Valleywag: Money Buys Happier Sex

From the 'Wag:

Men with a net worth of more than $30m, tech entrepreneurs among them, claiming that their wealth had brought "better sex" -- defined as more frequent sex with more partners. The survey, by Prince & Associates and reported by Robert Frank, showed wealthy women were even more libidinous.

Auctionbytes: eBay to Introduce Feedback 2.0

In my opinion, I'm not sure eBay's going to be able to pull this one off - just relieving the headache that the current eBay feedback system causes all involved (including the eBay employees who have to put up with the bitching from various people wanting feedback removed) is a project in and of itself. Allowing buyers to rate sellers in everything from communication to shipping is a nightmare waiting to happen.

From Auctionbytes:

eBay users can now view sample screenshots of eBay's recently announced "Feedback 2.0" system on the eBay UK website. The new system will allow buyers to rate transactions on item description, communication, shipping time, and shipping & handling charges. In late February, eBay will pilot Feedback 2.0 on eBay.co.uk, eBay.ie and in Australia, Belgium, France, India, Italy and Poland. If all goes well, eBay will launch the new system globally in late spring or early summer.

eBay UK announced the forthcoming system to users on Monday on its Announcement Board, with links to screenshots and details. Once buyers leave a rating of positive, negative or neutral along with a comment, they will have the chance to rate sellers on the following four questions:

• How accurate was the item description?
• How satisfied were you with the seller's communication?
• How quickly did the seller deliver the item?
• How reasonable were the postage and packaging charges?

Buyers can give sellers up to five stars on each of the rating criteria. For instance, five stars on the first question indicates the seller's item description was "very accurate," while two stars on the last question indicates the postage and packaging charges were "unreasonable." eBay will include a thumbnail image of the item underneath the auction title to make it easier for the buyer to remember the item.

On the Feedback Profile page, called Member Profile page under the original feedback rating system, eBay has added a new module that provides the average of each Detailed Sellers Rating left by buyers for the seller in the past 12 months. A seller must have at least 10 Detailed Seller Ratings to have an average displayed. In addition to the average, eBay displays the total number of ratings left for each Detailed Seller Rating in the past 12 months.

Rambling Reading

As usual, the following are some random articles of stuff that I've found interesting on the series of tubes known as the internets:

- Now you don't have an excuse for drinking alone.

- "I promise judge, I was alert the whole time."

- Paris Hilton admits she did it, kind of (no, not that).

- Cutting up your mom only gets you six months in New York. I understand he was under undue influence, but still, this is your mother.

- Don't leave home without your passport. Pretty soon, it will be required to go anywhere (I'm sure it's buried in the Patriot Act somewhere).

- $335,000 for 77 square feet, sign me up!

iPhone on SNL

Below is a short clip from SNL this past weekend. Is this the new way of marketing your product? Granted, in and of itself, the iPhone was bound to be pretty popular, but to have your product parodied on a show like SNL with its initial reach on Saturday night, and then to have it played over and over again on sites like YouTube...Steve Jobs must be sitting somewhere lighting his cigars with $100 dollar bills.

Quick Thoughts from the NFL Playoffs

Great weekend of Playoff football over the weekend. The Most interesting games by far were the Bears game and the Chargers game. Congratulations to all the winners.

I couldn't believe the hit Reggie Bush took in the Eagles game - unbelievable! Here's the YouTube clip:

2006 in Review

At this time last year, I made some predictions about what I thought would happen during the new year. Let's rehash that blog and see what happened, and what didn't happen:

• Iran's Nuclear Facilities are removed. Didn't happen, yet. Iran's president keeps toeing the line as to how far he can go with regard to developing nukes. My guess now is nothing will happen until Iran actually tests a weapon.
• The US begins a systematic withdrawal from Iraq. Uhm, not even close to happening. I suppose the holiday egg-nog was still having its way with me when I wrote this. The fact of the matter is we're actually considering sending more troops into Iraq.
• Hillary Clinton announces her run for the presidency. This didn't happen, yet. However, Hillary's by far the leading democratic candidate in a hypothetical race.
  
• Bush announces a strategic plan for a Plastinian State. I'm just making sure you're still reading. Ha, ha, this one still cracks me up.
  
• Abortion part deux takes place in front of the Supreme Court. Well, this didn't happen because of a couple factors: a) the issue was killed (probably a bad choice of words, I digress) in South Dakota, which was the alleyway for the Court to re-try the issue, and b) the GOP had their asses handed to them in October (which was un-forseen at this point in time).
• Osama Bin Laden will be captured or killed. Another year on the run means more time for him to plan the next big one. OBL successfully threw the dogs off his tracks for another year. However, his buddy in Iraq was not so lucky.
  
• The stock market has another so-so year. Not sure what happened here, but I was completely off. The market had a fantastic year, with the Dow soaring past the 12,000 mark.
  
• The Red Sox have a horrible year. I wasn't totally off on this one. I guess it depends on how one defines the word 'horrible'. The Sox were close throughout the year but tanked in August and ended up missing the playoffs for the first time in five years.
• Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey will get divorced. Ha! I was right on this one! Nick and Jess signed the dotted line and ended their three year marriage. Also noteworthy regarding this one is that Nick could already be back in the saddle again.

Next time, 2007 predictions!