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Name: Lauren Spackman.
I was born in Hobart, Tasmania, and lived in Fremantle, Western Australia, and Sydney, New South Wales, before moving to Brisbane at age 4.
This is my last semester at QUT. Next year, I plan on traveling to England for about six months to work in a pub.
Studying this semester
Lauren Spackman 18:01, 8 Aug 2005 (EST)
Lauren Spackman 18:15, 6 Sep 2005 (EST)
Email me:Lauren Spackman
I will be covering online auctioning and specifically eBay for my annotated bibliography topic.
Lauren Spackman 15:31, 1 Aug 2005 (EST)
Bunnell, D. (2000) The ebay Phenomenon: Business Secrets Behind The World’s Hottest Internet Company, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0471384909
This book covers every aspect of eBay. From its history and humble beginnings, to how the company and business work, to future scenarios and strategies to keep eBay running and in front of the pack, this book covers it all. Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay is profiled, and Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay, is cited numerous times in the text. Covering everything from the eBay community to the business strategy the company has adopted, the only downside to this book is that it has dated slightly. In new media, even a few years can mean a whole new change in technology.
Lauren Spackman 21:31, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Diorio, S.G. (2002) Beyond “e�?: 12 Ways Technology is Transforming Sales and Marketing Strategy, New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0071376496
This book provides two short sections that are relative to the subject of eBay and online auctions. The section about eBay focuses mainly on the fact that eBay does not rely on contact with eBay users via any other means than email. It describes how consumers have no direct communication with eBay employees, and states that this is the case because eBay is a continually growing business that continues to struggle to keep up with its growing list of online customers. The short section on online auctions provides a basic definition of what online auctions are, and states how buyers and sellers can approach this type of online marketplace. Despite the briefness of both sections, this book remains useful because both pieces of information provide new angles to approaching the topic of online auctions.
Lauren Spackman 16:17, 11 Aug 2005 (EST)
Krishnamurthy, S. (2003) E-Commerce Management: Text and Cases, Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South Western. ISBN 0324152523
This textbook contains a case study on eBay.com. In doing so, the book provides not only a background summary of eBay and the services it provides, but several tables documenting the business’s financial success and its competitiveness against other online brands and auction sites. The chapter captures the uniqueness of eBay, as well as problems faced from using the site, and how the site has become something of a cultural phenomenon. Specific stories of people’s experiences with eBay are also provided. With its tables and graphs, the usefulness of this specific case study stems from the information provided in regards to eBay’s financial revenue and competition in the online marketplace.
Lauren Spackman 22:47, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Sinclair, J.T. (2003) ebay Business The Smart Way: Maximize Your Profits on the Web’s #1 Auction Site, New York: AMACOM. ISBN 0814472028
This book is a seller’s ultimate unauthorized guide to making maximum profits on eBay sales. It is targeted at those sellers who wish to make selling on eBay a full-time job, or at least a second job with a steady income. Everything one assumes a seller would need to know in regards to running an eBay business is covered in this book. This includes how set up, how to set prices, how to organize payment plans, dealing with software and other eBay related issues. There are also tips (mainly for an American audience) on how to make the most of eBay, including contacts for seminars and an interesting premise called eBay University. While this book is full of eBay-related material, it may not prove to be the most useful source in regards to the assignment topic.
Lauren Spackman 17:50, 11 Aug 2005 (EST)
Stross, R.E. (2000) eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work, New York: Crown Business. ISBN 0812930959
As it tends to focus on eBay’s extremely early beginnings, this book is not very useful in regards to the assignment topic. There are two unmarked sections that deal directly with eBay. The first section, found early on in the book, profiles eBay’s beginnings, including Pierre Omidyar’s (eBay’s founder) struggles with Internet providers refusing to support the site due to the problems it caused for the servers. This section also explains why Omidyar originally started charging people to sell things on eBay, and it surprisingly wasn’t just to make money, but instead to pay his Internet server bill. The second section is at large irrelevant to the assignment topic.
Lauren Spackman 17:40, 11 Aug 2005 (EST)
Viardot, E. (2004) Successful Marketing Strategy for High-Tech Firms, 3rd edition, Boston; London: Artech House. ISBN 1580537006
This book, while not directly related to eBay, provides some insights into the marketing strategies of high tech companies such as eBay. Companies such as eBay came into existence at a time when people were excited about the Internet boom, but after the Internet crash, most high tech companies disappeared. This book explores the reasoning behind why companies like eBay survived the Internet crash, focusing almost exclusively on the marketing strategies used by the companies. While this is useful to people focusing on the workings behind eBay, this book would not be exceptionally useful to use for a Wikipedia article.
Lauren Spackman 15:10, 8 Aug 2005 (EST)
Hof, R.D. (2004, December) “The Web For People,�? Business Week no. 3911, p.18. ISBN 07398395
Published as part of a Business Week anniversary celebration, this article was part of a series of articles profiling the greatest innovators of the past 75 years. In following that format, this article explores the history of eBay and its founder, Pierre Omidyar. The article provides some interesting facts about eBay, it’s profits and the way it runs. Co-workers of Omidyar’s provide quotes about Omidyar’s work ethics and practices, including how Omidyar recognizes the power of eBay users governing themselves. Another relatively short article (roughly 620 words), it provides insight to eBay’s beginnings, and which way the company may head in the future.
Lauren Spackman 16:42, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Jones, K. (2005, August) “eBay Branches Out; Online auction giant eBay has 147 million registered users buying and selling just about everything imaginable,�? PC Magazine: Pipeline vol. 24, no. 14, p. 23. ISBN 08888507
This is a relatively short article (214 words roughly) that announces new additions to the eBay marketplace. These additions, ProStores and Reseller Marketplace, are of particular interest and importance to eBay sellers more than they are to eBay buyers, but it is still valuable to know of the services eBay provides to its customers. The article is also extremely recent (note the date of publication) so at present the information it provides is only a stepping stone to finding more information regarding the topic. Regardless of its length, the article is useful because without it one may not be inclined to look into that section of the eBay website.
Lauren Spackman 11:12, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Kennedy, S.D. (2005, January) “The Dark Side,�? Information Today vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 17-18. ISBN 87556286
The author of this article uses this piece to tell of her one bad experience with eBay. However, she does not abuse eBay in anyway, and in fact does praise eBay’s security department for their help in settling her eBay issue. In this article, the author tells of her love of the Internet and the people that use it, and of her love of eBay in particular. She goes on to describe a horror experience with trying to sell a motorcycle on eBay, involving scammers and hoax bidders. This article proves to be useful because it demonstrates some of the problems with eBay that don’t stem from the company itself.
Lauren Spackman 16:04, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Oaff, B. (2005) “It’s not the winning, it’s the bargain that counts,�? Financial Times: FT Money, July 16, p. 26. ISBN 03071766
Providing an insight into the world of the bidder instead of the seller, this article is useful to the topic of online auctioning because it provides the other side of the story. The article outlines how some bidders can often get carried away with the online auction process, in turn placing overpriced bids just because they get caught up in the thrill of the win. Quotes are provided from people who either have clients or friends who have overspent on eBay items that they could have bought at cheaper prices in brick and mortar stores. In short, this article remains useful because of the views it gives in relation to buyer activity on Internet auction sites.
Lauren Spackman 14:50, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Pizzo, S. (2004, March) “The Online Auctioner Paves The Way ; The Internet Is My Neighborhood,�? Mortgage Technology vol. 11, no. 2, p. 6. ISBN 10984038
This article is interesting because of the angle it takes. Published in Mortgage Technology, the author is part of the real estate industry and spends much of the article pondering the ways the eBay format could be transposed to accommodate the real estate market. In doing so, the author explores and explains some of the inner workings of eBay and other online auctioning websites. The author points out that online real estate auctioning has already been tried once at least three years ago, but the market wasn’t quite ready for the technology it required. As far as relevancy to the topic, this article does provide some interesting views in regards to the way eBay works, and could surprisingly prove to be useful.
Lauren Spackman 17:25, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Robins, W. (2000, August) “Auctions.com now a dot-goner,�? Editor & Publisher vol. 133, no. 35, pp. 6-7. ISBN 0013094X
The publication of this article came about around the time of the so-called Internet crash, where many online businesses either lost major ground or shut down completely. The article covers the demise of auctions.com, a website run by Classified Ventures (CV) in the United States. The site allowed newspapers owned by CV to run their own localized online auctions, but according to the sources cited by the article, the venture ultimately remained stalwart from the start and after a year, CV chose to shut the site down. This article is useful because it provides some firsthand quotes from people who were involved with the running of an online auction site, and an insight to a site that was once competition for eBay.
Lauren Spackman 10:57, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Stansbury, R. (2005) “Connecticut Entrepreneurs Find Niche by Doing Legwork for Online Auctions,�? Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, May 31., p. 1. (no ISBN)
This article demonstrates how online auctions have changed and integrated into our society. Stores such as AuctionDrop and AuctionPays have begun opening across the United States, allowing people who don’t have time to list and auction an item to give the item to someone else who can do the work for them. For a percentage of the price, these businesses list the items on eBay and other online auction sites, and after the sale, a cheque minus the commission price is sent to the owner of the item. This article is useful because it provides yet another angle to online auctioning that isn’t firmly based around the Internet sites alone.
Lauren Spackman 15:47, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Unknown. (2005) “Grabbing a piece of the action,�? Sunday Business, July 24, p. C.11. (no ISBN)
Listed without an author, this article is an in depth piece that involves both the history of eBay, and its chief executive, Meg Whitman. The article reports that in the last financial quarter, eBay made a 53% increase in profits, a fact that shocked analysts across Wall Street. Many were predicting the ultimate demise of eBay, claiming that the business had reached its pinnacle and could only go down. The rest of the article provides a backgrounder as to how eBay has gotten to where it is, including features of the website and business that have helped retain customers. The last half of the article reflects on Whitman’s life, and how her expertise has driven eBay to become the success story that it is. This article is extremely useful as it provides not only facts of figures of the last financial quarter, but also a background into eBay’s beginnings, including the origins of the site’s name.
Lauren Spackman 11:57, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Ebay Australia (2005) “eBay explained,�? retrieved August 6, 2005, from http://pages.ebay.com.au/ebayexplained/index.html
This URL is the summary page of a list of links that provide both new and old users of eBay with information regarding the usage of the site. There are links to pages that summarise eBay, provide both buying and selling information and there are even links provided to eBay success stories from both buyers and sellers. Tips on how to use Papal (eBay’s preferred method of payment in the majority of cases), how the feedback system works and how users can track their items are also provided through links. Obviously designed as a ‘Help’ function page, this page proves to be useful on a basic level in regards to the assignment topic.
Lauren Spackman 17:58, 9 Aug 2005 (EST)
Final submission of Annotated Bibliography (assessment 1 for KCB336) submitted by Lauren Spackman 17:52, 11 Aug 2005 (EST)
Lauren Spackman 11:24, 11 Oct 2005 (EST)
