Half.com has Replaced Craigslist, eBay and Kijiji for my Online Selling

Half.com is oft-overlooked in the landscape of consumer-to-consumer commerce. Most people talk about eBay, Craigslist, Kijiji and Amazon... but forget about eBay's fixed-price powerhouse: Half.com. Honestly, I'm guilty of overlooking Half.com myself - even though one of my first jobs at eBay was running the Half.com affiliate program... but I've used Half.com over the last couple weeks to unload some old DVDs and video games and it's been tremendously effective. In fact, I posted listing on Craigslist, Kijiji and Half.com - and Half has been the most effective in terms of:

- listing efficiency and ease - number of inquiries and sales - speed of sales - value per sale

Nothing else really matters right?!

But here is why Half.com is so impressive: it's dead simple to list. My biggest pain point with Craigslist and eBay (in particular) is how time consuming they are. The effort is front-loaded with eBay (listing takes way too long) and the effort is back-loaded with classifieds sites (dealing with email inquiries, phone calls and visitors).

With Half.com, you enter the ISBN or UPC and that's it. Half suggests a price - you either agree or set your own price. Within hours from listing I had made a couple sales and was completely satisfied. I might be in the minority, but I'd rather list and sell efficiently than spend significantly more time for slightly more value... that said, I found that Half.com delivered greater buyer demand the sales prices were actually greater than those offered via Craigslist.

So there you have it: I have become a Half.com seller and an Amazon buyer. The connection between Half.com and Amazon is more than their roots in books: they are driven by simplicity and efficiency.

You'll notice that Half.com is a seasonal business (August and January) - that is because Half.com is dominant in textbooks (a really unique market considering the high costs, numerous volumes, and single-semester life-cycle). Consequently, Half's big business is done in back-to-school seasons (August is fall semester and January marks second semester).

Confessions of a Blackberry Addict - I've Moved to the iPhone 3G

About a month ago, I wrote "Why I’m Turning in my Blackberry for an iPhone 3G" and it made its way onto Techmeme. The feedback I've received via comments and emails is generally of individual contention. Like me, people are conflicted about the turning in their trusty blackberries for an iPhone. Just today, a reader turned in his new iPhone 3G for his old blackbbery:

max Says: i just returned my iphone. you cannot search, you cannot copy and paste and if you get 100+ emails a day it drives you mad.

also i travel a lot and the data usage of this phone is crazy. it downloads every attachment first, even when I forward it without reading it… the blackberry has by far the most sophisticated push system out there and it is also push for GMAIL and virtually any other pop application.

If you know me, you know that I am a blackberry addict. I have a Blackberry Curve (the fourth Blackberry version I've owned) and I can type on it nearly as fast as I can on my laptop. I know the interface inside and out. I recognized that the iPhone likely cannot replace (or come close) to my Blackberry in terms of reading and delivering emails... but my attraction it is the new App Platform - which is truly-game changing. And as someone who works in the widget space (Widgetbox), I feel awkward carrying a Blackberry and not being a part of it.

So I bought the iPhone 3G yesterday morning and, after hours of arguing with various AT&T customer support employees, I was able to keep my old phone number. Here is my quick review in rambling format:

- I was immediately struck by how fast the network is. It turns the iPhone into a truly mobile internet browser - and while the iPhone can't keep up with writing content, it makes digesting web content easy and enjoyable. Safari and multi-tabbed browsing are enough to convert me... it killed me that I couldn't open multiple browsers on the Blackberry.

- Apple's App Store is really well done... but they are going to struggle with the shopping / finding experience as inventory continues to grow. Browsing outside of the top 25 apps is just plain difficult.

- The quality of the Apps is *very* impressive. People's ability and willingness to develop innovative apps that are sometimes useful and often useless-but-fun is exactly why I moved to the iPhone. And the apps are only going to improve over time. It's obvious that some companies rushed out content (ie New York Times), but I am certain that the NYT and others will recognize the early success and improve.

- Google NEEDS to get in the game. Their hybrid web-apps for Gtalk and GMail leave me yearning for my Blackberry.

- The much-touted sensor that moves the screen from vertical to wide-screen is very funky and rarely works properly. I assume that will be fixed in a software upgrade.

- Apple's packing is elegant (expected)... but the unwillingness to include a real charger is ludicrous. The charger is cheap and really just a short USB data cable.

- I am struggling with typing, but slowly improving. My biggest complaint is that the UI makes typing symbols cumbersome and confusing. I miss the Blackberry's ability to shift and control each key.

- The contacts UI is poorly done. When you have hundreds of contacts, it's rather painful to scroll through the users / alphabet or bring up the typing box. I really miss the Blackberry's hot-keys - where you can program keys for auto-dialing. I'd love to add contacts as icons to the home screen.

- And Max is dead-on: it's unbelievable that there is no search functionality or copy / pasting. Makes zero sense.

Selfishly, I'm Glad Jason Calacanis 'Retired' From Blogging

About a week ago, web 2.0 celebrity / guru Jason Calacanis "officially" announced his retirement from blogging. Most of the blogosphere reaction was that the supposed retirement was either a hoax or a ploy to generate Mahalo buzz:

Starting today all of my thoughts will be reserved for a new medium. Something smaller, something more intimate, and something very personal: an email list. Today the email list has about 600 members, I'm going to cut it off when it reaches 750. Frankly, that's enough more than enough people to have a conversation with. I'm going to try and build a deeper relationship with fewer people--try to get back to my roots.

I found it a little strange that Jason would retire from blogging (despite remaining so active via Twitter, FriendFeed, email and so forth)... but he's really wow'ed me with the quality of content that he's published via the email DL. In a few days, he's delivered rich, thoughtful analysis and news:

- The Fallout (from the load out - How to Generate Feedback for Your Startup (three simple ideas) - How to host an amazing conference - The Dark Knight Reviewed - Quick hits: Party tonight in Santa Monica

If Jason retired in part from blogging to lighten his work load (blogging is hard work)... I think he may have to slow down on the emails. He's now delivered an article a day and each is very good and very lengthy - so he's setting some high expectations!

The "How to generate feedback for your startup" newsletter is nearly 2,000 words (though 1,000 or so are selected user comments) and there aren't many better people to learn scrappy, web 2.0 marketing tips from.

I enjoyed reading Jason's blog... but I'm selfishly enjoying these emails (and the user responses) more.

InGameNow Launches Post via Gtalk and AOL Instant Messanger

InGameNow formally launched two weeks ago - giving sports fans the ability to receive real-time scores, analysis and rumors via mobile, web and instant messenger. Today, InGameNow has launched an important new feature: the ability to post directly from GTalk and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). So if you're on the go, you can now receive and send sports alerts from your iPhone (or iPhone 3G if you're lucky!), Blackberry, and instant messenger clients.

InGameNow: Twitter for Sports

To receive InGameNow alerts via instant messenger or email:

- register at www.ingamenow.com... it's free - go to the "My Preferences" page... linked atop each page - select whether to receive alerts for your favorite teams, users and/or the entire network - insert your Gtalk or AIM user-id into the form - add "ingamenow@gmail.com" or "ingamenow" to your GTalk or AIM buddy list respectively

That's it. Now you'll never miss a score or a rumor. And you'll never have a reason not to interact with other sports fans.

The NFL is Worth More than NBA + MLB - Average Franchise Worth $960 Million!

There are 123 professional sports teams across the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. The Dallas Cowboys are worth an estimated 1.5 billion dollars - ranking #1 - and the Nashville Predators are the least valuable team at $143 million. Some very interesting takeaways came from digging into the data: - The average NFL franchise is valued at $960 million. MLB's average is $475. The NBA average is $375. And NHL's average is $200.

- One way is to read this is that the NFL is worth more than Major League Baseball plus the National Basketball Association... amazing.

- The New York Yankees are the only non-NFL franchise in the top 27. The Mets, Red Sox and Dodgers are the only other MLB franchises in the top 40.

- In the NBA, the New York Knicks are the most valuable franchise despite being horrendous for the last several years... proof that market size and hometown are the key influencer. The top four teams (Knicks, Lakers, Bulls and Pistons) are four of the most storied, winning franchises.

- Baseball has the biggest disparity from top to bottom while the NFL - a league known for its parity - is pretty flat... so the least valuable team, the Atlanta Falcons, can still be competitive. This is also interesting because the Falcons have fallen terribly after losing Michael Vick - one of the league's most marketable players.

- The Toronto Maple Leafs are the most valuable NHL franchise and rank 57th overall at $413 million. That's over two times the league average.

- The Boston Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins are worth 1.45 billion combined... less than the Dallas Cowboys.

The 50 Most Valuable Sports Franchises

Rank Team Current Value 1 ($mil) 1 Dallas Cowboys 1,500 2 Washington Redskins 1,467 3 New York Yankees 1,306 4 New England Patriots 1,199 5 Houston Texans 1,056 6 Philadelphia Eagles 1,052 7 Denver Broncos 994 8 Chicago Bears 984 9 New York Giants 974 10 Cleveland Browns 969 11 New York Jets 967 12 Baltimore Ravens 965 13 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 963 14 Kansas City Chiefs 960 15 Carolina Panthers 956 16 Miami Dolphins 942 17 Pittsburgh Steelers 929 18 Green Bay Packers 927 19 Tennessee Titans 922 20 Seattle Seahawks 921 21 Cincinnati Bengals 912 22 Indianapolis Colts 911 23 St Louis Rams 908 24 Arizona Cardinals 888 25 Detroit Lions 870 26 New Orleans Saints 854 27 San Diego Chargers 826 28 New York Mets 824 29 Buffalo Bills 821 30 Boston Red Sox 816 31 Oakland Raiders 812 32 Jacksonville Jaguars 811 33 San Francisco 49ers 799 34 Atlanta Falcons 796 35 Minnesota Vikings 782 36 Los Angeles Dodgers 694 37 Chicago Cubs 642 38 New York Knicks 608 39 Los Angeles Lakers 560 40 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 500 41 Chicago Bulls 500 42 Atlanta Braves 497 43 San Francisco Giants 494 44 St Louis Cardinals 484 45 Philadelphia Phillies 481 46 Detroit Pistons 477 47 Seattle Mariners 466 48 Houston Astros 463 49 Houston Rockets 462 50 Dallas Mavericks 461

The NBA's Most Valuable Teams

The NFL's Most Valuable Teams

The MLB's Most Valuable Teams

Get Patriots Rumors & Patriots Scores

Techmeme: Now Gadgets, Page A1. Watch Out Engadget!

Yesterday, I wrote about how Techmeme's Leaderboard is shifting dramatically and both the analysis and reader feedback suggested that the biggest risers on Techmeme have been gadget blogs - specifically Apple and mobile blogs.

Robert Scoble left a great comment:

"I think some of that is rubbing off on Techmeme, too, but really, it’s due to the lack of interesting stories. Honestly, tell me three stories that have come out in the past month that got you excited. iPhone? Yes. What else?"

Susan Mernit then chimed in:

"I’m still a techmeme fan, though I bemoan that 60% of it is device and product news that I can get elsewhere and don’t find as interesting as the more narrow world of structured and unstructured data, search, community, social media, and so on…Seeing people like Louis Gray hit the list is thrilling because my own interest is in going beyond breaking news to analysis and reflection and Louis does that so well."

So here's Techmeme's current homepage. I've shaded gadget articles in red and tech news in blue. Sure the timing (namely iPhone's recent launch) might tilt the results here, but Apple doesn't dominate the page. News from XBox, Blackberry, and Google fill up much of the homepage.

So is Techmeme, whose current tagline is "Tech Web, Page A1", becoming Techmeme: "Gadgets, Page A1"? Watch out Engadget!

Techmeme's Leaderboard is Shifting: Nearly 1/3rd of Leaderboard is New

I've analyzed Techeme's Leaderboard several times before (headlines vs. discussions, 'presence' vs. pageviews, etc) and thought it would be worthwhile to understand movement within the leaderboard.

I compared Techmeme's Leaderboard on May 14 vs. today's current Leaderboard (July 12). Techmeme ranks their top 100 blogs by "Presence", the percentage of headline space a source occupies over the 30-day period. The results are fascinating.

First, Techmeme's head has gotten less powerful. TechCrunch represented 8.05% of Techmeme's headlines on May 14th and fell to 7.55% two months later... the 7th largest gain during that period. Techmeme's top 10 sources represented 31% of all headlines two months ago and now account for 29%.

Only two of Techmeme's top 10 sources grew during that period: Silicon Alley Insider and the New York Times. In fact, five of the top ten sources saw the largest total drops:

Techcrunch (#1 on May 14, #1 on July 12): -0.49% ; seventh largest fall Wall Street Journal (#8 in May, #18 in July): -0.61%, fifth largest fall ArsTechnica (#6 in May, #8 in July): -0.79%; third largest fall Between the Lines (#9 in May, #23 in July): -0.82%; second largest fall ReadWrite Web (#4 in May, #7 in July) - 1.03% ; largest fall

Techmeme's Leaderboard ranked by biggest period-over-period change in 'presence':

Techmeme is often criticized for being too reliant on the major blogs... but their Leaderboard's shifting content providers suggests that either:

- Techmeme's algorithm is giving greater credibility to new / small sources, and/or - great content is coming from new / small blogs

Over the last two months, nearly 1/3rd of Techmeme's Leaderboard has turned over: there are 27 new blogs within Techmeme's top 100. The flip side of the argument, however, is that the largest gainers during this two month period are prominent sources and big brands:

Source / Net Gain NewTeeVee +43 Financial Times +43 San Francisco Chronicle +42 CenterNetworks +33 Tech Trader Daily +31 Download Squad +25 MacRumors +24 Infinite Loop +24 Valleywag +23 AppleInsider +22 Washington Post +22 A VC +15 Lifehacker +14 Mashable! +11 PC World +11 Apple 2.0 +10 Futuristic Play +10 Engadget +9

Techmeme's Leaderboard compared from May 14 to July 12:

Amazon Kindle is a Hit: 12% of Book Sales on Amazon, Doubled Since May

Amidst all of the discussion about the iPhone 3G that hits stores tomorrow, another industry changing gadget is getting overlooked. According to Time Magazine: "On a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12% of sales for those titles.... At a technology trade conference in May, CEO Jeff Bezos said that Kindle sales accounted for 6% of book titles sold for the Kindle and in print. So Amazon appears to be selling more e-books."

Those are big numbers. 12% of sales for books that are available in print AND on the Kindle are purchased for the Kindle - which is meaningful because:

- Best-sellers and popular titles are available on the Kindle, whereas the long tail isn't yet... meaning that the sales volume is significant

- Considering Amazon's size, 12% of purchases represents real demand and volume

- Amazon's margin on e-books (I'm assuming) is far greater than with regular books... not considering the associated revenue / value of a Kindle customer vs. a normal Amazon.com user

I had the chance to play with the Kindle over the July 4th weekend and am very impressed. The usability is fantastic. The product feels terrific and the readability really is natural. And considering that I traveled with five different books, the ability to store tens of books on a pencil-thin device is super attractive.

My only complaints are around pricing (still restrictively expensive) and its inability to either surf the web or access blog / rss content free-of-charge. I will buy a Kindle at some point - but will likely wait until the price comes down (it's already fallen to $359) and the second version comes out... until then, I'll continue to be part of the 88% who tote around books.

Great Web 2.0 Jobs: Widgetbox is Hiring Developers & Thought Leaders

Some of my most commented / read blog posts are about finding great start up jobs. The direct responses I've received through Facebook, LinkedIn and email have been really eye-opening: - Landing a great start up job - Hiring Moves Web 2.0

I have a selfish update to add on the start-up hiring front: Widgetbox is hiring... and we have some very exciting, big roles! We are looking for a few things - but most importantly smart, web-savvy thought leaders:

JAVA and DMBS developers Leaders in web technologies used in social networking and web 2.0 sites. Experts in Java, Servlets, and XML.

A young, web 2.0 whiz Someone who lives on the web, is a big thinker and understands how users interact on social networks, blogs, and widgets.

Widgetbox network overview - 70,000 unique widgets in our widget gallery - Those widgets sit on over 850,000 unique websites - Touching ~40,000,000 monthly unique users

Collectively, these stats make us the web's largest widget gallery and Quantcast's 41st largest network... giving you an opportunity to touch millions of users each day through thousands of sites, widgets and brands.

If you are interested in learning more about Widgetbox or joining the team, you can contact me directly (rspoon at gmail.com) or visiting Widgetbox's Jobs page. The best way to impress is by designing a widget, loading it onto Widgetbox and sending the URL along with your resume!