It took a little under two weeks, Griff has been found! Several members have finally figured out where he was hidden in our Hail Mary TV ad (granted, it was NOT easy!). After receiving hundreds and hundreds of guesses, including scores from people who thought he was the ref, or the one knocking the vase out of another buyer's hands, a disturbingly high number from people who thought he was a cheerleader, several folks who guessed he was wearing a red-haired wig, and one gentleman who claimed "I found Cliff," I'm pleased to announce that celtic713 has emerged victorious as the first one to correctly identify Griff! They'll be receiving the much-coveted Griff-signed Shop Victoriously piece of memorabilia.
But soon after we got celtic713's answer, the floodgates really opened - several more correct responses followed within the next 24 hours. That's either a remarkable coincidence, some great teamwork, or a sign we ran that commercial a lot over that time period.
Due to the toughness of the contest, I would be remiss if I didn't at least acknowledge the others who sent in correct answers right around the same time: katiedoo, bdubb2003, rob4673, beachbadge, cjwang2, snow69angel, golfingaddict, and xtremecobra. Nicely done! And for those who never quite pinpointed where he was hiding, check out the screen capture at the bottom of this post - as you can see, he was in a specific spot posing as a photographer.
Finally, an Honorable Mention award goes to guitdrive, who correctly identified where Griff was....in the wrong commercial! He's also hidden in our State Fair ad, which just recently hit the airwaves. He's a lot more obvious in this one, however, so we thought we'd better stick to the Hail Mary ad for this game. But check it out underneath the screenshot and see if you can find him (no prize this time though, unfortunately).
My colleague Brian'scockiness backfired on him last week, as not only did the Community Fantasy Football team run wild last weeked, but his team put up one of the worst performances of the season. The result? A 117-49 drubbing that gets the Chatter team into the Win column. Now we've got to build on that momentum by knocking off the Goon Squad, run by Mike, a devout Pittsburgh Steelers fan in our Human Resources department. His team will be missing a few players due to bye weeks, but he still could put up a sneaky lineup consisting of QB Joey Harrington, RB Thomas Jones, RB DeShaun Foster, WR Deion Branch, WR Santonio Holmes, WR Arnaz Battle, TE Antonio Gates, K Nate Kaeding, and the Chicago Bears D. As always, we need YOUR help to decide who should play against him.
Unfortunately, the Chatter team is a little banged up, having lost top RB Steven Jackson for at least a game. That means that WR TJ Houshmandzadeh and RB Julius Jones will be starting for sure, but we need your votes to pick who will start at QB, and fill out the other RB and WR spots. TE Jason Witten, K Jason Hanson, and the Dallas Cowboys D will fill out our lineup. Just check out the polls on the right-hand side of the Chatter Blog discussion board to vote (use the More Polls link to access all of them), and help us beat up the Goon Squad!
Seven habits may be great for highly effective people, but seven steps just to pay for your eBay purchase hardly seems effective—or efficient.
Vamsee and her team didn’t think so either. So rather than seven, paying for your eBay purchase will soon take just three steps:
-First, you review your purchase. Ah, feel those Windorphins flow! You won! You can quickly pay multiple sellers at once.
-Next, pick your payment method. Of course, we highly recommend using PayPal because you don’t have to reveal any of your financial information (credit card number or bank account number) to the seller. And now you can sign in to PayPal right here on the screen if you don't already have an account.
-Last, confirm your payment. If you paid with PayPal, your money is then transferred to the seller as quickly as possible, which helps get your stuff to you faster!
I've been in touch with our operations and security teams, and I have more information I can share with you about yesterday's incident on the Trust & Safety discussion forum. In brief, very early yesterday morning, a fraudster posted contact information and alleged credit card numbers for about 1,200 members on our Trust & Safety discussion forum on eBay.com.
While the issue was very unfortunate, it was clearly falsified to cause public concern. Early on eBay's teams verified that the credit card "data" did not match anything on file for these members on eBay or PayPal. After more investigation, including phone conversations with many of the members, it appears that these numbers were not valid at all.
Each of these accounts was the victim of an Account Take Over, most likely through a successful phishing campaign. eBay has been in contact by phone with many of these members, and there is a My Messages email going out to impacted accounts to further our reach.
This incident underscores the need for all of us to take proper safety precautions while we're on the internet. As a reminder, eBay and PayPal will never send an email to you that asks for a response that is not also in My Messages. Before responding to an email that appears to be from eBay or PayPal, check My Messages first. When in doubt about the authenticity of an email, send to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com.
Some of our readers may have learned of an issue that occurred early this morning on one of our discussion forums. I've been talking with our Account Security and Legal teams, and I'd like to share some more details about this incident.
Very early this morning, a malicious fraudster posted on the Trust & Safety forum on eBay.com posing as approximately 1,200 eBay users. The fraudster made these posts in a way that was intended to appear as though he logged in with their accounts. The posts contained name and contact information, which appears to be valid, and could have been secured as part of an account take over.
The posts ALSO appeared to contain credit card information -- however, these credit cards are not associated with financial information on file for these users at eBay or PayPal. We're in the process of reaching out by phone to these members to, so that if the information is valid somehow -- regardless how this fraudster acquired the information -- these members can take the steps they need to take to protect themselves.
eBay and our forums vendor, LiveWorld, began taking steps to remedy the situation within an hour after it started. As things evolved behind the scenes, a decision was made to make the the Trust & Safety forum unavailable to our Community. It's still temporarily inaccessible, as the teams work on this issue.
I'll update this story later as we have more to share.
Don't miss today's Town Hall with Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America, from 2:00 pm to 3:30 PM (Pacific Time). Bill and the Town Hall panel will be taking questions live from the eBay Community during this time. If you have any questions, you can call them in via our toll-free number (877-474-3302) or by email (TownHall@ebay.com).
I'll posting pictures of the Town Hall here as it unfolds this afternoon. Just keep refreshing this blog post with your browser to see the latest pictures. Hope to "see" you there!
Here's the Town Hall panel prepping, a few minutes before we're on the air: In the foreground, talking to Griff (our emcee) and Bill Cobb are Rachel Makool, Sr. Director, Community Development, and Steve Hartman, who you may remember from this morning's announcement.
It turns out that a lot of people want to find Griff! We've received hundreds of responses to the "Where's Griff?" game so far, and most have figured out he's somewhere in the Hail Mary spot, but no one has correctly identified where exactly he is. There have been a few that have been close, but no cigar just yet.
One tip: when you guess, tell us where he is, what he's wearing, and what he's doing in full detail. A few answers have been pretty vague, and we can't name a winner unless we're sure you've found him. But once you have, send us a note to chatterblog@ebay.com to win a Shop Victoriously item signed by Griff himself.
Oh - one more thing. I want to acknowledge some of the responses that have made us laugh out loud in the office:
"Griff is the broad-shouldered lady in the black wig (which covers his beard)."
"Griff is the red-headed lady behind the man in the cream suit." [Jeff note: is there a theme here?]
"He's joined the Cincinnati Reds, and he's terrible! Get him out of there so the real [Ken] Griffey, Jr. can get back in there."
I also thought it was great that one member sent us the link to Griff's profile from his book. Very creative.
One last note: all the commercials we've released so far are now available right here - check them out!
Ok, the Community Fantasy team, much like it's embattled quarterback, isn't quite performing up to expectations so far. After the Rachel9ers (Head of Community Development Rachel Makool's team) waxed the floor with us last week, we're 0-2. And this week's opponent is already getting cocky. You're up against our very own Brian, who said to me yesterday, "This week's Spotlight will be on how badly my squad crushes the blog team."
The eBay employees at our Vancouver Customer Support centre work 24/7 to support eBay members around the world in a number of areas. In order to give them a break and the chance to have a little fun now and then, we like to get a little creative. One annual event that is a crowd pleaser year after year for the Vancouver employees is our very own EBAYZING RACE!
No doubt you've heard of the popular reality TV show, The Amazing Race. Well, the eBayzing Race is basically a quirkier and more environmentally-friendly version of the hit show. This year was our third annual eBayzing Race and it has been touted as the biggest and best ever. Over 100 eBay employees clad in their brightest and best eBay colours raced against the clock to complete challenges throughout the city of Vancouver. Employees used environmentlaly-friendly modes of transportation to get around - they walked, ran, cycled and took public transportation all over the city in order to complete their tasks.
Along the way they were faced with 5 "roadblocks" at which they had to do everything from eat a lemon meringue pie with no utensils, play an impossible game of downhill bocce ball, make their way down a gigantic yellow waterslide, and much more. As you can imagine, things got pretty wild!
We've gotten a lot of great responses to our "Where's Griff?" question. People have figured out he's hidden in the Hail Mary commercial somewhere, but we haven't had anyone give the right answer yet. I will say it's not super-obvious, so it's not that big a surprise that no one's found him yet. Remember, the first person who sends us an email at chatterblog@ebay.com with his exact location (please be as specific as possible in your description - being overly vague is not a path to victory) will win eternal glory on this blog, and a Shop Victoriously item signed by Griff himself - once we get him safely back in the office, that is.
However, I did have to print my favorite response so far: "Just wanted to know who this Griff is? And why would anyone want his autograph?" That's the first one I'll be showing Griff upon his return.
In the meantime, another of our commercials, titled Fox Hunt, has been released. Check out the Evel-ness of it below. Enjoy!
You've been reading about sneak peek on the Chatter for months....now the media is starting to notice, too. Check out this BusinessWeek article which I thought was a fairly balanced look at what we're all working on
If you were watching football this weekend (or if you're like me, watching football all weekend), hopefully you saw the ads for our new Shop Victoriously ad campaign. Gary Briggs, the head of our marketing team, unveiled our spot called Dog Race last Friday, and another one called Hail Mary made its first appearance on Sunday. But if you missed it, don't despair - just scroll down to watch the 15 second version below.
More importantly, Griff is still missing! A few folks figured out that the Hail Mary spot has something to do with it, but we need to know exactly where he is. First one to get it right by sending us an email at chatterblog@ebay.com gets a Shop Victoriously item autographed by Griff!
As many of you may know, our very own Griff is often trotting the globe from one eBay adventure to another, and he's been lucky enough to see many of you on the road and at various events. Well, I wanted to let you in on a little secret: starting this weekend, Griff is going to be hiding out at a football game! That's right, he'll be right there in the gridiron action as it unfolds. The question is...can you spot him? If you can find him before anyone else, you'll receive an eBay item autographed by, well, Griff of course! Can't you just feel the Windorphins coursing through your veins already?
If you think you've found him, send an e-mail to chatterblog@ebay.com. The first person to correctly find him shall be victorious! We won't be able to respond to all those emails, but will publish the victor's response here on the blog, so check back often. Good luck, and enjoy the football game!
Do you have a winning eBay story? Not only do we want to hear about it for our Member Spotlight, but the eBay Story Tour wants to meet you too! Our PR team is touring the country over the next few weeks and is looking for members to share their story on camera. So if you've got a tale about finding a lost childhood item, achieving financial freedom, scoring that perfect engagement ring for your beloved, or just about any other fantastic eBay story (and you live in one of the cities below), come on out! You might even get an eBay T-shirt or Gift Certificate for your trouble.
The Story Tour will be waiting for you from 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific in the following areas:
-Sept. 15-16: Chicago, Illinois. DO Division Street Fest, on Division Street between Wood and Marshall.
-Sept. 22-23: Los Angeles, CA. Stay tuned for the exact location.
-Sept. 28-29: Morrow, Ohio. Country Living Fair at The Workshops of David T. Smith, 3600 Shawhan Road. This is a special engagement - we're looking for tales of rare finds or the start of your collection. Bring the actual item with you and show it off!
-Oct. 6-7: Miami, FL. Stay tuned for the exact location.
And if you need more info, shoot off an email to ebaystorytour@kaplowpr.com.
Ok, so the Community squad is 0-1. No big deal - just help it even that record out by beating Community Development head Rachel Makool's team this weekend! Vote today for who should start by visiting the polls on the right hand side of our Chatter blog discussion board - click "More Polls" after you're done with the QB vote. The Rachel9ers (can you tell what team she cheers for?) are pretty solid, but I know you can do it.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?
Given my recent “People” post, you might think I’m nostalgic for old songs. :-) Well, sometimes they’re just the perfect way to capture a sentiment. I loved watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood because his was a neighborhood that was always interesting: It was vibrant, and he had cool guests in his neighborhood who shared new things with me. Of course I wanted to be his neighbor!
That’s exactly the sentiment behind Neighborhoods. They are ideal micro-communities: groups of people centered around a shared passion for particular products or activities. They’re vibrant and interesting because the people who join them want to share new things with each other. In addition to discussion boards, Neighborhoods show you snapshot views of related products - for example, the Harrison Ford neighborhood might show listings for Star Wars or Indiana Jones. They also pull in related reviews, guides, and blog posts. And my favorite: Neighborhood members can vote on pictures submitted by other members.
Watch Nathan Sacco in this video and he’ll tell you more. ...Don’t you think he’d look good in a red sweater?!
1st place winner (of a Sony PSP3) was the iPhone My Ebay application by SilkSystem Solutions.
Search, Watch, and Bid from your iPhone. I thas a customized interface for the iPhone while leveraging key features such as page transitions, number pad-pop up, etc.
2nd place winner (of an 80 GB Apple iPod Video) was the Vista sidebar tool by Intelligroup Ltd.
It provides notifications, at-a-glance information for your watching, bidding and selling lists, as well as feedback score and more from your Vista sidebar.
3rd Place winner (of an 8 GB Apple iPod Nano) was the My eBay Quickfeed for iGoogle by vallaeys from Top Tier Inc.
It features an RSS feed for iGoogle that automatically syncs with eBay to always show you the most up-to-date information about items you are watching, selling or bidding on, and lets you add a saved search.
eBay Auction Watch allows you to track and bid on eBay auctions directly from your Windows Vista Sidebar. Integrated with your My eBay Bidding and Watching lists, details are updated automatically and seconds count down in real time.
Some readers may have heard about an eBay Checkout/PayPal glitch. We've seen a few posts on the forums, and Ina Steiner has written about the issue today in Auctionbytes.
To clarify -- this recent glitch is causing a very small number of purchases to appear to sellers with the wrong ship-to information. If buyers notice this while they are completing checkout, they can contact the seller to let them know. Our Customer Support team has posted a message that appears in our Contact Us flow under "View and Report Site Issues."
The good news is that the PayPal engineer working on this said that it will be fixed tonight. Also, one helpful tidbit from the engineer working on this issue at PayPal that I wanted to pass along: The issue does not happen if you use PayPal's Shipping tools.
A few posters have noted that a similar issue has been reported before. I found out that's true, but these situations are unrelated. There has been a very rare situation that impacts an infinitesimal number of transactions. In these cases, though, the buyer doesn't see the error at all on their end. This happens only in very, very rare corner cases. It is being fixed, as well, but in a longer term project.
That puts a bit of a pinch on the roster, but never fear! That's the beauty of fantasy football - you get to start over again next week. And who's our opponent this week? None other than Rachel Makool - diehard 49ers fan (her team name is Rachel9ers) and head of Community Development. Check out the polls on the discussion board to figure out our QB, and our RBs and WRs help send her to 0-2!
I hope you're having a great Monday! I'm back with our latest Member Spotlight. In case you're new to the Chatter, or if you need a refresher about the Member Spotlight, the goal is to highlight members who have unique, interesting, or inspiring eBay stories.
We're once again using video to bring you the fantastic story in this week's Member Spotlight. To be featured, you can record your own video and host it Youtube and send the URL or video link to one of the email addresses I mentioned above (or you can send us regular old text as well - we're not too picky). So send those on in!
Watch msmoneydoctor in the Member Spotlight now!
Today we focus on msmoneydoctor, a Registered Nurse who describes herself as "eBay obsessed." In fact, she is so obsessed that she plans retire from nursing after a fantastic 20 year career to focus her efforts on being a full time eBay seller.
msmoneydoctor has also shared her eBay selling knowledge with her nursing colleagues so they can use it to supplement their income. She explains in the video that some of her students have gone on to become full time eBay sellers, leaving the nursing industry all together.
We're pleased to shine the eBay Member Spotlight on msmoneydoctor this week. Enjoy the video!
I love buying things on eBay. To spend a moment here and there looking around to see what's new and what's cool--ah! Place a bid. Buy It Now. It's both easy and fun.
I love selling on eBay, too. In fact, nearly half of my 860+ feedback is from selling and I think it's quite fun to watch that money come in to my PayPal account! But if you're a casual seller like me, I'm sure you'll agree that selling is not something you can do in just a moment here and there--right? Guess again!
Give a listen to this video by Mike Maffeo, one of our product managers on the Selling team. Very soon - if you want to - you'll be able to list with a one-page form, needing only to fill in the fields associated with the most common options. We pre-fill many fields for you (such as setting your auction starting price at $0.99), but if you don't like the way we fill in the blanks, you can easily change them.
Now, this is totally your choice. You can continue to list with the standard Sell Your Item form if you'd like. In fact, for many sellers, Sell Your Item will remain the listing form of choice since it makes all features available to you. But if "a quicker and easier way to list" is a phrase that catches your attention, try out our simplified listing form. We've actually already launched this on a few of our international sites, and you can read some of the impressions in Tamebay, a blog that closely monitors what we're up to.
We're going to roll this out slowly, so only about 40-50% of sellers might see this option at first. We're then looking to make it available to all sellers roughly a month later. To find it once it's available, click Sell in the header of any eBay page, just as you usually do, then select "list with popular options."
With the Colts and Saints tilt in the books, the NFL season is underway! And so is the Community's fantasy football team's season. Read my previous post for the full details, but in a nutshell, I drafted a team in our work fantasy football league that would be "managed" (for the most part) by member voting. You tell us who should play, we follow your directions, and the Community team runs to victory - again, except when you're playing my team (hopefully). So thanks for voting, and check back each week to help us run the team!
Your first opponent this season is run by a nice guy named George in our Human Resources department. Well, you know what they say about nice guys - and you're going to help him finish last! His roster is subject to change at his whim, but this is the likely lineup that'll be facing off again the Community team: QB Matt Hasselbeck (Seattle), RB Joseph Addai (Indy, who racked up an impressive 19 points last night), RB Clinton Portis (Washington), WR Andre Johnson (Houston), WR Darrell Jackson (SF), WR Mark Clayton (Baltimore), TE Kellen Winslow (Cleveland), K Shayne Graham (Cincinnati), and the Pittsburgh Steelers' defense.
Recently, we at eBay honored one of our own in the 2nd Annual Bob Hebeler “TRY”athlon. If you’ve never heard of a TRYathlon, that’s not surprising! It’s a clever name for encouraging people to walk, run or cycle, regardless of athletic ability. We did this in honor of our friend and colleague, Bob Hebeler, who died last August in a cycling accident. Bob was a genuine, kind family man, an avid triathlete, and a great leader. Bob also actively bought and sold on eBay and was quite passionate about the eBay Community. Bob's postive impact on the world around him and on eBay is as evident now as it was a year ago.
Over 100 people gathered at the eBay campus, laced up our shoes (or dusted them off, in some cases), and walked, biked or ran about 5 miles to a local park for a barbeque lunch with Bob’s wife, Marie. A memory book packed with photos and stories of Bob’s eBay life was given to his family, and many more memories were shared among the TRYathletes. Contributions were accepted for the Hebeler Foundation, a non-profit organization which will support challenged athletes in memory of Bob.
Bob was an inspiration to so many of us who were lucky enough to work with him and know him. He had a deep passion for his family and was one of eBay’s great leaders in countless ways. Tending to some aching feet was a small price to pay to honor such a wonderful person, colleague and friend. Here's to you, Bob!
Since we featured Amit's video, I’ve seen a few comments from sellers thinking they can’t offer regular shipping options (those by mail) while simultaneously offering local pickup/delivery. So I went to Amit to get the straight scoop. Here's his response:
"Yes, you can! Sellers who use flat-rate shipping currently can select one or more shipping options, AND offer local pickup or delivery. While listing an item, in the Domestic Shipping section, select “Flat: same cost to all buyers," and then in the list of services, select "Local Pickup" and/or “Local Delivery” which is at the bottom of the shipping services list.
We’re looking to add the Local Pickup capability to the Calculated Shipping flow as well later this year.
Of course, if you only want to offer Local Pickup, just select the "No shipping: Local Pickup only" option.
It's September, so what does that mean? Besides back-to-school, the weather starting to turn, and Halloween ads already appearing everywhere? It's football season! More importantly, it's FANTASY football season, of which I am a self-admitted junkie. So lately I've been looking for a way to combine my love of writing for the blog with my love of fantasy football (feeling like the guy trying to figure out the exact right combo of peanut butter and chocolate for the first Reese's cups), and I've decided to try out a crazy experiment.
For the past few seasons, I've organized an informal 12-team fantasy football league amongst several of the sports fans in the office. It's just for bragging rights, and brag we do. But this year I introduced a twist. At our draft (held late last week), I drafted my own team, but also a Community team that will be run mainly by readers of the Chatter blog. That's right - YOU! Each week, I'll put up polls on our Chatter discussion board asking everyone for who should start at each position. Where it makes sense, that is - no reason to ask who should start at kicker when there's only one on the roster, for example. Help me prove that the Community knows best (and beat the pants off some eBay employees while doing so). Just take it easy when it comes time to play my own team.
Here's the league setup, which is pretty basic: you play 1 Quarterback, 2 Running Backs, 3 Wide Receivers, 1 Tight End, 1 Kicker, and 1 team Defense.
You get 6 points for a TD (passing, running, or receiving), 1 point for every 25 yards throwing or 10 yards rushing/receiving, -3 for a turnover, and 2 for a two-point conversion. Kickers get 3 for every field goal (4 if it's 50+ yards), and 1 for each extra point. The points for your defense is too complicated to list here without making a big mess, but you get points for sacks, turnovers, and how many points you allow.
After the draft, here's the roster the Community ended up with:
Obviously my TE, K and D choices are easy (at least for the time being), but I'll need YOUR help for QB, WR and RB. I'll be checking the polls late each week to see who's leading, and make the lineup decisions accordingly. To vote, just visit the board, and look for the poll on the right-hand side. After you've voted in one, click the "More Polls" link to see the others. To simplify things a little, I've decided that RB Steven Jackson of the Rams and WR T.J. Houshmanzadeh of the Bengals will be starting for sure, so you'll be voting on everyone else.
One more wrinkle - this week the Colts/Saints play on Thursday, so if Devery Henderson of the Saints is a leading vote-getter by Thursday I'll put him in. I'll also try to post the other team's lineup near the e
Live help
It took a little under two weeks, Griff has been found! Several members have finally figured out 
where he was hidden in our Hail Mary TV ad (granted, it was NOT easy!). After receiving hundreds and hundreds of guesses, including scores from people who thought he was the ref, or the one knocking the vase out of another buyer's hands, a disturbingly high number from people who thought he was a cheerleader, several folks who guessed he was wearing a red-haired wig, and one gentleman who claimed "I found Cliff," I'm pleased to announce that celtic713 has emerged victorious as the first one to correctly identify Griff! They'll be receiving the much-coveted Griff-signed Shop Victoriously piece of memorabilia. 
