selling
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Hackers are selling card info stolen in last year's Wawa breach
If you purchased anything at the East Coast gas station and convenience store chain Wawa between March and December last year, there's a chance your credit and debit card info is being sold on the dark web. Earlier this week, fraud intelligence company Gemini Advisory discovered stolen payment card data being uploaded to Joker's Stash, an online cybercrime marketplace. It seems the data was obtained during the Wawa breach discovered in December.
Avast is shutting down its subsidiary that sold user data
Avast is shutting down its Jumpshot subsidiary after a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag found that the two were selling user data to a host of large companies such as Expedia, Intuit and Keurig. The news comes just days after the two publications published their reporting.
Avast packaged detailed user data to be sold for millions of dollars
The popular antivirus program Avast has been selling users data to giant companies like Google, Home Depot, Microsoft and Pepsi, a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag found. Avast reportedly scraped data from its antivirus software and handed it off to its subsidiary Jumpshot, which repackaged the data and sold it, sometimes for millions of dollars. While Avast required users to opt-in to this data sharing, the investigation found that many were unaware that Jumpshot was selling their data.
Another AR headset startup closes its doors
Augmented reality filters are popping up everywhere -- from the NFL's partnership with Snapchat to YouTube's beauty filters for creators. But AR headsets seem to be struggling. Today, TechCrunch reports that another well-funded AR headset startup is shutting down. Daqri, the company behind the Android-powered smart hard hat, has closed its headquarters, laid off employees and plans to sell its assets.
New York City bill could make selling phone location data illegal
New York City could become the first city in the country to ban the sale of geolocation data to third parties. A bill introduced today would make it illegal for cellphone and mobile app companies to sell location data collected in the city. It would impose hefty fines -- up to $10,000 per day, per user for multiple violations -- and it would give users the right to sue companies that share their data without explicit permission.
Facebook's group-based selling is now a quick post away
Facebook is clearly extra-serious about its efforts to beat internet sale sites at their own game through groups. As part of an update rolling out over the months ahead, the social network's For Sale Groups will let you tap a simple Sell button to hawk your wares -- from there, you'll just have to write a description and set basic details like the pick-up location and price. You'll also have an easy way to mark items as sold, or to sift through your history if you don't remember whether or not you sold that table lamp. Are these enough to make you ditch Craigslist? Not necessarily, but you'll at least have more reasons to stick with Facebook's For Sale Groups if you're an early user.
Facebook's going after eBay and Craigslist with group-based selling
Facebook likes to experiment with little projects that could, someday, be as popular as Poking and Graph Search. One such project is enabling selected users to sell their unwanted items on the social network, in a move that'll surely strike terror into the hearts of the folks over at Craigslist and eBay. New Zealand-based developer Indy Griffiths took to Twitter to reveal that he'd been given the option to sell an item to a group, with the button nestled next to the write post button.
eBay attempts to lure back UK users with 20 free listings a month
Amazon might now be the defacto marketplace to buy and sell goods online in the UK, but eBay believes its "good surprise" might just lure customers back into the world of online auctions. In a bid to make things things a little easier for users to understand, eBay says that from May 13th it'll allow UK users to list up to 20 items every month completely free of charge. Listings can include any item, as long as it's not a car, and eBay continues to retain its 10 percent selling and postage fee. The company offers a similar system in the US, allowing sellers to make 50 free listings every month. With consumers now turning to Amazon to get their electrical goods, online media and groceries, eBay may be forced to expand its incentives if it wants more "A++++ seller, would buy again" reviews on its site.
Comcast's Xfinity TV Store brings movies, TV shows you can keep to its cable boxes and apps
First revealed in rumors last week, the Comcast Xfinity TV Store is now available, selling movies and TV shows. Until now the cable company has offered its traditional video subscriptions, PPV and video on-demand rentals, but now it's offering more transactions of a more permanent nature. Pricing and content is similar to that of other digital sores like Amazon VOD, iTunes and Vudu, but it has the extra edge of working with user's existing cable TV set-top boxes for viewing on TV, just like Verizon's Flex View. Of course, most of us have one (or three, or five) boxes ready to access digital content but that may not be true for everyone, and any of the millions of customers with access to Comcast VOD should be able to use this. On other platforms, the videos also stream to PCs via the Xfinity Purchases website, and the apps for iOS and Android have already landed. One of our main questions concerned what would happen if a customer leaves Comcast, and while the content will still work, they'll need to complete an account transfer within 60 days to keep access. There's a demo video showing how this all works (embedded after the break) and all the online moving parts appear to be live, for those interested. In the end however, its very typical pricing, DRM and content means that while the studios will be happy with another storefront, we're not expecting it to shake things up anytime soon.
The Mog Log: Understanding Final Fantasy XIV's markets
There are lots of ways to make money in Final Fantasy XIV, but the fastest way to increase your riches comes from smart use of the market boards. (Yes, you're not creating new money to enter the system; there are a lot of ways to do that, too. Go do some leves.) This is why I'm baffled at how many people understand the principle but don't understand how to sell things on the markets. Some of this probably comes from the fact that the system is never explained in great depth, but it doesn't help that the system isn't set up to work like many auction systems in other MMOs. So while some of you already grasp this and are enjoying the singular fun of being locked into a pricing war with three other people, others aren't sure how to get their Fleece to sell. Let's talk about some market truths you might not have realized.
eBay acquires price comparison engine Decide; will shut its services down by month's end
Credit where it's due: eBay recognized that the online auction train wouldn't keep chugging along at a breakneck rate, so it's snapping up complementary companies in order to better bolster its portfolio. A few years, PayPal; today, Decide. The three-year old company was engineered to give overwhelmed consumers a way to more easily see what products were worthwhile and which weren't -- from there, it helped to find the best deal, completing the process. (In the effort of full disclosure, gdgt -- now under the same umbrella as Engadget -- competed with Decide and was acquired in February of this year.) eBay's evidently hoping that Decide's predictive analytics will "help over 25 million eBay sellers make smarter decisions and be more successful," while the Decide team will be headed to eBay's Seattle offices. As these things tend to go, Decide's services, website and mobile apps will no longer be available after September 30th, which is pretty awful news for those of you who dug it. For those curious, paying members will be reimbursed for their subscriptions, but you're on your own for any tissues required to sop up the tears.
Threadflip redesigns, seeing 20% of purchases made through mobile app
Threadflip is an app where users can buy, sell and discover various clothing and other fashion items, and it's just undergone a major redesign. The app was introduced about a year ago, and since then, Threadflip has seen about 20 percent of purchases made and 40 percent of items listed come directly from the mobile app, so it's a fairly big market for them. That follows the trends that we've seen with mobile shopping lately, with more and more people using their iPhones and iPads to shop, either buying items directly on the touchscreen, or using the mobile devices while out in a more traditional retail environment. Threadflip's new design includes both a new shopping experience and a new seller dashboard, so users can easily and quickly find what they want to buy (and then check out with those items), or put items up for sale. The app is available now, and to celebrate the redesign, Threadflip is offering 20 percent on purchases from the app until Sunday, June 2, when you enter "TFAPP" at checkout. Threadflip seems like an excellent example of the growth of mobile commerce, and odds are that we'll see more and more of these apps in the future.
E-books not growing much in Canada, slightly better in the US
A new study from BookNet Canada notes that the e-book market may be in trouble. Paperback books, says BookNet, made up 58 percent of all purchases last year, with hardcover taking 24 percent. But e-books were only 15 percent of total sales last year, a figure that's down overall from 2012's first quarter, where they made up 17.6 percent. In other words, e-books are selling, but they're hardly taking over the market. Now, those numbers reflect sales in Canada. In the US, e-books make up 22 percent of the market, so the numbers are higher here. But still, given how ubiquitous e-books now are, it's surprising to not see them taking more of the market. BookNet says buyers cite the convenience of shopping for other items at the same time and pricing as two reasons they're still looking for books in brick-and-mortar stores rather than online. Finally, Apple's iPad only made its way up to number three on the list of the most popular e-book readers in Canada. The Kobo e-book reader was the most popular up in the Great White North, followed by Amazon's Kindle and then Apple's tablet.
Osom mashes up Craigslist and Instagram, lets you sell your beautiful things
Perhaps after wading through one too many bleach bypass photos of someone's scooter, a trio of Swedish developers thought an Instagram-like app would be an ideal way to sell such things. To wit, they developed Osom, an iPhone app that pays homage to the social shooter in concept as well as design by letting you create photos with a variety of filters, price them and put them up for sale. Other users can find your artwork by following you, filtering by geography, watching a global feed or seeing it on Facebook via a cross-posting option. To buy a photo, they'll need to contact you directly through the app, as there's no built-in payment option. According to TNW, the team hopes to keep images in the feed beautiful and upscale, though so far the selection isn't curated -- and we saw a fire extinguisher and other run-of-the-mill goods alongside vintage dresses, antiques and the like. Osom will eventually include "featured" and "Osom'd" ads to make money, so if you want to enjoy the unsullied version while it lasts, hit the source to grab it.
Storyboard: Profession discussion - The Merchant
People want stuff. It's a given. Part of this is because in the earliest days of human history having a sharpened stick was the difference between eating and starving, but part of it is just the way that we've structured our societies. And a lot of the things that people want are things that they can't make themselves, which means those people need someone to come to the rescue. That's where this profession comes in; the Merchant is all about getting people the stuff that they want. This is easily the strangest profession discussion I've done yet because it's easy to understand how you could have a lot of different people in the role of a spy or an aristocrat, but it's less obvious how you could have a character with certain archetypes be a merchant. The thing is that the merchant isn't just about selling things and making money. Being a merchant is what a character does on the road, and that ranges from selling mushrooms to selling your sword in the name of a good cause.
The Art of Wushu: Winning in market PvP
Last time on the Art of Wushu, I promised I would write on how to sell production crafts. Crafting is a big deal in Age of Wushu, so it seemed like a reasonable topic to cover. However, I realized doing so would probably be a mistake. Why? If you followed my advice from two weeks ago, congratulations. You probably noticed a huge nosedive in a few markets: hemp, ramie, iron, and mint all took a huge hit. It's a bit flattering to see how I can write a post on what to sell and readers like you guys take it to heart, flooding the market with supply and crashing the value of these commodities. If I gave advice on production crafting, the same thing would happen. Instead, this week I'm going to talk about real market strategy. Pointing out things that sell doesn't help you if the market takes a nose-dive. Understanding supply and demand curves, market equilibrium, and the importance of market diversity are all long-term tools that will help you regardless of what you're selling.
The Art of Wushu: Making silver through harvesting
I got a lot of backlash over the last installment of The Art of Wushu. While the issues over pay-to-win are understandable, an overwhelming number of you seemed to disbelieve the amount of silver I was able to produce daily. Some of you protested my 1D/daily figure (which is on the high side), while others questioned whether I could make even 500L per day. My email was flooded with people asking me to share some of my secrets. I was going to talk about movement and parkour this time, but because you guys asked, you'll get an answer. "How do I make money in Age of Wushu," you ask? Let's cover the easy ways to make money. These are methods that literally any player, regardless of subscription status or level, can take advantage of. This time we're going to cover harvesting -- what sells and what doesn't. Let's get started.
iPhone 5 supply runs short in India
The iPhone 5 officially launched in India last Friday, and just a day later, stores were selling out of their stock. Don't get too excited. Indian sources note only about 15,000 phones were made available for that market, so a sellout isn't too surprising. There were about 100,000 phones made available to India in the first month. An additional 200,000 are expected to arrive by the end of December. Those numbers aren't huge (I'd guess that several North American stores will sell as many in the same time period), but the point here is that demand is high around the world. The iPhone 5 isn't cheap in India. In addition to service and shipment fees, India's currency also plays a factor. The low-end 16 GB iPhone sells for 45,500 rupees, or about US$833 (as of this writing). When you combine those prices with the fact that these phones did sell out, there's a really big indicator of why Apple is so interested to get sales rolling overseas, and why it expects places like India and China both to be such big markets in the future.
Guild Wars 2 brings trading post online, handles hacked accounts
It's a good day for Tyria's Wall Street and its many denizens, as ArenaNet has brought Guild Wars 2's trading post fully online. The trading post, which works as an advanced version of an auction house for the game's players, has only been sporadically available since launch. The defense and counter-attack against the legion of GW2 hackers continues, however. The devs report that "a Guild Wars-related fan site" was recently hacked for its account information, and say that the reset password feature for the game will remain disabled for the time being as to not allow hackers another avenue of attack. ArenaNet said that during the past 24 hours, the team has dealt with over 2,500 hacked accounts and over 2,800 login issues.
Ford trying iPads for sales consultants at dealerships
Ford has launched an iPad app specifically for its dealers around the US to use. Fourteen different dealerships participated in a test program earlier this year, in which sales consultants (car salespeople) used iPads to access information about cars on sale, show presentations on various car features, and even track customer preferences, both helping customers choose the right car for them and helping salespeople convince them to buy. One dealer in New Jersey is getting behind the app full stop: He says he plans to ditch PCs at his dealership completely, instead using the more "relationship friendly" iPad for all of his sales transactions. He cites the iPad's security and ease of use as big factors in putting them on the sales floor as well. The iPad isn't yet usable as a pricing or contract tool, however, so presumably sales associates will have to back to a regular PC for that right now. But soon, says the dealer, all of those functions will be handled by Apple's tablet, and he's looking forward to that.
