Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Cyber Monday into resolution Tuesday? Not quite, despite the public “mea culpa” offered by Rich Riley, SVP, Online Channel Division, Yahoo!

Yahoo’s blog apology to the thousands of small business merchant Websites and stores left stranded on the premiere online holiday shopping day due to a 12 hour outage of Yahoo’s Web services does little to redress the damages suffered by Yahoo merchant customers.

Yahoo on “Here’s what happened”:

• On Monday at 6:00AM PT, the systems that power our merchant stores experienced outages, and shoppers of those stores were met with either error messages or they were unable to complete the checkout process.
• These issues lasted until about 1:00PM PT when, despite slow performance, transactions began going through at a much higher rate.
• By 6:00 PM PT things were back to normal and the performance of our systems was at 100%.

We deeply regret the inconvenience this caused to both our merchants and their shoppers. Our customers’ expectations were not met, nor were our own. And we are moving mountains inside Yahoo! to find out why and how this happened, and to take steps to try to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

As for the future, rest assured that we are taking the necessary steps to prepare for the peak holiday selling season. We have technical and customer relations staff mobilized and ready to support our partners.

Yahoo small business case closed? Not for savvy Yahoo customers who will undoubtedly hold Yahoo accountable for delivering on its service promise of ”Consistent 99.9% uptime.”

Yahoo also promises “24/7 toll-free phone support” in its product specs. The Yahoo Terms Of Service is not so promising, however:

Yahoo! reserves the right to establish limitations on the extent of any support provided for the Service, and the hours at which it is available.

Yahoo assures now nevertheless:

At Yahoo! Small Business we know that our success and our customers’ success are interdependent, and yesterday’s issue reminds us that we need to continue to work even harder in the future.

Small businesses that missed out on big business Cyber Monday due to Yahoo’s non-performance would undoubtedly be more assured if Yahoo worked to provide 99.9% service credits instead of simply promising to “work harder.”

MORE: Intuit’s New Homestead: Local Advertising Revolution, or Evolution?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Despite the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business assertions, Google has NOT stumbled. The University strives to dazzle, though, with its scientific sounding “American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI).”

ASCI head, professor Claes Fornell, not only declares with certainty that the number one search engine has “stumbled,” but that when Detroit “makes more cars, chances are quality is going to slip.” Such are the facile, declaratory generalizations ASCI announces as objective fact in “unveiling” its “consumer satisfaction” pronouncements.

SCI “measures” a different set of industries each quarter; This quarter, e-business was up at bat.

I spoke with Larry Freed, CEO ForeSee Results, the for profit corporation that produces the Index on the University’s behalf, in February, when e-commerce was the focus and discussed the ASCI methodology with him.

The University claims ASCI is a “national economic indicator.” Hardly, though. American Customer Satisfaction Index brought to you by the University of Michigan certainly sounds impressive, but the methodology is not.

At its core, ASCI defintive characterizations about individual companies—such as Google stumbles–are based off of 250 vague, subjective telephone questionnaires. The sample size is miniscule and the “inputs” are inconclusive and convoluted.

The indices (shown in the diagram above) are multivariable components measured by several questions that are weighted within the model. The questions assess customer evaluations of the determinants of each index. Indices are reported on a 0 to 100 scale. The survey and modeling methodology quantifies the strength of the effect of the index on the left to the one to which the arrow points on the right. These arrows represent “impacts.” The ACSI model is self-weighting to maximize the explanation of customer satisfaction (ACSI) on customer loyalty.

So, what do the ASCI Yahoo vs. Ask vs. Google numbers mean? Whatever Freed and Fornell say they do.

According to Freed and Fornell: Google’s consistent sparesness is a negative, as Ask and Yahoo change.

Google will say otherwise, and its market share and earnings numbers do as well: Number one, and counting!

Subjective numbers also say so, such as the Millward Brown Brandz ranking: Google crowned the 2007 number one most powerful and valuable brand.

PLUS: Google vs. Wal-Mart in Electronic Health Record Battle for Consumers and Google Health vs. Microsoft Healthcare: Medical Technology Smackdown

PLUS: Google Apps Packs It Up: StarOffice On Microsoft Desktop Rules and Facebook Meets iPhone: Cool, But STILL Closed

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Who says who needs MySpace? Not Hearst Corp. In acquiring Kaboodle, Hearst Interactive Media president Kenneth Bronfin looks to MySpace for inspiration (not Facebook):

Kaboodle is a rapidly growing business in a distictive and fascinating space. We are delighted to becoame a significant player in the social shopping space and believe that Kaboodle will bring to social shopping what MySpace has brought to social media.

What is the “heart” of Kaboodle? “A fun and engaging community of people who love to shop,” so believes Kaboodle founder & CEO Manish Chandra. he looks to Hearst for “premier content” and “deep media and advertising relationships” in building out a “premier social shopping platform.”

Cathleen Black on how Hearst Magazines will support the Kaboodle build out: “Our readers will be able to find the products featured in our magazines, shop electronically with their friends and get their feedback.”

The Wall Street Journal on Hearst’s future Kaboodle plans:

Hearst says it is likely to build pages on Kaboodle featuring products from many of its 19 U.S. magazine titles, such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, aiming to generate buzz around the magazines by allowing shoppers to sound off about the products they feature online. It wants to develop Kaboodle into a larger independent lifestyle site by linking it with deep-pocketed advertisers and editorial content.

The business newspaper of “record,” WSJ, says Hearst wants to “feature products from many of its magazines” and link “deep-pocketed advertisers and editorial content.”

Where will Hearst editorial stop and/or begin? Are “products featured” by Hearst, now in its magazines, soon at Kaboodle, editorial recommendations or paid product placements? Will “social shoppers” know the difference? Will Hearst take a commissison on editorial product “features” that are linked with “deep-pocketed advertisers” for ecommerce?

Shopping magazine editorial is already often a seeming compilation of corporate PR fueld covert product placements.

Conde Nast’s “mission statement” for Lucky Magazine:

Lucky is America’s ultimate shopping and style magazine. The best to buy in fashion, beauty and living. The voice of a friend you love to take shopping. Choices, not dictates. Price points ranging from high to low. Buying info for every item featured.

Lucky magazine online drives traffic to Conde Nast’s “Direct to You,” which Hearst undoubtedly evaluated while evaluating Kaboodle. “Exclusive shopping opportunities brought to you by Conde Nast Publications,” is the tag line:

Direct to You is a unique online marketplace that offers exclusive promotions you won’t find anywhere else.

REALLY? The “Careers & Education” Marketplace “from the publishers of Glamour, Teen Vogue & Bon Appetit, for example, is apparently little more than a compilation of paid links to third-party Websites. No Conde Nast advertorial disclaimer is apparent, though.

Conde Nast’s “Direct to You” also lets readers “sound off about the products they feature,” as Hearst intends to do with the Kaboodle destination.

Beware social shoppers: Editorial ecommerce blooms.

ALSO: Dabble DB Kedrosky VC Lesson: Business Model Required and Spock vs. Facebook People Search Smackdown

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Buy.com announces a three-way with Facebook and eBay, aiming to usurp eBay personal selling leadership.

Dubbed “Garage Sale,” Buy.com heralds it is “putting Internet selling power in the hands of consumers” via ecommerce capability embedded within personal profile pages on social networking sites.”

First up, Facebook.:

For the first time ever, goods can be bought directly on the profile page, and purchasers never have to leave the page to complete the purchase transaction. With Garage Sale, consumers no longer need to pay listing charges associated with online auction sites, and they can take advantage of significantly lower individual transaction fees.

The Garage Sale capability is currently available to Facebook users, and Buy.com plans to roll out the service to users on other online social networks shortly. Facebook users simply add the Garage Sale feature from Facebook’s application suite and upload product information and photos to begin selling on their personal profile pages using Garage Sale’s secure transaction capability.

Buy.Com CEO Neel Grover on the opportunity: “We see tremendous growth opportunities in providing the millions of users on business and social networks with an alternative to eBay, and the ability to transform their personal profile pages beyond information-sharing.”

In good Web 2.0 coopetition fashion, Buy.com needs eBay to compete with it, though: Widely used eBay’s PayPal will help power payment processing.

Facebook has some big, bad coopetition issues of its own, with the arrival of Garage Sale on Facebooker profiles. The Buy.com personal selling meets social networking venture is but the latest individual commercial option available within Facebook, following a recent string of conflicting Facebook social selling initiatives including Oodle Classifieds Group on Facebook and Facebook’s own “Facebook Marketplace.”

Upon the launch of “Facebook Marketplace,” I underscored that by not committing to a single, unified personal selling offering, Facebook not only dilutes its own position in the marketplace, it fragments Facebook users’ commercial demand.

The “Facebook Marketplace,” according to Facebook:

Make it easy for people who share real-life connections to discover listings and sell items among friends and within their networks. Marketplace is about individuals selling or seeking items within Facebook networks.

The Facebook embedded Buy.com “Garage Sale,” according to Gene Alvarez, Gartner:

Anyone who has ever asked a friend if they knew someone who would buy their stuff understands the power of that sales model. when you add the Internet’s community, collaboration and sales capabilities, we will see yet another transformation of e-commerce and the dawn of online social selling.

Mark Zuckerberg dismissed any need to directly monetize “Facebook Marketplace” when it launched; He also dismissed any need for Facebook to share in any monetization achieved by third-party applications in Facebook, when the F8 platform launched.

Facebook is apparently succeeding in NOT making money off of Facebooker selling via Facebook; Buy.com will pocket a 5% sales commission, though.

PLUS: Facebook Profile Hijacked: Beware the Dangerous OPEN Social Graph and Perfect Online Newspaper Storm: Digital Ads Explode, Pay Wall Implodes

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

There is something fishy going on in the matter of Google and ”Jackson Fish Market,” an online applications and design venture formed by three Microsoft veterans.

“When three ex-MSFTies partner,” it may be beautiful, as Long Zheng headlines at his blog, BUT he also has words of caution.

In discussing the launch of a virtual flower gifting site developed by the former Microsoft trio’s “Jackson Fish Market,” self-described as “handcrafted software experiences,” Zheng warns readers: “If you still think they’re selling fresh seafoods, please stop reading this blog immediately.”

REALLY? Zheng ought to be cautioning his own advertising partner: Google. In fact, according to his logic, he should stop enabling the serving of Google AdSense at his blog immediately.

WHY? Because Google “still thinks” the three Microsoft veterans are “selling fresh seafood,” even though they are giving away artificial flowers!

Zheng’s AdSense “Ads by Google,” served up besides his definitive this is no fishy ex-Microsoft matter, are hawking “fresh seafood” and assorted fish paraphernalia, in all their smelly glory:

Fresh Seafood For Sale: Looking for fresh seafood at cost. Lobsters, Clams, Fish

Fish Market Scales: Save up to 25% on a retail scale.

Freash Seafood Shipped: Delicious fourmet seafood dinners.

Wholsesale Seafood: $100 off your first order.

Google is NOT delivering on its AdSense promise:

AdSense for content automatically crawls the content of your pages and delivers ads (you can choose both text or image ads) that are relevant to your audience and your site content—ads so well-matched, in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful.

Zheng’s reader’s apparently do not define “useful” in the same way that Google does.

ALSO: Google Buys Postini PLUS 500 million Email Secrets and Startup Weekend Fever: Creative Destruction NOT On Agenda

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

eBay Kijiji aims to impact the entire online classifieds market in the U.S., not just Craigslist.

Classifieds aggregator Oodle wants to aggregate everyone’s online classifieds listings, including Kijiji and Craigslist.

WHAT IS OODLE’S REACTION TO EBAY KIJIJI LAUNCHING IN THE UNITED STATES?

I asked Oodle CEO Craig Donato to find out. Below is our Q & A.

DB: Do you already work with Kijiji outside of the U.S.? For example, Kijiji is very strong in Canada and Oodle just launched in Canada.

DONATO: In the U.K., Oodle includes Gumtree listings, which is the local Kijiji brand, and Kijiji in Canada. We’re hopeful that we can work with them in the U.S. but we haven’t yet started to do so.

DB: How does Kijiji launching in the U.S. impact Oodle?

DONATO: It’s great for consumers and it’s great for Oodle. Providing consumers with choice is alays a good thing. And consumers are increasingly getting more options to post free classifieds listings. Obviously as consumers use more and different marjetplaces, Oodle becomes more useful. It’s also important to note that consumers don’t publish listings directly into Oodle. As a search engine, it is our goal to partner with all the classifieds marketplaces on the Internet, big and small, local and national.

DB: Oodle seeks to be the leading classifieds site in the U.S. Oodlefieds site in the U.S. Oodle aggregates 75, 000 sources for its 20 million listings monthly. Craigslist alone represents the same number of listings monthly. Can any company, even eBay, dethrone Craigslist?

DONATO: Yes, we’re already doing a great job without Craiglsist. First off, the market for Classifieds listings is more fragmented than most people realize. Consumers can usually find more listings through Oodle than through Craigslist. In certain metros, where Craigslist is very popular, the numbers are closer, especially in the merchandise category, where they are very strong. But even when you look across the Bay Area, Craigslist’s bigggest market, oodle has more than twice the number of car and apartment listings.

Second, Oodle provides a wide range of tools–alerts, pricing guides, fraud detection–to help consumers find the reigh lsitings in the right marketplace.

With repsect to Kijiji, I do believe ebay can be successful. Unlike an auction, where you have to choose one venue to list your item, it makes sense for consumers to publish thier clasifieds in multiple places, epsecially ehen they are easy to use and free. So there’s no reason for consumers to not publish their lsitings in both Kijiji and Craigslist.

DB: Can Oodle be a leader in the classifieds industry without access to Craigslist listings? Is Craigslist a “walled garden”?

DONATO: Oodle can be a leader by best serving the needs of consumers trying to buy, or rent, things through classifieds. Consumers find great deals though classifieds, but its typically a painful and time consuming experience. We can lead by providing great tools that simplify the shopping experience and by partnering with clasified marketplaces across the Internet.

For example, when you’re looking for a used car, it’s great to go to one place to help you see al the local listings in your area. Our pricing guides help you figure out what’s a good price to pay and how often deals at the price pop up; If you tell Oodle what model you’re looking for, we’ll email you when one is posted.

Craigslist a walled garden? Yes, I guess you could say trhey are acting like one. They are putting up a wall between the listings that consumers publish in their marketplace and those consumers that may want to use a search engine or other tool to help them shop with online classifieds.

DB: Does eBay entering the U.S. classifieds marketplace change the Oodle business plan?

DONATO: NO. Indeed, we’ve been surprised to see so few companies come out and offer free classifieds. We’ve alwys believed that a vibrant ecosystem of classifieds marketplaces will serve a variety of local and Internet communities.

Search is generally recognized as playing a useful role to both consumers and ecommerce sites on the Internet today. The need for search in classifieds is even more pronounced.

With classifieds, you’re looking for one unique thing, such as that dream apartment, that perfect job, that disappears when someone else buys it, so classifieds need to be very timely. Also, classifieds listings tend to be poorly described with lots of unstructured data, so they are hard to search.

Classiifeds is very diferent than say searching for a specific Olympus camarea that is mainly about securing the best price. Consumers benefit as competing classifieds marketplaces innovate.

Thanks Craig!

For more exclusive Insider Chatter classifieds CEO interviews, see: Oodle CEO: Classifieds are Local, and Social and Craigslist Q & A: Classifieds Community NO ‘Walled Garden’ and Craigslist’s Craig Newmark: ‘My life is a sitcom’

PLUS: Backfence.com and Google: Money Can’t Buy Local Love

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN