What’s New at PayPal?
PayPal has actually been in the news quite a bit over the past few weeks. Here’s a recap:
PayPal, which is a subsidiary of eBay, is hoping to avoid a cap on the fees they charge. The Federal Reserve is discussing the option of placing a cap on interchange fees – or the fee for using a debit card. Currently, merchants pay about 1 percent of the purchase, but Congress is contemplating capping that fee at somewhere between 7 and 12 cents per swipe. PayPal feels they don’t fit the traditional debit-card model and should be able to maintain their current charge rates.
Phishing continues to catch many people online as they unknowingly give away their private information. PayPal and Facebook are at the top of the list of most phished domains.
Lastly, one of PayPal’s vice presidents – Osama Bedier – is leaving for Google. He had been with the company since 2003, but will be undertaking new projects with a new company. His replacement will be PayPal employee Matthew Mangerink.
But all in all, PayPal still seems to be at the head of the online merchant industry. And even though their services were disrupted during the denial-of-service attacks surrounding Wikileaks last December, it doesn’t look like the business isn’t going anywhere.
What’s blekko?
blekko.com is one of the newest challengers to Google’s crown, and they are going straight for the jugular. Their main avenue of attack? Trying to convince the public that spam has rendered Google obsolete. To this end, they have posted a spam clock which claims to track the number of spam sites created since January 1, 2011. In case you’re wondering, the tally currently stands well over 255 million.
The folks at blekko make an excellent point – spam is a serious problem that is only getting worse. For example, according to Microsoft’s estimates, up to 90% of the emails sent through their service are spam! But is spam really crippling Google’s effectiveness? And can blekko boast better results?
The internet experts at PMI Education have their doubts. blekko’s spam counter has received a lot of press, but it suffers a major problem right out of the gate – there’s no science behind it. When blekko’s CEO proudly announced the counter on his blog, he included the caveat that, “While it is illustrative more than scientifically accurate, it is truly indicative of the soaring spam problem.” There are undoubtedly millions of spam pages being created each month, but to create a pinpoint tally device that is essentially just running on broad estimates is slightly disingenuous.
The bigger question is whether blekko can produce cleaner, more relevant results than Google. That is yet to be seen. But one thing is certain – they have no qualms telling you they can.
Google CEO to Step Down
We at Professional Marketing International know the importance of helping you keep up on industry news, and what happened yesterday could have far-reaching affects for search engine optimization.
News that Eric Schmidt will be stepping down as Google’s CEO took many by surprise, but a statement on the company’s blog explains the decision. Schmidt says they hope the restructuring at the top of the company will speed up decision making and provide “clear responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.”
Effective April 4, co-founder Larry Page will take over as CEO and Schmidt will become Google’s executive chairman. Co-founder Sergey Brin will spend his time developing new products.
The change is intended to simplify Google’s corporate leadership. Titles notwithstanding, a trio of bosses has run the company for years. Schmidt, Page and Brin collaborated on important decisions and worked together to run the company. While this setup had its advantages, it was difficult to determine who was ultimately responsible for decision making. Schmidt, Page and Brin say they will continue to consult each other on important decisions but hope the restructuring will help the company run more smoothly.
Schmidt oversaw Google’s incredible growth from an $86 million company when he joined in 2001 to a $30 billion enterprise in 2010. As Page said in a statement, “There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly.”
Business savvy notwithstanding, Schmidt was known for his […]
