So, yesterday was International Delete Your MySpace Account Day.

That’s it, I’ve had it. After months of only visiting my myspace profile in order to delete spam friend requests from half-nude women, I’ve reached the end of the line.

…

I’ve been thinking about deleting my Myspace account almost since the day I got it but always opted out of doing so because of the few friends I have who don’t have Facebook accounts. But by remaining on Myspace, I realize, I’m becoming an enabler. I’m giving those friends no reason to switch over from Myspace by giving them access to my Myspace profile.

But rather than deleting my account right away, I’m going to hold off until January 30th so that other people have time to join me. I’d love to see a large number of people delete their accounts all at once in order to send Myspace a message: your website sucks.

So what did I do? It sounded good to me, so I deleted my MySpace account.

Now that I have cancelled my Facebook account and my MySpace account, I feel completely anti-social. I’ve even wearing one of my fleece jackets with a hood that hides my face. You should try it, it’s liberating.

EBay announced yesterday that they are cutting the listing fees and making the shopping experience simpler and safer! Awesome huh?

EBay unveiled changes to its online marketplace Tuesday that the company characterizes as sweeping and historic and that are aimed at boosting sales by making the shopping experience simpler and safer.

The changes, which include lowering some fees and raising merchant standards, were announced at the company’s eCommerce Forum by John Donahoe, who will succeed Meg Whitman as president and CEO in March.

The changes, which will be implemented at different points in the coming weeks and months, come at a time when eBay is struggling to boost growth of transaction volume and revenue amidst increased competition from the likes of Amazon.com, which in recent years has attracted many merchants away from eBay.

Too bad their “fee cuts” are anything but that. What? You don’t believe me?

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend we’re listing and selling an item for $25.00. The fee changes are as follows:

The current listing fee is $1.20. The new listing fee will be $1.00.
The current gallery fee is $0.35. The new gallery fee will be $0.00.
The current final value fee is 5.25%. The new final value fee will be 8.75%.

Sounds nice and puffy doesn’t it? Well, let’s take a closer look.

Before the cuts:

Sale Total: $25.00

Listing fee: $1.20
Gallery fee: $0.35
Final Value fee: $1.31

Net Sale Amount: $22.14

After the cuts:

Sale Total: $25.00

Listing fee: $1.00
Gallery fee: $0.00
Final Value fee: $2.19

Net Sale Amount: $21.81

$22.14 vs. $21.81. Is sure doesn’t sound like much of a cut in fees to me. Imagine if you are a high volume seller and you have to pay 33 cents more for every item you sell. If you sell 100 items you’ve made $33 less than you used too. So much for buying those cheap pens you were wanting. You can kiss that Starbuck’s coffee goodbye too.

All hail the fee cuts!

Crossposted at Slobokan’s Site O’ Schtuff.

Wow. The other day Qtrax announced they had deals with all of the major record labels. It turns out they didn’t. I mean they don’t. Ouch.

A revamped online file-sharing service that promised to offer unlimited, free music downloads from all the major record labels hit an apparent snag Sunday after one denied it had given the service permission.

Qtrax touted in a press release Sunday morning that it was the first Internet file-swapping service to be “fully embraced by the music industry,” and boasted it would carry up to 30 million tracks from “all the major labels.”

New York-based Warner Music undermined that claim, declaring in a statement that it “has not authorized the use of our content on Qtrax’s recently announced service.”

Universal Music Group and EMI Group PLC later confirmed they did not have licensing deals in place with Qtrax, noting discussions were still ongoing. A call to Sony BMG Music Entertainment was not immediately returned.

Isn’t this kind of like moving a bunch of heavy stuff in your truck and after the backend gets all scratched up, going out and buying a bed liner? Why on Earth would they do something like this? I hope the next time they decide to issue a press release they actually tell the truth, it may help in the long run.

This is really good news for PayPal customers. When it comes to protecting our money and our data, you can never have too much security.

EBay’s online payments division, PayPal, will pay $169 million for an Israeli security company specializing in detecting online fraud, the companies said Monday. The deal should close within 30 days.

Fraud Sciences, a private company, has developed technology designed to differentiate between real and fraudulent transactions. That technology will be folded into PayPal’s antifraud systems, which will be “significantly” improved this year, eBay said.

Fraud Sciences’ Chief Operating Officer, Yossi Barak, and founders Shvat Shaked and Saar Wilf will move to PayPal’s technology and fraud management teams.

I have to admit, the steps PayPal took over the past year were very good. The keychain dongle is my favorite new feature, although it’s a pain in the ass when I forget to take it with me and I want to check my balance from the car. When is PayPal going to get into the insurance business? I would love to pay my car or home insurance via PayPal.

I think I forgot to mention, about two weeks ago, FeedDemon is now free!

What a great surprise that was, although I would pay for it no matter what.

That’s right, FeedDemon is now free. As in, you don’t have to pay for it anymore. Just download it and use it free of charge.

And we’re also making NetNewsWire, NewsGator Inbox and NewsGator Go free. In other words, all of NewsGator’s consumer RSS readers are free.

If you don’t care about the details, you can stop reading now and simply download the new FeedDemon 2.6 (for free, of course). If you’re using a previous version of FeedDemon, you should install v2.6 directly on top of it.

My thanks to Nick Bradbury and the whole NewsGator team for taking this direction with FeedDemon.

It seems I’m not the only one who had trouble with the Windows Genuine Advantage crap.

When you read stories like this, don’t you picture the kid running up to the school bus just as the doors close and the bus starts to pull away? Should the bus stop or keep going?

Yahoo Inc., is in early discussions with major record labels over offering unprotected MP3s either for sale or for free as part of an ad-supported service, two record company executives familiar with the talks said Wednesday.

The talks, held as recently as last month, were preliminary because Yahoo is still working out the details, said the executives, who requested anonymity because of the discussions were confidential.

Yahoo hopes to launch the service this year, they said.

Wow. How innovative. They hope to launch a music download service. This year. Hold me, I think I am going to cry. Next thing you know they’ll invent something like digital cameras or something.

On the very day that IBM announced they were giving employees a 15% pay cut, they also announce they have purchased AptSoft for their business event processing software.

IBM said Wednesday it is expanding its broad SOA (service-oriented architecture) portfolio with the acquisition of AptSoft, a maker of business event processing software.

AptSoft’s products will sit in IBM’s WebSphere line. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Also known as complex event processing (CEP), business event processing is seen as a key technology driver for the next generation of SOA. The software analyzes vast amounts of system events in real time, searching for trends and anomalies– “complex events”– that may impact the business, and triggers a response process if one is found.

I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t need AptSoft to tell them of the “complex events” happening at their location with the pay cuts. Who knows though, if they had it before they decided to make the pay cuts, maybe the software would have told them not to do it. Then again, the software might have told them they had to bulk up or slim down, using Orovo products too. Still a strange decision if you ask me.

This would be great news, if Time Warner wasn’t also planning to start charging broadband customers based on usage. What a great way to increase profits. Change your billing structure so you make more off people who use more, and then offer a service that is sure to make them use more in the process. You got to hand it to the powers that be at Time Warner, they really know how to “grab” ya.

Time Warner Inc pay TV channel HBO will launch a service on Tuesday to let subscribers download movies and television shows over the Web, joining a crowded market for video on the Internet.

The service, HBO on Broadband, will make its debut with a much larger library than its cable-based on-demand service in a stab at satisfying increasingly mobile and choosy viewers.

It will roll out to Time Warner Cable high-speed Internet customers in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as a free add-on to HBO and HBO on Demand, HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson said.

Of course, they will also make more money from the “add-on” service fee too, so it’s a win-win situation for them either way. Me? I still don’t have HBO. I don’t have an HDTV. I don’t have a tv mount. I don’t even have a cable modem. Wow. I don’t have a lot do I?

I was talking with a former co-worker today and he brought up the impending job cuts at Yahoo! He thought it was “funny” that Yahoo! was going to be cutting jobs as part of their plan to streamline the company and attempt to increase revenue growth. At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt, figuring he thought improving the whole Yahoo! experience would make more of a difference, but I was wrong. He was being an ass. He actually thinks it is funny that people are going to lose their jobs, all because he hates Yahoo! Nice guy, huh?

Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) is planning to announce cutbacks later this month that will likely lead to hundreds of job losses at the nearly 14,000 employee company, a source familiar with the plan said on Monday.

Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong declined to comment on a report published on the Silicon Alley Insider blog, which on Saturday said Yahoo has created a list of “1,500-2,500 jobs that may be eliminated in the next two weeks.”

Why is that funny to people? Why is it funny when people lose their jobs? Do you not have a mortgage, or rent to pay? Do you not have kids or a spouse to support? Do you not have bills due each month that you are obligated to pay? Do you not require a paycheck? What makes you so high and mighty that laughing at someone elses misfortune makes you a better person?

Needless to say, I doubt he’ll be contacting me again any time soon. Ha!

I was laid off once a long time ago, and it wasn’t funny at all. It took me a while to get back on my feet and I didn’t have any responsibilities at the time to make it more difficult. It sounds like the cuts at Yahoo! are a pretty sure thing, I just hope the people who get cut are able to land on their feet, or at least get back up real quick.