E-commerce

Airbnb founder: Banning private rentals as silly as banning cars

Prohibitions against renting living quarters to out-of-towners are just as outmoded as attempts to ban cars shortly after their arrival in 1908, Airbnb co-founder and Chief Product Officer Joe Gebbia said Wednesday.

"Can you believe cities tried to outlaw cars in the United States? Imagine driving car for a year then going back to horse and buggy," Gebbia said at the LeWeb London conference. Eventually, though, "the policymakers adjusted to meet the demands of the people. What people demand is what the policies serve."

Of course, that message is self-serving: Airbnb is in the business of … Read more

Amazon quietly launches online marketplace in India

Amazon on Tuesday quietly launched an online marketplace in India that allows users to list and sell their products directly to consumers.

The site, Amazon.in, lists more than 7 million print books, as well as 12,000 movies and TV shows on DVD and Blu-ray. It plans to introduce mobile phones and cameras in the coming weeks, the company said in a statement.

"Our vision, at Amazon, is to be Earth's most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover virtually anything they want to buy online," Greg Greeley, … Read more

New digital comics meet old storytelling tricks

The high camp era of the 1960's Batman TV show, and video game-influenced "choose-your-own-adventure" stories, will come to DC Entertainment's digital comics this summer with new digital storytelling techniques to draw in readers.

At a "Future of Storytelling" event that DC Entertainment parent company Warner Brothers held on Tuesday in New York City, DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson said that the new comics will appeal to fans of the classic Batman TV show and the current series of Batman: Arkham video games.

"These are our latest steps in a methodical digital strategy," … Read more

Internet ad sales reach new high of $9.6 billion

Revenue generated by online advertising hit a new record in the U.S. last quarter.

Total first-quarter sales hit $9.6 billion, up 15.6 percent from the $8.3 billion seen in the first quarter of 2012, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The latest numbers reflect an ongoing shift to Internet advertising on the part of marketers as revenue continues to grow by double digits.

"Consumers are turning to interactive media in droves to look for the latest information, to connect with their social networks, and simply to be entertained," IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg … Read more

Feds don't plan to take down Bitcoin or other currencies

Even though the feds went after Liberty Reserve for alleged money laundering, they apparently don't have plans to crack down on all digital currencies -- as long as all rules are followed.

In an interview on Thursday with American Banker, Jennifer Shasky Calvery, the director of FinCEN, which is the U.S. Department of Treasury's law enforcement branch, said she sees virtual currency providers as financial institutions and looks at each one's actions separately.

"FinCEN has been out front in issuing our guidance to make it clear that we see virtual currency as a type of … Read more

Amazon picks five original series to vie with Netflix

Amazon on Wednesday plans to produce five full series for its Prime Instant Video service, giving the online giant a foothold in the market for online original content.

The company said two comedies, "Alpha House" and Betas," along with three kids shows -- "Annebots," "Creative Galaxy," and Tumbleaf" -- will air exclusively on its site later this year and early next year. Amazon had released several TV show pilots on its site, and customers gave feedback that helped its series production arm, Amazon Studios, decide which shows should be made into its … Read more

With Skillfeed, Shutterstock aims to rework online training

Shutterstock has launched a new subscription service called Skillfeed designed to connect professionals who need to learn how to use their computers with creative types who want to make videos that do the teaching.

With the $19-per-month service, subscribers can watch as many videos as they want, either longer-form courses or shorter "snacks" good for smaller periods of free time, said David Fraga, Skillfeed's general manager. And content contributors get paid: Shutterstock keeps 70 percent of the proceeds, but the rest is divided among all contributors based on what fraction their videos were of the total time … Read more

Look out, Google: Amazon's eyeing your turf

Visit Amazon.com and you'll find a bevy of recommendations to fill your digital shopping cart: books similar to what you've read on your Kindle or clothes and gadgets based on what else you've looked at.

Now Amazon is tinkering with ad technology that would flash ads for you even when you're not on Amazon sites. And those ads might not even direct shopper back to Amazon's sites.

It's still early days, but if Amazon's new strategy plays out, it could become the Web's next advertising giant. Sure, it already serves up … Read more

Bezos: Forget profits for now; we're still spending

SEATTLE -- Since its earliest days, Amazon has put investing in new business ahead of expanding its profit margins, often to shareholder chagrin.

At the company's annual meeting here today, Chief Executive Jeff Bezos repeated the mantra, and listed more than a dozen areas into which the online giant is pumping its resources.

"We are still thinking of this as day one," Bezos said of the company that first sold shares to the public 16 years ago and now has 88,000 employees and 209 million active customers. "In fact, I think the alarm clock is … Read more