25 Years Of Google This Month!

Did you know that Google was incorporated 25 years ago, in September 1998?
Or that it was originally made from Lego? (sort of)

Google began as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were students at Stanford in 1996. Originally named “BackRub.” the name “Google” is a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. The name reflects the company’s mission to organise the massive amount of information on the web.

Their first version of Google was stored on ten 4GB hard drives in a Lego casing! Nevertheless, by the end of 1998, Google was processing 10,000 search queries per day. This number grew rapidly, and by the end of 1999, it was processing 500,000 queries per day.

It now processes over 3.5 billion searches daily.

Google’s homepage was notably simple (primarily because neither Larry nor Sergey were proficient in HTML). This simplicity, plus their powerful ‘PageRank’ algorithm quickly blew all the other search engines away. Remember them? The likes of HotBot, AltaVista, Lycos, Excite and of course, Yahoo were all less relevant, highly cluttered and covered in ads*

Here’s (just a few) notable acquisitions they’ve made, you should have heard of these :

Applied Semantics (2003): Acquired for its contextual advertising technology, which later became a core component of Google AdSense.
Android (2005): Purchased for an estimated $50 million, Android has become the dominant mobile operating system globally.
YouTube (2006): Acquired for $1.65 billion. Say no more!
Fitbit (2007): A consumer electronics company specialising in health and fitness wearables, acquired for $2.1 billion. Think of all your health(y) data!
Motorola Mobility (2012): Acquired for its telecommunications expertise at a cost of £12.5 billion.
Nest (2014): A home automation company purchased for $3.2 billion.
DeepMind (2014): A British artificial intelligence company acquired for an estimated $500 million.

See The Synergy And Strategy Here?

They have many other less well-known acquisitions, yet they all help Google provide services ranging from live-flight bookings to restaurant reviews. Alphabet has a current market cap of around $1.7 TRILLION dollars – not bad for a couple of college kids starting out in a garage on a “Lego” setup, who made an algorithm to rank websites by the number of inbound citations!

* Note – Of course, nowadays Google also promotes many adverts and their famous “Don’t be Evil” code of conduct was reportedly removed a few years ago, depending on who you listen to!

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned of the susceptibility of existing Large Language Models (LLMs) to malicious “prompt injection” attacks. These are where a user creates inputs intended to cause an AI model to behave in an unintended way e.g., generating offensive content or disclosing confidential information.

This means that businesses integrating LLMs like ChatGPT into their business, products, or services could be leaving themselves open to risks like inaccurate, controversial, or biased data content, data poisoning and concealed prompt injection attacks.

The advice is for businesses to establish cybersecurity principles and make sure that they are able to deal with even the worst case scenario of whatever their LLM-powered app is permitted to do.

If you’d like an easy way to let others know where you are, e.g. a group of friends on a night out, or as a safety precaution, you can choose to share your location on WhatsApp. Here’s how:

– Go to ‘Settings’ on your phone.

– Tap ‘Apps’ (or scroll down on iPhone).

– Select ‘WhatsApp,’ ‘Permissions,’ and ‘Location.’

– Select ‘Allow only while using the app’ (or ‘Ask every time’).

– To turn location sharing off again, follow the same route to permissions and select ‘Don’t allow.’

In this article, we take at what Google’s ‘Duet’ is, it’s features and potential benefits to businesses, and the price.

Duet 

Introduced in May this year, Duet AI in the Google Cloud is essentially Google’s answer to Microsoft’s Copilot. Duet is a paid-for, “always on” AI assistant and “collaborator” that is embedded within (and works across) all the Workspace apps including Gmail, Drive, Slides, and Docs, linking them together to provide value-adding synergies.

The Benefits 

Google says Duet offers a “personalised and intent-driven cloud experience” and that, just as Copilot does with Microsoft’s apps, it provides cohesions of the apps and offers users a more holistic picture of the Google Cloud. Also, being able to ask Duet for help with anything related to Google Cloud’s apps on demand saves time and makes Google Cloud more accessible (and personal) to any type of user at any skill level.

Examples Of What It Can Do 

Some examples of what Duet can do include:

– Providing recommendations for building and operating apps with Google Cloud (Codey, one of the models that powers Duet AI has been pre-trained with the necessary code). For example, Duet AI for AppSheet lets users create business applications, connect their data, and build workflows into Google Workspace via natural language, all with no coding required and with users simply needing to describe their needs for apps in a chat guided by AI-powered prompts.

– Giving code recommendations, generating full functions and code blocks, and identifying vulnerabilities and errors in the code, while suggesting fixes.

– Creating slides for a presentation from Google Docs or make charts from data in spreadsheets.

– Writing email responses (Duet is embedded in Gmail), summarising documents, checking grammar, and generating images, e.g. custom visuals in Slides.

– Summarising long threads in Chat, providing automated meeting summaries in Meet, and allowing users to easily alter sound and visuals in Meet with studio look, studio lighting, and studio sound. Duet can also provide dynamic tiles (a named tile) and face detection for Meet attendees.

– Giving real-time chat assistance on various topics, e.g. how to use certain cloud services or functions, and giving detailed implementation plans for cloud projects.

When? 

From May it’s only been available to a limited number of Google Cloud users with others being invited to sign-up via Google Cloud’s AI Trusted Tester Program. However, Google announced on August 29 that Duet AI for Google Workspace is generally available now as a “no-cost trial”.

How Much? 

Google says, for larger organisations, Duet is priced at $30 per user (on top of the existing Workspace subscription), the same price as Microsoft’s Copilot.

Will It Really Work? 

Although Google Workspace has 3 billion users and more than 10 million paying customers, Google says Duet has so far been used by just thousands of companies and “more than a million trusted testers”. This means it’s still early days when you compare it to ChatGPT which was released 9 months before and has around 100 million users and had 1.6 billion visits to its site in June. That said, when Copilot was announced back in March, Microsoft said it was only being tested by 20 customers (although these included 8 within Fortune 500 enterprises).

The point is, however, anyone who’s used generative AI knows it can’t be trusted 100 per cent, and sometimes gets things wrong / makes things up so a reality check, the right prompts, and a good period of widespread use (and, therefore, more training) are needed to improve the outputs of AI work assistants like these. It should, however remembered, that Duet is mainly designed and focused specifically on working with Google Clouds apps so, hopefully, it should be relatively reliable.

Plans For More 

As with Copilot, Google says there’s plans to expand the capabilities of Duet with Google’s Workspace.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Google’s keen to points out that Duet enables users to “get back to the best parts of their jobs, to the parts that rely on human creativity, ingenuity, and expertise” by simplifying and speeding up the parts that would have taken time trawling through data and manually summarising and putting reports, visuals, and other things together.

Like Copilot, some of the main advantages of Duet are that it allows business users to get more value from the synergies of making more holistic use of many Google apps, i.e. it provides an instant, on-demand, flexible, and effective way to get much more out the most popular apps.

As with Microsoft’s Copilot, businesses using Google’s Duet can save time, be more creative with IT, boost productivity, upskill staff in IT (without spending on training), and get greater and perhaps new insights into their own business and operations.

All this, however, comes at the price of $30 per user which (as with Copilot which is the same price) has been criticised by some for being quite expensive. Since we’re still at the very early stages of businesses trying and using Copilot and now Duet, plus with businesses wanting to protect the source of any competitive advantages, it’s not easy to find any clear information of how much of a boost to productivity and profits either are, so making the decision to take the plunge may be based more on price which (at the moment) may not be particularly attractive. That said, Duet does offer some tempting capabilities and potential benefits to businesses.

In this insight, we look at the many ways to check how much bandwidth you’re using, thereby helping to avoid exceeding data caps, and providing other benefits.

Why Monitor Bandwidth? 

As we move deeper into the digital age, internet usage is skyrocketing, and with it, the necessity to manage bandwidth. For businesses, this is even more critical given the increasing reliance on cloud computing, data analytics, and online communications. One particularly good reason to monitor your business bandwidth, therefore, is to save costs by avoiding any ‘overage fees,’ especially if you’re dealing with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that have data caps.

What Caps? 

Data caps, for example, can range from a generous 1-1.25TB to as low as 250GB for smaller providers. Exceeding them can result in higher fees or, worse, throttled internet speeds that can have a very negative effect on business operations.

More Than Just A Cost Consideration 

Monitoring bandwidth, however, may bring more benefits than just cost management. For example, a sudden surge in data consumption might indicate unauthorised usage, perhaps even a cyber-attack. Therefore, having a clear understanding of your bandwidth usage can be an invaluable tool in maintaining both the efficiency and security of your business.

Ways To Monitor Bandwidth

There are many different ways to monitor bandwidth. Some of the main ways include:

Using ISP Dashboards

This is the quickest and most straightforward way to check bandwidth usage, i.e. by logging-in to your ISP’s dashboard. Some ISPs, for example may provide a breakdown of upload and download usage, while others may only highlight the total usage. It’s worth remembering, however, that both upload and download data count toward a bandwidth cap. Although a quick method, checking the ISP dashboard to find web usage figures may have its limitations, e.g. the dashboard might not update in real-time, and it may only offer a broad overview without insights into individual device usage.

Router-Level Monitoring of Data Usage

Modern routers can now provide advanced features, including built-in bandwidth monitoring. Whether using popular mesh routers, e.g. Nest Wi-Fi or Eero, or traditional ones such as ASUS, you can see real-time data consumption right down to the device level through the control panel or associated mobile apps. This more detailed information can be very valuable for diagnosing “bandwidth vampires” i.e., devices that continue to sap data when they’re not actually in use.

Monitoring Via Hardware Firewalls

Those looking for a higher level of network management and security may consider making use of a dedicated hardware firewall. This method involves setting up a separate physical device between the modem and internal network with the benefit of getting robust monitoring capabilities, including traffic inspection and advanced security features. For users willing to roll up their sleeves, open-source projects like pfSense or OPNsense can turn an old computer into a powerful firewall and bandwidth monitor.

Network Management Software 

Companies like SolarWinds, ManageEngine, and PRTG offer robust network monitoring solutions that provide a detailed overview of bandwidth usage. These platforms generally provide real-time insights and alerts and can even offer predictive analytics to forecast future usage patterns. Ideal for businesses with complex networks, these software solutions usually require some technical expertise to set up and manage effectively.

Cloud-Based Monitoring Tools 

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) options like Cisco Meraki offer cloud-based network monitoring. They can be particularly useful for businesses with multiple locations or remote work environments because all the data can be monitored and managed from a centralised cloud dashboard. These services often come with monthly or annual subscriptions.

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) 

SNMP is a standard protocol used to collect and organise information about devices on an IP network, including bandwidth usage. It’s especially useful for large-scale or enterprises.

Packet Sniffing Tools

Packet sniffers / packet analysers (e.g. Wireshark) capture the data packets that are sent to and from a network and while primarily used for debugging network issues or monitoring for security breaches, they can also be used to analyse bandwidth consumption. These tools are generally not for the faint-hearted and are best suited for those who have a deep understanding of network protocols.

Mobile Data Monitoring Apps

While more relevant for individual users or remote workers, mobile data monitoring apps like My Data Manager or Data Usage can track how much data is being consumed on smartphones and tablets. These are useful in BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) environments where employees might use personal devices for work purposes.

Built-in Operating System Tools

Both Windows and macOS offer built-in tools to check data usage, albeit not in real-time. For example, Windows has a “Data Usage” overview available in its Settings, and macOS has a “Network” tab under “Activity Monitor.” These are fairly basic and offer limited details, but they’re relatively straightforward and easy to use for quick checks.

VPN with Bandwidth Monitoring

Some advanced Virtual Private Network (VPN) services offer built-in bandwidth monitoring features. This is particularly useful for businesses that rely on VPNs for secure data transmission.

Proxy Servers

These act as an intermediary between the user’s computer and the Internet, thereby allowing the monitoring, filtering, and control of web-based traffic. Proxy servers can provide detailed logs of internet activity, which can be analysed for bandwidth usage.

Challenges and Considerations 

It should be remembered however, that there are some challenges and disadvantages of using some of methods of bandwidth monitoring. For example:

– Limited Insights from ISP dashboards. As previously mentioned, while an ISP dashboard may be a good starting point, this method can lack the ‘granularity’ of device-level statistics, e.g. it can be a bit like knowing you’ve consumed water without knowing if it’s because of a leak or because you watered the garden.

– Update Frequency and time frames in router monitoring. Not all routers update in real-time, and some routers may not allow users to set specific time frames that align with billing cycles (which can be inconvenient), as not all routers have this flexibility.

– The costs and complexity of advanced solutions. Hardware firewalls and sophisticated router setups may offer better monitoring capabilities, but they come at a financial cost and can require a higher level of technical expertise that not everyone has. Also, using SNMP for bandwidth monitoring can be complex and usually requires specialised software to interpret the SNMP data and present it in a user-friendly format. Similarly, using packet sniffing tools to monitor bandwidth is complex, not for the faint-hearted and, so could be best suited to those who with a good understanding of network protocols.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Monitoring bandwidth, therefore, isn’t all just about dodging extra fees, but it can also help with business sustainability and security. For example, knowing where your data is going and how much you are using can provide valuable insights into optimising business operations. Also, with today’s digital society and modern internet usage surging, bandwidth monitoring is becoming almost as fundamental to businesses as budgeting or quality control.

As shown above, there are many different ways to monitor web usage (bandwidth), with some providing much greater detail than others, but some being much more complex, costly, and requiring much more in-house expertise and tech know-how. The key for businesses, therefore, is to choose a monitoring strategy that aligns with business needs, operational capacity, and budget.

Google’s AI research lab DeepMind has announced that in partnership with Google Cloud, it’s launching a beta version of SynthID, a tool for watermarking and identifying AI-generated images.

The AI Image Challenge

Generative AI technologies are rapidly evolving, and AI-generated imagery, also known as ‘synthetic imagery,’ is becoming much harder to distinguish from images not created by an AI system. Many AI generated images are now so good that they can easily fool people, and there are now so many (often free) AI image generators around and being widely used that misuse is becoming more common.

This raises a host of ethical, legal, economic, technological, and psychological concerns ranging from the proliferation of deepfakes that can be used for misinformation and identity theft, to legal ambiguities around intellectual property rights for AI-generated content. Also, there’s potential for job displacement in creative fields as well as the risk of perpetuating social and algorithmic biases. The technology also poses challenges to our perception of reality and could erode public trust in digital media. Although the synthetic imagery challenge calls for a multi-disciplinary approach to tackle it, many believe a system such as ‘watermarking’ may help in terms of issues like ownership, misuse, and accountability.

What Is Watermarking?  

Creating a special kind of watermark for images to identify them as being AI-produced is a relatively new idea, but adding visible watermarks to images is a method that’s been used for many years (to show copyright and ownership) on sites including Getty Images, Shutterstock, iStock Photo, Adobe Stock and many more. Watermarks are designs that can be layered on images to identify them.  Images can have visible or invisible, reversable, or irreversible watermarks added to them. Adding a watermark can make it more difficult for an image to be copied and used without permission.

What’s The Challenge With AI Image Watermarking? 

AI-generated images can be produced on-the-fly and customised and can be very complex, making it challenging to apply a one-size-fits-all watermarking technique. Also, AI can generate a large number of images in a short period of time, making traditional watermarking impractical, plus simply adding visible watermarks to areas of an image (e.g. the extremities) means it could be cropped and the images can be edited to remove it.

Google’s SynthID Watermarking 

Google SynthID tool  works with Google Cloud’s ‘Imagen’ text-to-image diffusion model (AI text to image generator) and uses a combined approach of being able to add and detect watermarks. For example, the SynthID watermarking tool can add an imperceptible watermark to synthetic images produced by Imagen, doesn’t compromise image quality, and allows the watermark to remain detectable, even after modifications (e.g. the addition of filters, changing colours, and saving with various lossy compression schemes – most commonly used for JPEGs). SynthID can also be used to scan an image for its digital watermark and can assess the likelihood of an image being created by Imagen and provides the user with three confidence levels for interpreting the results.

Based On Metadata 

Adding Metadata to an image file (e.g. who created it and when), plus adding digital signatures to that metadata can show if an image has been changed. Where metadata information is intact, users can easily identify an image, but metadata can be manually removed when files are edited.

Google says the SynthID watermark is embedded in the pixels of an image and is compatible with other image identification approaches that are based on metadata and, most importantly, the watermark remains detectable even when metadata is lost.

Other Advantages 

Some of the other advantages of the SynthID watermark addition and detection tool are:

– Images are modified so as to be imperceptible to the human eye.

– Even if an image has been heavily edited and the colour, contrast and size changed, the DeepMind technology behind the tool will still be able to tell if an imaged is AI-generated.

Part Of The Voluntary Commitment

The idea of watermarking to expose and filter AI-generated images falls within the commitment of seven leading AI companies (Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI) who recently committed to developing AI safeguards. Part of the commitments under the ‘Earning the Public’s Trust’ heading was to develop robust technical mechanisms to ensure that users know when content is AI generated, such as a watermarking system, thereby enabling creativity AI while reducing the dangers of fraud and deception.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

It’s now very easy for people to generate AI images with any of the AI image generating tools available, with many of these images able to fool the viewer possibly resulting in ethical, legal, economic, political, technological, and psychological consequences. Having a system that can reliably identify AI-generated images (even if they’ve been heavily edited) is therefore of value to businesses, citizens, and governments.

Although Google admits its SynthID system is still experimental and not foolproof, it at least means something fairly reliable will be available soon at a time when AI seems to be running ahead of regulation and protection. One challenge, however, is that although there is a general commitment by the big tech companies to watermarking, the SynthID tool is heavily linked to Google’s DeepMind, Cloud and Imagen and other companies may also be pursuing different methods. I.e. there may be a lack of standardisation.

That said, it’s a timely development and it remains to be seen how successful it can be and how watermarking and/or other methods develop going forward.

Following several months of testing, Firefox users can now take advantage of the Firefox Relay email masking tool from within the browser to help preserve their online anonymity and boost security.

What Is Firefox Relay? 

Firefox Relay from Mozilla is a Firefox browser extension that lets users keep their email address private when filling out online forms. It does this by creating an email mask (a forwarding email address that’s different to their real email address) and forwards messages to the user’s real email address to keep it hidden. Users can disable or delete the mask when it’s no longer needed.

Why Mask Your Email? 

There are number of good reasons why users may want to mask (hide) their real email address, including:

– Feeling safer when dealing with companies they don’t trust.

– Preventing spam.

– Protecting your real email address from data breaches.

– Protecting your real email address from being sold or shared.

– Email masks can be easily deactivated with no consequences (unlike a user’s real email account).

How Does Firefox Relay Work?

Users just need a Firefox Account and the (free) Firefox Relay browser extension. To activate it, it’s a case of clicking on the Firefox Relay icon in the toolbar, following the prompts to sign in/up to Firefox Accounts, and registering the email address to forward emails to.

To enable/disable Relay, users need to click on the icon in the toolbar, go to Settings, and set the toggle button for “Show Relay icon on email fields on websites” to on or off (green means it’s on).

Once switched to on, when users visit an online form, the Firefox Relay icon appears in the email field, and it’s just a case of clicking it to generate an email mask using a name of the user’s choosing or to see a list of recently used masks.

Challenge 

One challenge for Firefox Relay is that some services don’t allow users to sign up using email masks. Last year, for example, popular cloud-based development platform GitHub blacklisted Firefox Relay domains.

Other Privacy Tools Available 

Firefox, however, is in low fourth place within the Browser market with less than 3 per cent market share (Chrome has over 60 per cent, Safari 24, and Edge 5) so its reach as a privacy tool is slim. Also, Relay has plenty of competition when it comes to the wider market of privacy tools, e.g. VPNs and (other) secure browsers like Brave, DuckDuckGo, Tor, and even Chrome. Furthermore, Relay has competitors in the shape of temporary/disposable email platforms like Tempmail, EmailOnDeck, DispoasbleMail (and more), as well as having more direct email masking competitors such as FastMail and its email-masking browser extension IronVest.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

With email still such a vital business tool and with the huge increases in phishing attacks and news of more major data breaches in recent times, plus with tighter data protection regulations to comply with, it’s no wonder email masking may be appealing to many users.

As Mozilla points out, email masking can also be a way of cutting down on the amount of spam that blocks business email accounts, causing frustration, wasting valuable business time, and obscuring opportunities. Email masking, such as that provided by Relay may also make users feel safer, feel more in control, help increase their general security and reduce risk, e.g. when contacting companies they may not fully trust.

Firefox now has a relatively low browser market share and the advantages of giving users a fast, convenient, and easy way to generate and switch off masking email addresses straight from a trusted browser (with an extension rather than downloading yet another unknown app) may be a way to tempt new and returning users to Firefox to give it a try, thereby increasing Firefox’s competitiveness and share.

The recently launched Pyxis Ocean cargo ship uses giant foldaway ‘WindWings’ to help supplement engine power and could cut lifetime carbon emissions by 30 per cent.

The Cargo Ship 

The A Mitsubishi Corporation cargo ship, is currently demonstrating the WindWings, developed by BAR Technologies and Yara Marine Technologies, during its six week-long maiden voyage from China to Brazil. The ship, chartered by Cargill Ocean Transportation, left from Singapore on 25 August carrying 81,000 tonnes of cargo.

The WindWings 

The extraordinary features of the Pyxis Ocean cargo ship are its two rigid, foldaway 37.5-metre-tall steel and fibreglass ‘sails’ (WindWings) which automatically pivot to catch the wind. The WindWings, each made up of a centrally pivoted 10-metre-wide section with two five-metre-wide wings on either side can be folded down onto the cargo ship’s deck for arrival at ports and for passing through bridges or canals.

BAR Technologies estimates that the wind power harnessed by the WindWings, which can be retrofitted to many cargo ships (but not container ships), could deliver an average fuel saving of up to 30 per cent (on new build ships) and could save as much 1.5 tonnes of fuel per day on an average global route. Adding four wings on cargo could, therefore, save a massive 6 tonnes of fuel per day, stopping 20 tonnes of CO2 being produced.  BAR Technologies says the WindWings make the savings by combining “wind propulsion with route optimisation” and are initially aimed at being fitted to “bulk carriers and tankers.” 

Targets 

With more than 90 per cent of world trade being carried across oceans by 90,000 fossil-fuel powered marine vessels, the global freight shipping industry is a major producer on CO2 emissions, which contribute to climate change (and acidification). For example, it’s been estimated that the global shipping industry is responsible for more than 3 per cent of global CO2 emissions and, if it were a country, it would be the sixth largest producer of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

For these reasons, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) set the goal for the shipping industry ultimately arriving at a 50 per cent reduction in GHG emissions from 2008 levels (CO2, sulphur oxide and other gasses) by 2050.

Adding WindWings to cargo ships could, therefore, be one relatively fast way, in the absence of zero-carbon fuel for ships or a clear decarbonisation strategy, to at least begin reducing GHG emissions.

Innovation 

John Cooper, Chief Executive Officer, BAR Technologies said of the WindWings: “If international shipping is to achieve its ambition of reducing CO2 emissions, then innovation must come to the fore. Wind is a near marginal cost-free fuel and the opportunity for reducing emissions, alongside significant efficiency gains in vessel operating costs, is substantial.” 

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?

When the alarm bells really started ringing back in 2008 about how the global shipping industry was producing more CO2 than most countries, twice as much as the air transport industry, and more than 3 per cent of global emissions, the ambitious but necessary 50 per cent cut by 2050 target was set. However, with the world still reliant on cargo ships for 90 per cent of international trade, no zero-emissions fuel on the horizon, a perceived relative inactivity among freight operators in trying to meet the target, and no clear strategy, the WindWings idea looks like a realistic option to get started. Although there’s ‘no one fits all’ and it may not work for container ships, they have been designed to be workable on the most common vessels sizes (using either 3 or 4 WindWings). The fact that they’re fully automated (touch of a button), can be folded away, have a lower power consumption and yet have the capacity to make major fuel and CO2 emission savings mean that, as long as they are affordable and reliable, they could provide a practical, and sustainable way forward for the freight shipping industry until other options are available. There’s also a kind of irony to the idea that the leading technology of today for greener shipping takes ships back full circle to the days of sails, with these just being more high-tech versions – an old solution to a newer problem.

28 Years Ago : eBay (& Amazon by Comparison)

Whilst eBay’s market cap is dwarfed by that of Amazon (i.e. circa 24 billion dollars compared to circa 1.4 trillion dollars), it’s easy to forget eBay helped shape online purchasing too.

Before it was rebranded as eBay in 1997, the site was originally called AuctionWeb. Founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, it was an experiment to create an online venue for person-to-person auctions and lacked any heavy investment. In fact, the hosting company were just charging thirty dollars per month to for the entire website when he started up, until they said they’d no longer host it for that price due to the growth in traffic, thereby forcing him to monetise his website via his sellers, which worked.

With his degree in computer science behind him and having worked in a subsidiary company of Apple, he was also working on various other web projects. He’d also co-founded another company called Ink Development, a company initially focused on developing software for pen-based computing. The company transformed its direction and became an e-commerce platform named eShop, which was later acquired by Microsoft in 1996.

In short, Pierre was the right person in the right place at the right time. And so was Elon Musk (more on him later).

The Unexpected First Listing

The first item ever listed on AuctionWeb was a laser pointer. To be more precise, it was a broken laser pointer. This wasn’t a mistake or an oversight. Omidyar had bought it for his own use but found out it was faulty. Rather than discarding it, he decided it would make an interesting first listing on his experimental auction site. He listed it clearly mentioning it was non-functional. To his astonishment, the laser pointer garnered bids and finally sold for $14.83.

Intrigued by someone paying for a known broken item, Pierre out to the buyer who simply responded that he was a collector of broken laser pointers. This quirky initial transaction showed the potential of a vast, unpredictable, and diverse online marketplace.

The Beanie Baby Phenomenon

While the broken laser pointer was AuctionWeb’s first sale, it was the Beanie Baby craze in the mid-90s that truly skyrocketed the platform’s popularity. Beanie Babies, those small plush animals filled with plastic pellets, became a massive collector’s item. AuctionWeb became a primary marketplace for these avid collectors, providing them a platform to buy, sell, and trade these toys.

The Beanie Baby phenomenon showcased the strength of the platform in bringing together niche audiences globally and the success also signalled the beginning of a new era where the average person could become an entrepreneur from the comfort of their own home.

From AuctionWeb to eBay

Seeing the growing potential, Omidyar soon renamed AuctionWeb to “eBay,” which was short for Echo Bay, the name of Omidyar’s consulting firm. The rest is history! eBay went public on September 24, 1998.

On its first day of trading, the stock’s price of $53.50 soared well past the initial target of $18, emphasising the optimism investors held during the dot-com boom. Unlike many that fell by the wayside, eBay is now a business that operates in over 30 countries with a market cap peaking at 80.6 billion dollars.

Amazon and eBay – Different Approaches.

While eBay and Amazon both started as online marketplaces in the 1990s, they evolved with different business models and strategies that have influenced their trajectories. eBay started off as an online auction place, although plenty of people and businesses sell via their ‘Buy Now’ function as an online shop.

There are many possibilities as to why eBay hasn’t reached the same magnitude as Amazon and here are a few :

1. Business Model: eBay began as a peer-to-peer auction site, allowing individual sellers and buyers to negotiate prices. This gave eBay a unique identity but also meant slower and less predictable transactions. Amazon, on the other hand, started as a book retailer and then expanded its product range, focusing on selling new products at fixed prices.
2. Fulfilment and Logistics: Amazon invested heavily in fulfilment-centres and logistics, creating a vast and efficient infrastructure for storage, packing, and shipping. This allowed them to ensure rapid delivery, leading to services like Amazon Prime. eBay, on the other hand, relies on individual sellers to handle shipping and logistics, which can be more variable in terms of speed and reliability.
3. Private Label & Product Expansion: Amazon developed its own private-label products and expanded into diverse categories. They also encouraged third-party sellers to use their platform, ensuring a vast product range.
4. Ecosystem Development: Amazon diversified its business areas, venturing into hardware (Kindle, Echo), streaming (Amazon Prime Video), cloud services (AWS), and more. This diversification created multiple revenue streams and bolstered its market presence.
5. Trust and Reliability: Amazon’s emphasis on customer service and consistent delivery times built significant trust with customers. While eBay has made efforts to ensure product authenticity and seller reliability, the peer-to-peer model sometimes leads to inconsistencies in product quality and delivery.
6. Global Expansion Strategy: Both companies pursued international expansion, but Amazon’s aggressive strategy of setting up localized versions of its site, fulfilment centres, and tailored services for different countries gave it a strong global footprint.
7. Subscription Model: Amazon Prime, a subscription-based service, not only offers faster delivery but also includes streaming, exclusive deals, and other perks. This has fostered customer loyalty and increased purchase frequency.
8. Feedback System: While eBay’s feedback system was innovative and built trust in the early days, some argue that it’s become less effective over time due to potential biases and reluctance from buyers and sellers to leave negative feedback.
9. Acquisitions and Divestitures: While both companies made acquisitions, their strategies differed. Amazon’s acquisitions like Zappos, Whole Foods, and Twitch were integrated into its ecosystem. eBay, on the other hand, made some large acquisitions, such as Skype (see below), which were later divested as they didn’t align with eBay’s core focus.

What can be seen is that eBay seems to have plateaued insofar as the gross merchandise volume (GMV) (i.e. the total amount of ‘stuff’ sold via the platform) is concerned whereas Amazon’s GMV is steadily rising and so is the share of that GMV being sold by third party sellers (rather than Amazon directly) so doubtless they’re eating some of eBay’s lunch.

Perhaps the different share prices reflect the differing optimism because if there’s one thing that investors like, it’s growth.. One thing that’s clear … both companies did well over the pandemic.

While eBay didn’t reach the same dizzying heights of Amazon, it’s nevertheless a true rags-to-riches success-story that’s worth studying, including a couple of their better-known acquisitions. Even if the acquisitions were later sold, it’s interesting to try and appreciate the thinking behind the strategy and synergy.

Payment Provider : X Marks The Spot

The X Factor Elon Musk’s wealth originated from a critical acquisition made by eBay in 2002. In the late 1990s, Musk co-founded X.com, an online payment company. X.com would later become known as PayPal after a series of developments and a merger.

It was this very company, PayPal, that eBay acquired in 2002 for $1.5 billion in stock. At the time of the acquisition, Musk held 11.7% of PayPal shares, translating to roughly $165 million from the sale. Not too shabby for Mr Musk and it certainly helped springboard his wealth to be in the same league as that of Jeff Bezos from Amazon.

Communications Considerations : Skype

In late 2009, eBay finalized the sale of Skype for an impressive $2.75 billion. This strategic move allowed eBay to refocus on its core e-commerce operations, while the deal also highlighted Skype’s significant growth and potential in the telecommunications sector.

The Future?

Whilst Amazon seems intent on taking over the world by expanding relentlessly into eBay’s territory (and many others), eBay will likely remain a trusted corner-of-the-web for people to buy and sell goods for many years to come.

All of which started 28 years ago (this week), with a good idea and a broken laser-pointer.

Researchers from Netenrich have reported finding “FraudGPT” being sold on the dark web. It’s been described as a subscription-based generative AI tool for creating malicious cyberattacks. It’s been reported that the tool can do anything from writing malicious code and malware to creating phishing campaigns, thereby making putting advanced attack methods available to even inexperienced attackers, potentially democratising weaponised generative AI at scale.
This highlights the importance, not just of businesses prioritising their cyber defences, but also the need for AI-based defences at the start of what some have described as an ‘AI arms race.’