eBay from the New York office of IMG Worldwide, Inc., where he was director, business development, for the designers and brands category.
Completing the team are Fredrick Crosby, Theresa Casey, Steve Dueck and Greg Snodgrass, who will focus on eBay’s Electronics, Home & Garden and Sporting Goods categories.
I thought it would be worthwhile to sit down with Michael Jones and members of his team to talk about their vision, goals and objectives over the coming months. However, rather than conduct my standard “5 Minutes With…” interview format I thought it would be a great opportunity to solicit questions from you, the Ink readers.
So… please take the time to ask a question you’d love me to pose to the team and I’ll do my best to get it answered in a upcoming blog post.
Cheers!
RBH
